The reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901) is considered by many to be one of the finest periods in British history. The “Victorian Era,” as it came to be called, marked the height of Britain’s power and influence on the world stage. The British navy ruled the seas and British colonies covered so much of the globe that it was said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire.”

Spanning both industrial and technological revolutions, the Victorian Era was a time of tremendous change. It covered everything from the invention of the first mechanically-propelled bicycle (1839) to the invention of the automobile (1885); from the Morse telegraph (1838) to the Bell telephone (1876).

Mark Twain, attending the queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, said, “British history is two thousand years old, and yet in a good many ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand put together.”

Like all periods of great change, the Victorian Era was also a time of great contrasts. You had bucolic agricultural landscapes on the one hand and filthy industrial inner cities on the other. You had rise of evangelical religion on the one hand and the rise of scientific reason on the other.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written during this period since balancing these contrasting and sometimes contradictory philosophies and aesthetics became one of the defining characteristics of the Victorian Era. People often found themselves trying to balance logic and reason on the one hand and sentimentality on the other. Or trying to balance a sense of sobriety, frugality, and simplicity on the one hand and a love of excessive ornamentation on the other.

While the modern-day Princess Victoria shared a name with the former monarch, there were very few people who believed that life under her rule would require that same sort of personal rigor. In fact, the general consensus was that if Princess Victoria ever assumed the throne (and that was a very big “if”), the only thing you’d need to balance during the second Victorian Era would be a Prada bag in one hand and a cocktail glass in the other.

This public cynicism regarding the youngest member of the Royal Family was a relatively new development. In fact, her parents’ romance and marriage had marked a time of great optimism in Britain. After decades of recession, labor unrest, and political gridlock, the announcement of the royal wedding had been a shot in the arm that seemed to revitalize the entire country. Her father, the serious and dutiful civil servant, and her mother, the bright and vivacious society girl, were an unlikely but compelling match, and when Victoria was born a year and a half later, the picture of the happy family seemed complete.

But by the time Victoria turned six years old, the picture had changed. Rumors of her parents’ marital troubles had filled the gossip columns for almost a year and even the respectable newspapers were finding it hard to ignore the fact that the Prince and Princess hadn’t appeared together in public in over six months. When they finally did appear together, at the funeral of a former Prime Minister, it was obvious that something was wrong.

As the the Prince, the Princess, and their daughter came out of cathedral, they paused at the top of the steps, and a newspaper photographer snapped an iconic photo that seemed to say it all. It showed Princess Victoria’s parents standing about eight feet apart, both looking quite uncomfortable and avoiding each others’ gaze. Victoria stood between them, her brow furrowed, looking at the ground. They were not a family anymore. They were three individuals who just happened to share proximity and genetics.

Within a week, the Palace announced that the Prince and Princess had separated:

“It is announced that, with regret, the Prince and Princess have decided to separate. Their Royal Highnesses have no plans to divorce and their constitutional positions are unaffected. This decision has been reached amicably, and they will both continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their daughter.

Six months later, their divorce was announced in similarly antiseptic terms.

After the divorce, Princess Victoria didn’t appear in the public eye very often. She attended an elite boarding school and was only trotted out a few times a year at press events where she would stand (with furrowed brow and unfriendly eyes) beside her sparkling and engaging mother and respond to questions from the press with monosyllabic answers.

These orchestrated events were the result of a gentlemen’s agreement between the Royal Family and the tabloid press. The tabloids left Victoria alone during the school year and in return they were invited to official photo opportunities during school holidays and family vacations. This allowed Victoria to attend school in relative privacy…until the summer she turned fourteen when she was photographed vomiting into a bush after a night of underage binge drinking at a friend’s birthday party.

The shocking photos, accompanied by the unfortunate headline, “PRINCESS VOMITORIA,” sold a record-breaking number of newspapers, launched hundreds of websites (whose domain names highlighted just how many synonyms there are for the word “vomit”), and signaled the end of any sort of restraint on the part of the tabloids. The previous gentlemen’s agreement was replaced by a new one: The paparazzi hounded Princess Victoria everywhere she went and in return she had ample opportunity to practice her impressive repertoire of rude hand gestures.

