“We’ll have to go b-back home for another b-box,” Wendell said.
But they returned to find that Mona had reached those first as well. The icing smelled mysteriously of habanero peppers and toothpaste, so the gourmet desserts had to be chucked. Since the cookies had been sabotaged, Thea decided to take some of Sal’s roses to the next house. One rosebush was full of fluffy yellow blooms. A perfect way to suggest a blossoming friendship!
“Something s-stinks,” Wendell said as they waited at the next door. He and Thea both looked down at their baby brother.
Toot shook his head.
“I don’t think he’s let one rip for a while now,” Thea reasoned.
The door flung open. A girl about their age wearing a soccer T-shirt and ballet tutu jumped out on the front step. She had brown skin and bright brown eyes and half of her head was shaved. She looked super cool, and a little bit strange, and Thea wanted to be her friend instantly.
“Don’t talk,” the girl said quietly, glancing over her shoulder. “I have three things to say to you. Thing one: my name’s DeLisa, but everybody calls me LeeLee. Thing two: that fog thing you guys are doing? Amazing. Thing three: my mom thinks you might not be safe to play with. She doesn’t want to sign that stupid petition, but she said we shouldn’t hang out till she meets your parents—”
“What petition?” Thea asked.
“Shh!” LeeLee said. “Keep your voice down. The petition Ms. O’Pinion started to get you sent off somewhere. Anyway, if Mom sees you out here she’ll . . .” LeeLee’s nose wrinkled. “Gawd. What’s that smell?”
Toot waved.
“Number 124,” Thea said happily. “That’s his excited fart!”
LeeLee smiled at the baby. “He has different kinds of farts? That’s awesome. That’s cooler than a mood ring.”
“LeeLee?” her mom hollered from inside. “Who’s at the door, babe?” LeeLee’s face dropped in sadness as her mom stepped out on the porch.
LeeLee mouthed, “You should probably gooo . . .”
Thea summoned her courage and said: “I’m Thea, and this is my twin, Wendell, and our little brother, Toot. We brought you a gift!” Thea pushed the flowers up into the fearful face of LeeLee’s surprised mom. “We’re your new neighbors, and we—”
The woman gagged and pulled LeeLee back inside.
“We’re sorry! We didn’t mean to—” Thea tried, but the door was shut firmly in her face.
“This is hopeless.” Thea sighed.
Wendell shrugged. “Most things in life are hopeless. By the w-way . . . why do you always introduce me?”
“What?”
“I was just th-thinking about it. You say I’m your twin and then you keep going. I don’t even t-talk.”
“Well, you are my twin. And you don’t like to talk!”
“It’s not that I don’t l-like to. I mean, it takes a while to s-say what I want. But maybe they won’t care.” He shrugged. “I could t-try.”
“Oh. Of course you can. I didn’t mean to make you upset or anything. I just thought I was helping,” she told him. She lifted Toot up into her arms and tromped down the steps.
“It’s just that I’m m-more than just your twin,” Wendell said softly.
Thea spun to stare at her brother. He hadn’t said those words in an angry way. But they still stung when they hit her heart.
“What’s wrong with being my twin?”
“N-nothing.” Wendell looked at the ground. “I guess I just w-want to be me too. If that makes sense. I think everybody forgets that we’re two different p-people. Sometimes I think I f-forget.”
And this time her heart went thump . . . and there was no bump behind it.
Everything was changing.
Of course she knew they were two different people, but she liked knowing he was always there with her too. She needed him there. Without Wendell, she’d never feel brave. Never want to leave the house, even. And what was so wrong with being her twin? It had never been a big deal before.
Toot tapped Thea’s chest, just above her heart. He reached for his big brother and did the same, tapping above his heart until they were all three connected.
Toot popped a soft #78.14 His chin wobbled.
“No worries, Toot.” Thea assured the baby. “We’re good.”
But for a time, none of them spoke—not with their words, not with their hearts.
And then Wendell wrinkled his nose and lifted Sal’s flowers for a sniff.