With her every move being documented, even minor changes in the Princess’ appearance and behavior became “news.” Much to the delight of clothing retailers, she seemed to completely redefine her personal style every four to six months. (Notable recent examples included a leather-pantsed neo-punk phase, the aforementioned surly, goth flapper phase, a Eurotrash arm candy phase, and a vegan hipster phase.)

The only constants in her appearance seemed to be her trademark scowl and a pair of lips that had, on more than one occasion, evoked comparisons to Shakespeare’s 145th sonnet, which begins, “Those lips that Love’s own hand did make…”

The scowl was normally reserved for the press, but since the Princess seemed to change boyfriends almost as often as she changed outfits, the lips apparently enjoyed a wider audience. In the last year alone, she’d been photographed kissing an American teen pop star, the son of the Prince of Monaco, the heir to a mobile telecommunications fortune, and, in an impressive display of completism, each and every member of a rival school’s crew team.

Unfortunately, there was a certain segment of the British public (often referred to in news reports as “the majority” or “everyone”) who felt that clothes, boys, and a few dozen well-documented youthful indiscretions were not appropriate résumé material for a future queen. They felt that Princess Victoria’s temperament and skills were better suited to a future in pop music. Or rehab.

But it was hard for them to get too worked up about a future scenario that was starting to seem unlikely at best. It was obvious that the Queen had no interest in handing the job off to her son, but as news items about her granddaughter became standard fare in all the wrong sections of the newspaper, it looked like she was out of options. Bookmakers currently had the odds of a Queen Victoria II at 60 to 1 against, and with everyone talking about a “post-monarchy Britain,” the anti-monarchists had started looking for new jobs.

Granted, there were still a few aesthetes and romantics who held out hope for a second Victorian Era, but with the Princess showing absolutely no interest whatsoever in taking over the family business, they might be faced with the unenviable task of trying to pull off a second Victorian Era without a second Victoria.

A bird woke him. Not because it was loud, but because Grim couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out what type of bird it was. When you’re a gardener you get to know your birds. Some are your friends, eating the insects that are trying to eat your work. Others would just as soon strip your strawberries bare and leave you for dead. Grim wasn’t sure whether the bird outside his window was friend or foe, but it was going to drive him crazy until he knew what it was.

“I need to buy a book about the birds of Britain,” he thought to himself, and then he said it out loud because a sentence with that many Bs really needs to be said aloud.

He opened his eyes and it took him a few seconds to orient himself. He’d slept most of the way from the airport, and when they had arrived at the castle, he’d woken up just long enough to stagger out of the Land Rover, give his Aunt Barbara a hug, and drag his bag upstairs to his room. He laid down on the bed with the intention of resting for just a few minutes, but that was…he checked his watch…10 hours ago.

He got up, rummaged through his bag for a fresh pair of shorts and a tee shirt, splashed some water on his face, and headed downstairs, but about halfway down the stairs he stopped dead in his tracks. The air was thick with the smell of breakfast. It caught him off guard. He held his breath for a moment and felt the lump rise in his throat. He gripped the handrail and squeezed, hoping it wasn’t going to spill over into tears.

The smell reminded Grim of his Mom. His Mom had cooked breakfasts. Big breakfasts on Saturday mornings. Eggs, bacon, blueberry muffins, pancakes…the works. Now, here he was, thousands of miles away, and the smell of breakfast made him feel more at home than he felt when he was actually there.

He made his way to the kitchen and found his Aunt Barbara poking at some large cylindrical meat products frying in a pan.

“So, you’re finally awake, are you?” she said with a smile.

Grim loved to hear his Aunt Barbara speak. Over the past 40 years, she’d gained about half of a British accent. It was a strange combination of crisp, American consonants and round, British vowels. Rs were a toss-up. Half the time they were a soft British R; the other half they were growled in the best of western American traditions.

“Good morning,” Grim said. “I’m sorry I crashed last night.”

“I’ve been on that flight a few times myself, so I know exactly how you feel. It takes me almost two full days to recover whenever I fly back from The States.”

“Breakfast smells great,” Grim said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Sit down and eat. Your uncle had to meet some men who are doing work on the west gate, so it’s just you and me this morning. He should be back by eleven.”

Grim sat down and dished up some scrambled eggs and a few strips of bacon. Aunt Barbara brought the pan over from the stove and plopped a couple of huge sausages on his plate.

He looked at them for a second and the only thing he could say was, “Wow.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked in a mock-serious tone. “Haven’t you ever seen a proper sausage before? You won’t find any of those tiny sausage links you have in America over here. We take our sausages very seriously in the U.K.”

Since a sausage that size didn’t qualify as a finger food, Grim picked up his knife and fork and got to work, but after just a few bites he had to pause for a moment to sort of let the saturated fats pass.

“So, Aunt Barbara, I understand Princess Victoria is here for the summer.”

“Indeed, she is.”

“Is…um…that a good thing?” he asked with a little trepidation.

“Oh, it’s certainly not a bad thing,” she assured him. “But I don’t think she’s very pleased to be here.”

“Uncle Richard mentioned that she was supposed to spend the summer in France.”

“And Monaco, but they cancelled those plans at the last minutes. She arrived yesterday and the staff say she’s in a foul mood.”

“I’m going to need some royalty lessons,” Grim said. “I have no idea how I’m supposed to act around a princess. I mean, what am I supposed to do if I see her? Do I need to bow or anything…or do I just ignore her and pretend she’s not there?”

“Actually, she’ll be the one to ignore you, but don’t take it personally. She’s grown up surrounded by staff at all times so to her they are just part of the landscape. When you see her, you don’t bow, per se. You do what’s called a ‘neck bow.’ Nothing grand, mind you. Just a slight tip of the head.”

“Like this?” Grim asked, nodding his head.

She chuckled. “That looks more like you’ve fallen asleep. Try making it a little smaller. Yes, that’s it!”

“And what do I call her? ‘Your Majesty?’”

“No, ‘Her Majesty’ is her grandmother, the Queen. When you first address her, you call her ‘Your Royal Highness.’ Then you can usually call her ‘Ma’am’ for the rest of the conversation.”

“Well, unless she’s planning to hang out at the compost pile this summer, I don’t see us having a lot of conversations.”

“Don’t worry about it too much,” she said in a reassuring tone. “You’ll do just fine.”

With some effort, Grim finished the rest of his breakfast. He hoped that the quantity of food that morning was in celebration of his arrival. If every meal was going to be like that, he was going to have to spend half his summer’s salary on cholesterol medication.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll head down and take a look around the stables,” he said as he took his dishes to the sink. “Do you have any sugar cubes I can borrow?”

“Of course, dear. They’re right there in the sugar bowl. Take as many as you like.”

“Thanks,” Grim said, shoving a small handful in his pocket. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Grim headed out the kitchen door and stepped down onto the gravel driveway. Shielding his eyes from the morning sun, he looked across the expanse of lawn at Wickham Castle which stood about 100 yards to the east. He’d glimpsed it the night before, but he’d been so exhausted that it had barely registered. Apparently, his lack of sleep hadn’t the issue. This morning, even with the early sun bathing it in a warm glow, it still barely registered.

It was easily the least impressive castle Grim had ever seen. (Not that he’d ever seen one.) The basic structure of the castle was three stories high and had all the visual interest of a gray brick. But perched atop the drab, square base were a series of ridiculously elaborate spires that were completely out of proportion with the rest of the structure. They made the castle look like a short, stocky king trying to compensate for his lack of stature by wearing a tall, spiky crown…or a very plain woman trying to look more exotic by fashioning herself some sort of French High Gothic beehive hairdo topped with large upside-down ice cream cones and razor wire.

The gardens weren’t helping, either. The only greenery surrounding the castle consisted of a few sparse ornamental shrubs and hedges that had been sculpted into sharp, geometric shapes. Everything about the place seemed angular, severe, and generally out of whack.

The morning air was cool and damp. It hadn’t rained, but a heavy dew covered the lawn and dampened Grim’s boots as he made his way across the expanse of grass that separated the house from the stables. The stables were housed in a large barn-like structure with a tall stone foundation that supported the timber-frame walls and a tall, arching roof. There were small windows lining the north and south walls and attached to the back of the barn was a small paddock and, beyond that, a large pasture with a small stream running through the middle of it.

Grim grabbed the large, rusty handle on the front door, swung it open, and peered into the dim interior. It smelled of fresh horse and stale dirt. He looked on either side of the door, found an ancient light switch, and flipped it on. Three weak flood lights flickered overhead, casting a dim glow on the fresh bales of straw that had been stacked just inside the door.

“Psssh, Psssh, Psssh…” Grim said softly and an equine head popped out of the next-to-the-last stall.