“Ugh!” he said, stepping backward. “Sal’s engineered them to smell like a fart garden.”
Thea sighed. “We’re doomed when it comes to friends.”
“We’re doomed anyway.” Wendell shrugged.
“I don’t know what’s more scary—no word from Mom and Dad or that awful petition. Why does Ms. O’Pinion hate us so much?”
“I don’t know if she h-hates us or if she just wants our house.”
“But she has a house already! It doesn’t make sense.”
Toot tugged on Wendell’s sleeve as they walked down the street. He pointed to the tower room of the house next door. Number Five. The O’Pinion house.
Thea shook her head. “We are NOT going there.”
Toot stopped walking and scrunched up his face. Thea didn’t know if her baby brother was concentrating or trying to pick the perfect fart to communicate his feelings. He lifted his chubby arms above his head, curving his hands until his fingers were almost touching, like a ballerina.
“Astronaut?” Wendell asked.
Toot beamed as Wendell swung him up into his arms.
“I don’t think we have any astronauts next door,” Wendell assured him. “They’re all in the sky, floating around drinking s-stardust milkshakes.”
But Toot shook his head affirmatively and pointed again.
Thea looked to the tower room of the O’Pinion house . . . but only saw a fluttering curtain in the window. As though someone had been standing there watching and silently moved away.
A creeping-familiar feeling of excitement prickled against Thea’s heart.
Maybe their house wasn’t the only one with secrets.
Later that night, the O’Pinions sat around their long dining table. Desdemona hummed happily as she typed an email to her friends at the Society for the Protection of Unwanted Children.
Orphans!
Degenerates!
Unwanted!
Unsupervised!
The entire neighborhood
is terrified!
She couldn’t stop smiling.
Will was absorbed in his CosmicMorpho world. Carley-Rue pushed the fettuccini on her plate around with her fork, shaping it into a cheesy crown. And Joffkins hammered out an endless line of emails on his computer.
Carley-Rue sighed. “Has anyone seen Miss Florida 1987? She didn’t come for dinner today. I’m worried about her.”
“Weird.” Will pushed up his mask. “Noah Wong said his family lost their cat too.”
Tears wet Carley-Rue’s eyelashes. Desdemona froze. “Has to be the Problim children.”
Stealing cats! she typed quickly.
A small, shadowy silhouette filled the wall across from the doorway leading to the tower room. The shadow looked like a normal, tiny human body from the neck down. And a bubble from the neck up. “Hey there, fam! Just . . . letting you know I’m on my way down!” a little girl declared; her voice sweet but full of static, as though being spoken through a speaker.
“No! Wait!” Joffkins raced to the foot of the stairs. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Why do you need to come down?”
There was the sound of a throat clearing and then a girl’s soft but strong voice. “I don’t need to. But I am going to come down. I’ve decided that I’m having dinner with you tonight.”
“No, no, sweetheart.” Joffkins ascended the stairs, until the shadow was eclipsed by his own. “You can’t.”
“I’m wearing my mask, Dad! It’s fine!”
“I said no.” That was th
e final declaration her father made. “I’m sorry. But we have new neighbors.”
“So?” the girl asked.
“They are rotten and dirty,” Desdemona yelled. “And they smell like flatulence!”
“They must have been living under a bridge,” Joffkins added. “Or in a dump, maybe. Because they were covered in ash and dirt and now the air quality outside is horrible. You might get sick if you come down tonight. Go back in your room. Quickly.” He turned her gently, pushing her back toward the tower room he’d had designed and painted and decorated just for her. So she would love it. So she would always feel like a princess overlooking the kingdom, even if she couldn’t be out in it. So she would never want to leave it.
“Hmph,” Desdemona grumbled as she pushed away from the table to spy at the window. Again. Joffkins rubbed his tired eyes as he came to stand beside her.
Desdemona tapped her long red fingernail against the glass. “Do you see that? That shadow slinking through their yard? It’s the boy one.”
“The one that smells like farts?”
“No, the one with blades on his sleeves. I should call the police! He’s probably scheming.”