“Well, hello there,” Grim said, as he made his way to the other end of the stables. “And how are you this morning? You must be the solitary resident they told me about.”

He pulled two sugar cubes out of his pocket and held them out. “Psssh, Psssh, Psssh,” he said again as the horse nuzzled his palm and snarfed up the cubes.

“You’re a handsome devil, aren’t you?” Grim said, rubbing the horses muzzle. The thoroughbred was a dark chestnut color, with a dark brown mane and tail, and had the musculature, conformation and bearing that come from impeccable genetics and a life of being very well cared for.

“How would you like to take care of the grass in the pasture for me this summer?” Grim asked. “I’d rather not have to mow it.”

He took the halter off the hook that hung outside the stall, slipped it over the horse’s head, and lead him out the back door and across the paddock to the pasture gate. As Grim unhooked the lead strap the horse nuzzled his hand again, looking for more of the sweet stuff.

“So, it’s gonna cost me, eh? OK, two more for services rendered.”

He gave the beast two more sugar cubes and a pat on the rump to send him out into the pasture.

“Go! Mow!” he commanded.

Grim walked back into the stables and took a quick look around. The layout of horse stables is pretty much the same the world over, so it didn’t take him long to find everything he needed. He grabbed a manure fork from the tool rack on the wall and started mucking out the stall, separating the clean, dry straw from the soiled straw and manure, which he shoveled into a wheelbarrow and set aside for the compost pile.

He went back to the bales of straw that were stacked just inside the front door and re-stacked them, one by one, against the side wall. Then he broke open one of the bales, took a section of straw back to the stall, and spread it across the floor, replacing the straw he’d removed. He refilled the water pail and topped off the feed bucket. Then, with the stall taken care of, Grim turned his attention to the rest of the stables.

It was obvious that they hadn’t been inhabited for quite some time. A thick layer of dust from the clay floor covered everything and it seemed like, more than anything, the place needed a good airing out. He threw open the front and back doors and then, one by one, opened all of the side windows letting sunlight and the fresh morning breeze into a space that wasn’t used to either.

He grabbed a broom and swept out the empty stalls and wiped down the rails with rags he found in a back cabinet. While he worked, he started humming country-western tunes. In general, Grim wasn’t a big fan of the genre, but it always seemed like the most appropriate choice when you working around horses. His repertoire of country-western songs was somewhat limited and leaned toward the classics (Roy Rogers, Johnny Cash, etc) which he’d picked up from the radios of the elderly women whose lawns he mowed in St. Albans, but he knew enough to make it through the morning.

By mid-morning, the stables were immaculate and Grim was a mess. He had straw in his hair, his clothes were covered in dust, his face was smudged, and his boots still had remnants of manure on them, but he was in a great mood. He’d made his way, musically, through the 60s and 70s and somewhere along the way he’d made the transition from quiet humming to full-on singing. In fact, at that very moment, as he was making one last pass with the broom, he was belting out a fantastic cover of The Eagle’s “Desperado” and had just reached the final verse, having started softly so the big crescendo at the end would have the appropriate weight.

“Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate.
It may be raining, but there’s a rainbow above you,
You better let somebody love you…”

He stopped sweeping, took a deep breath, threw his head back so the sound would reverberate through the rafters, and belted out the background vocals in full falsetto:

“Let somebody love yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…”

And that last note slid down the scale as if it had been pushed off a cliff. Grim froze (his lips still forming the “oooo”) as he stared across the aisle at the girl who was leaning against the rails of the stall opposite him. It took approximately 0.7 seconds for his brain to go from:

“Someone caught me singing.”

…to…

“A girl caught me singing.”

…to…

“A pretty girl caught me singing.”

…to…

“I think the pretty girl who caught me singing is the princess.”

He didn’t recognize her right away because the image of Princess Victoria that Grim carried in his head was from a magazine cover he’d seen almost a year earlier. On the cover, she’d had jet-black hair that was cut in a short, blunt bob, her skin had been quite pale, she’d been glaring at the paparazzo with eyes that seemed almost black, and her lips looked as if they’d just let go of an expletive. She’d looked like a surly goth flapper.

This was in stark contrast to the girl who stood across from him now with light brown hair pulled back into a simple ponytail, a ruddy complexion, eyes that were a dark, dark blue, and lips that were turned up in a wry grin. She was obviously amused that she’d caught him in the middle of his impromptu karaōke routine.

He would have been fine if she hadn’t been…well…a girl. He would have merely apologized for the distraction and gotten back to work. But any time Grim was around a girl, he was transformed from a confident, intelligent, capable young man into a blithering idiot. He became so concerned about not making a fool of himself that he invariably did. His mind was racing without producing a single coherent thought.

“Oh…uh…I’m sorry, ma’am…” he stammered.

Wait, he wasn’t supposed to call her that! At least, not yet!

“I mean, Your Majesty…”

No, wait, that wasn’t it either!

“I mean, Your Highness…”

Stop, back up, add the adjective!

“…Your Royal Highness. I…I didn’t see you…”

Wait! He’d forgotten the neck bow! Was it too late to do the neck bow? Had he missed the neck bow window?

“I was just…um…I was just…uh…”

Grim stopped, looked down at the ground, let out a sigh, and a smile spread across his face. There are times in your life when you find yourself so far off track, when you’ve blown it so badly, that there is absolutely no hope of recovery. This was one of those times. He looked like crap, he probably smelled like crap (literally), and he must have sounded like a complete idiot. But rather than being mortified by all this, Grim was strangely relieved. He no longer needed to worry about making a fool of himself because he’d already done it.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t see you come in. If you don’t mind, I’ll just finish up my sweeping and be on my way. In the meantime, please just ignore me.”

“Is that possible?” she asked, raising one eyebrow slightly.

“Trust me,” Grim replied with a grin. “Girls have been ignoring me for years.”

Self-deprecation was almost an automatic reflex with Grim, so it came out of his mouth before he really had a chance think. It suddenly occurred to him that he was probably being much too casual, but she laughed.

“You’re American.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“Yes, ma’am,” Grim replied, leaning against his broom. “I’m Grim.”

She looked puzzled. “Grim?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s short for Grímner. It’s Icelandic…”

She continued to look puzzled.

“Well, Old Norse actually…”

“Wait, where are you from?” she asked.

“Idaho, ma’am.”

“So, an Icelandic American from Idaho?”

“It sounds kind of exotic when you put it that way, doesn’t it?” he smiled. “I’m Mr. Chapman’s great nephew. I’m just here for the summer helping him out.”

“I’m Victoria,” she said. “and I’m just here for the summer being bored out of my mind.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Grim said, taking advantage of the opportunity to finally throw in a neck bow. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make your stay less boring.”

“That singing was a good start,” she said. “Can I expect that every morning?”

“Only on Tuesdays.”

“Then I’ll have to remember to avoid you on Tuesdays.”

“If that’s how you feel, you might want to give Yodeling Fridays a wide berth, too.”

She looked at him for a second and kind of scrunched up her nose. It was obvious that she wasn’t quite sure what to make of this Icelandic American from Idaho. Then, as if suddenly remembering why she was there, she looked around and asked, “Where’s Dauntless?”

“Dauntless?”

“My horse,” she explained.

“Oh, he’s mowing the pasture for me. Would you like me to get him for you?”

“Yes,” she said, and then added, “…please,” as if it was a word she didn’t use very often.

Grim grabbed the lead strap off the hook, went out the back door, and crossed the paddock to the gate leading to the pasture, the princess following behind.

“Psssh, Psssh, Psssh,” he said, loud enough for Dauntless to hear. Dauntless, who had been grazing on the far side of the pasture, pricked up his ears and trotted over.

“What was that?” she asked.

“What?”

“That sound you were making.”

“Pishing,” Grim answered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Pishing,” he emphasized. “That’s what it’s called.” He made the sound again. “Birdwatchers sometimes use it to lure birds out of hiding, but it works on other animals, too. Some people think it’s the sound St. Francis of Assisi used to attract animals.”

She looked at him sideways. “Are you having me on?”

“No, I promise,” Grim replied. “Give it a try.”

“No,” she stated flatly.

“Oh, come on…” he encouraged.

“No!”

“Just try it…”

“Pish off!” she said.

He laughed. “Wait a minute! Can royalty say things like that?”

“I can do whatever I please,” she replied with mock indignation.

Dauntless came right up to Grim and stood there expectantly. Grim pulled two more sugar cubes out of his pocket and gave them to the horse.

“Good boy,” he said, as if he was talking to a rather large dog.