Carley-Rue raced to the window. “He’s taking out the trash, Mom.”
Desdemona nodded. “There’s probably a body in the bag.”
“It’s trash!” Carley-Rue rolled her eyes. “It’s a free country. He can walk around in his own yard.”
“It’s not his yard,” Desdemona reminded her. “He’s plotting. He’s trouble.” They’d all looked like trouble to Desdemona. Except the girl on the scooter. She was pretty, though. Too pretty. She could ruin Carley-Rue’s chances of being next year’s Corn Dog Princess for the fourth year in a row.
Joffkins sighed. “Desdemona—”
“The Problim family is dangerous! Terrible things happen when they’re in town. The river dries up. The rain goes away. They’ll probably evaporate the ocean somehow! You know why nobody’s gone looking for those kids out in the Swampy Woods? Because the weather in the woods is wild and crazy and . . . bewitched, probably! Plus, they made him crazy.”
Joffkins held up his hands. “Desdemona, I’m tired of talking about them. Listen, I’m leaving tomorrow for several days, for the medical conference in Hoboken. Please keep an eye on Violet.”
Desdemona shrugged. “She rarely comes out of her tower. The maid leaves her dinner at the door. I doubt I’ll see her.”
“She’s been persistent lately. Sometimes I worry she’ll try going out. Even if I say no.”
Desdemona waved the notion away. “She’d never do that. You’re lucky, Joff. Your daughter loves you, and she’d never disobey you.”
Jaunty violin music drifted from the downstairs rooms. Music happened every night in the O’Pinion house. But the music was usually melancholy. Tonight the sound was almost . . . jubilant, dancing in time to the flickering candles. This was the kind of music that brightened the corners of your heart. Made you wonder. And remember. And think far, far too much. Desdemona hated it. But she wouldn’t dare tell the musician not to play.
Joffkins looked toward the music, and then to his sister. “We live like ghosts in this house, all of us. Does that seem strange to you?”
“We live peacefully,” Desdemona says. “That’s what a home should be. A perfect place of peace.”
The music came to a crescendo, as if the person playing were overjoyed. A rising song, like birds soaring.
Joffkins tilted his head. “Do you think he knows about those children? That they’re here?”
“Oh yes,” Desdemona said, scraping her fingernail down the window so it made the faintest scream. “There’s nothing that he doesn’t know.”
A Catapult (and a Witch . . . Maybe)
Most squirrels don’t notice spiders, but the purple-tailed squirrel was different. It was old enough to know circus spiders were the most special of all web spinners. First, because they could be trained to do tricks.
Second, because their webs caught rumors, not bugs.
So the squirrel settled into the nook of the old oak tree in the garden of House Number Seven, swishing his purple tail back and forth. Watching the spiders weave.
Usually circus spiders needed time to acclimate to their new home before they tried any new endeavor, be it trapeze swinging or catching rumors. But circus spiders had always loved, and gravitated toward, the wild children in the swamp. It was as if being near them again made them feel at home. Already, thick, sparkling webs stretched across the tree branches. And every so often a bubble got caught there.
That’s what rumors look like when they sail through the air: shiny, trembly soap bubbles. Rumors play out inside the bubbles, like tiny movies.
The squirrel twitched its mechanical whisker and peered closely at the collection of rumor bubbles trembling on the lines:
White-haired Frank Problim running down Main Street with something hidden under his coat.
Someone reading a newspaper story about the feud. TOO FAR THIS TIME? the headline read. TOWN SIDES WITH STAN O’PINION!
Seven children with dirty faces standing around a cauldron, chanting.
A girl with a long braid, her hand lifted to the river, sending the water up into the sky.
Another headline: DID BEWITCHED CHILDREN MAKE THE TOWN GO DRY?
And another: SPIDER INFESTATION! FOLKS BLAME THE PROBLIM CHILDREN.
The O’Pinion house as it was being built—with parts added, portholes carved into walls, and telescopes fitted on every porch corner.
And then . . .
The squirrel leaped to a higher branch and tilted its head sharply.