“Are you sure it was the ‘pishing’ that brought the animals to St. Francis, or did he have to resort to sugar cubes, too?”

“I think he used Milk Duds,” Grim replied, but then he realized she probably didn’t know the reference. “Milk Duds. They’re an American candy with chocolate and caramel and…um…,” he trailed off. He knew better than to try to explain a joke.

Grim attached the lead strap to the halter and lead Dauntless back into the stables.

“Do you need any help with the saddle?” he asked, as he tied the lead to one of the rails.

“No,” she said, and then added, “…thank you. I can manage.”

“That’s a relief. I wouldn’t know what to do with one those dainty English saddles anyway. I’ll…um…just get back to my sweeping,” he said, grabbin his broom. “I promise you won’t even know that I’m here.”

He grabbed his broom. While he finished his sweeping he kept stealing glances at the princess as she went about saddling her horse. She moved quickly and easily and it was obvious that it was something she did quite often and quite well. When she was done, she mounted Dauntless and rode down the aisle to the front door where she stopped and turned in her saddle.

“So, will I see you later?” she asked.

“I’ll be here all summer.”

“Good,” she said with a hint of a smile, and then rode out into the late morning sun.

“‘Good,’” he repeated to himself, leaning against the broom. Then he took a another deep breath, let it out, and picked up where he’d left off, sweeping and singing…but softly, this time.

“You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late…”

If Grim was ever given the opportunity to join The Jet Set, he would politely decline the invitation.

Perhaps he had gone into the flight with unrealistic expectations. He’d always viewed air travel as something vaguely glamorous. But Grim had not, in fact, loved flying any more than he would have loved riding in the back of a hog trailer for 20 hours.

His first clue should have been the fact that didn’t really like airports. On the few occasions that he’d accompanied his parents to the Idaho Falls Airport to pick someone up or drop someone off, it had seemed to him as if everything about the airport was temporary and unconnected…as if nobody really belonged there, not even the employees. He found the same thing to be true of airplanes. As passengers, they were just a bunch of solitary transients packed into a cramped, dark, noisy, ill-smelling, metal tube.

The flight from New York to London had been particularly unpleasant. Grim’s seat was unbelievably narrow and when the man in front of him reclined his seat Grim felt like a little kid in “time out” who was required to sit for 12 hours with his nose against the wall. He’d never been able to fall asleep in cars and that turned out to be true of airplanes as well. To make matters worse, since he was in the middle seat of the center section, whenever he needed to get up he had to climb over the two sleeping travelers on either side, trying not to wake them in the process. So to avoid disturbing his seat mates, he spent much of the flight pacing the aisles.

The flight attendants were brusque and uninterested, the food tasted like the plastic it came in, and the air in the cabin wasn’t recirculated as much as it was exhumed. Even peanuts couldn’t have salvaged the flight.

By the time he staggered off the plane in London, his ears were numb, his eyes were bloodshot, he had a raging headache, and he hadn’t slept in far too long.

As he made his way down to the baggage claim area, he saw his Uncle Richard hanging back near the edge of the crowd greeting the new arrivals. When he saw Grim he came forward with a huge smile and gave Grim a suffocating hug.

Grim’s Great Uncle Richard was the epitome of the phrase “a bear of a man.” He had always reminded Grim of Baloo the Bear (from Disney’s The Jungle Book), but with a British accent. Grim’s Great Aunt Barbara had first met him when she was stationed in England in the early 1960s as a nurse with the United States Air Force. It was, by all accounts, love at first sight, and shortly after they married they moved to Scotland where Uncle Richard worked as the estate manager for the Queen’s summer residence.

Since they had no children of their own, they had sort of “adopted” Grim’s mother (their only niece) long-distance, and had always treated Grim and his brothers as if they were their own grandchildren. For years, they’d come to the States at Christmastime, when the estate in England was essentially dormant, and spent the holidays with Grim’s family. The holiday season was never complete until Aunt Barbara made her legendary trifle.

Grim had always looked up to his Uncle Richard. He was a strong, kind, intelligent man who had one of the deepest, most soothing voices Grim had ever heard. He was the sort of man who made you feel instantly at ease and he and Grim had always gotten along famously.