Inside this bubble was an image of one shadowy figure of a man . . . holding another from the edge of a plank—the same plank extending from the O’Pinion house.
Thieves! a bubble proclaimed. Dark magic! Bewitched siblings . . . attempted murder?
These were the rumors presently flying through the neighborhood.
They were only rumors, of course. But the squirrel knew that there was a pinch of truth in some of those tales. This was no ordinary band of seven siblings.
Squirrels know true magic when they see it.
From the rumor webs, Thea and Wendell figured the town believed their grandfather had been a thief. A magical thief. With magical siblings. And he tried to throw someone off a roof. Or something.
(Reading a rumor web is difficult, after all. Rumors burst so easily.) Regardless, Thea and Wendell still believed they should convince the neighbors they were nice, fun to play with, and generally awesome. They assumed that would be difficult, considering parents wouldn’t let their children anywhere near the Problims. But they were wrong.
“They’re w-watching us,” Wendell whispered as he adjusted his paper chef’s hat. It was a typical afternoon: the twins were cooking outside, Sundae was off adventuring, and Frida was strumming her ukulele from the trees, a dirty foot dangling. Toot played with Ichabod. And Mona and Sal were creating.
THOMP!!!
Mona launched another squash from the human catapult she and Sal had spent the morning building.
“Who is watching?” Thea asked her twin. He pointed to the gate, where the neighborhood children stood, peering through the fog.
“Yay!” Thea shouted as Mona’s squash splattered on the ground in front of her. “Come in, friends!”
LeeLee clutched the bars of the gate. “I’m doing it. I’m climbing over.”
“Not yet, LeeLee!” Noah grabbed her shirt and pulled her back. “Mom says they’re dangerous.”
LeeLee nodded. “I like danger.”
“C-come on in!” Wendell said. “We’re having a smoothie smash! It’s the most fun you’ll ever have b-barfing.”
LeeLee froze midclimb. “There’s nothing fun about barfing.”
Thea explained that the point of the game was to mix together all the ingredients you could find into a smoothie. And then see who could take a drink without throwing up. At first, there were no
volunteers. In fact, the children stared blankly at Wendell and Thea.
THOMP!!!!
A small pumpkin sailed through the atmosphere.
Mona cleared her throat. “Anybody want to ride on the human catapult?”
“We have helmets and parachutes!” Sal added.
“I do,” Noah Wong whispered. “I was born for this.”
He climbed the gate, and LeeLee scrambled up beside him. “Me too! Look out, sky! Here comes LeeLee!”
Thea raced to help LeeLee and Noah over while Wendell opened the gate for the others. New friends! Finally! But the fun never begun, because of the MOOS stampeding down the street, screaming for their children.
“Noah!” His mother came running. “Noah! Get away from them!”
The other MOOS soon followed. They hurriedly pulled their children away from the Problims.
Mrs. Wong’s nostrils flared. “First you covered the neighborhood in fog. Now you’re playing these dangerous games. You were going to launch my son!”
“We always provide parachutes if we launch people,” Sal assured her. “And by dangerous games, do you mean trimming the rosebushes? Or baking cookies? Or taking the pig for a walk?”
Mrs. Wong shook her head. “I mean, neighborhood cats just happened to disappear after you showed up. And Desdemona O’Pinion strongly hinted that you were to blame.”
Sal raised his eyebrows. “For disappearing cats?”
“I saw your sister petting one a few days ago. And talking to it.”
“Mona was petting a cat?”
“No, the other sister.”
“So Frida was petting a cat?”
“Frida? Who’s Frida? No, the short, smiley blond girl was petting the cat! I think she stole it.”
Sal stepped toward Mrs. Wong. His blades made a swishing sound under his jacket. “Sundae loves animals. She wouldn’t steal one unless it was being mistreated.”
Mrs. Wong pulled Noah close, though he didn’t really want to be pulled. Like the other children, he was entranced by the Problims, and he wanted to find out more about them. He didn’t mind the neighborhood fog. It made the street look like Halloween twenty-four seven.
The Problim Children Page 6