The previous Christmas, as Grim was leaving to plow the driveway at The Fortress, his Uncle Richard asked if he could tag along and see what Grim had been working on. It was a gray, overcast day and Grim hesitated for a moment. Showing off a landscape in the winter is a little like entering your dog’s skeleton in the Westminster Dog Show. With the annuals long gone, the grass brown, and the trees bare, you can only see the bones of the garden. It’s hard for most people to imagine what it looks like in its natural state.

After he’d finished plowing, Grim took his uncle on a tour and talked about the work he’d done over the past three years. For over an hour they walked the grounds, Grim answering his uncle’s questions about his design choices, native plants, and the challenges of gardening at high altitude.

On the way home, his uncle said, “You know, Grim, I think you’ve done a brilliant job there. Whenever you’ve talked about your work in the past you’ve always dismissed it as mere ‘lawn mowing,’ but you’ve really done yourself a disservice. That is marvelous work, really.”

Grim thanked his uncle for the compliment, thinking he was just being polite, but as they were preparing to return to England, his uncle pulled Grim aside.

“Grim,” he said. “As you may have heard, your aunt and I will be doing some major work on one of the queen’s other residences this summer, and I have a big favor to ask of you. I was wondering if you would be willing to come to England this summer and help out at the new place?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Not at all. I could use someone with your skills…and muscle, quite honestly. They’ve had a few lads retire this past year and the remaining staff are getting along in years too. We could use some new blood, a strong back, and some fresh ideas.”

Grim was a little off balance. “I’d…have to ask my parents,” he said hesitantly.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve already taken the liberty of speaking with your parents about it and they think it’s a brilliant idea, too”

“But I’m…I’m not sure I could afford the airfare,” Grim stammered, as if he was trying to talk himself or his uncle out of it.

“That would be taken care of,” his uncle said with a wave of the hand. “And you would be compensated, of course.”

His uncle could still see a look of doubt in Grim’s eyes.

“Honestly, Grim, I’m not just asking you out of kindness or any sense of familial obligation. I could really use your help this summer. What do you say?”

“Yes?” Grim said, as if it was a question. Then, “Yes!” he reiterated, a little more enthusiastically.

So, there he was, in England, jet-lagged, red-eyed, and barely able to breathe in his uncle’s bear hug.

“How was your flight?” Uncle Richard asked.

“Fine,” Grim lied.

“Your eyes say otherwise,” his uncle said, smiling.

Grim smiled wanly. “I’m exhausted.”

“Well, let’s get you home and you can sleep it off.”

They made their way to the car park where his uncle loaded Grim’s bag into the back of a large green Land Rover pickup that had a canvas top covering the truck bed. Grim made his way to the right-side passenger door.

His uncle smiled. “Guess again, Grim. You’re on the other side.”

It took Grim a second to realize what his uncle was talking about. He looked in the window and saw the steering wheel on the right-hand side of the truck. He laughed, made his way to the left side, and got in.

“It’s going to take a while to get used to that. It’s strange to be sitting on the left side and not have a steering wheel in front of me.”

“Every time I visit The States it takes a few days for my brain to adapt, but you’ll get used to it soon enough.”

His uncle started the truck and they slowly made their way out of the car park. Once they were on one of the main thoroughfares, his uncle shifted a little in his seat and cleared his throat.

“Grim, I need to let you know that in just the last day or two the situation at Wickham has changed rather significantly.”

“How’s that?” Grim asked.

“Do you remember when I told you that we never have visitors at Wickham?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we have a visitor at Wickham.”

“Who?”

“Princess Victoria.”

If Grim had been drinking water at that moment, he would have done a respectable spit take. He stifled a laugh as he remembered the conversation he’d had with Todd and Brent the night before. Or was it two nights ago? Grim shook his head as if trying to clear it. The jet lag was taking its toll.

“The princess was supposed to spend her summer on the French Riviera,” his uncle continued, “but there were some security concerns. I don’t know the specifics, but they wanted her someplace they could keep an eye on her. They gave her the option of staying in London or coming to Wickham, and…well…we now have a visitor at Wickham.”

“I won’t overwhelm you with the details until you’ve had a chance to rest,” he continued, “but I’ve got a question for you,” he continued.

“What is it?” Grim asked.

“Because of the heightened security, they did background checks on everyone working at the castle and it seems that Terrence, the stable lad, had a bit of a green thumb because they found over two dozen cannabis plants in his flat. So, I’m going to need someone to fill in for him. You’ve worked with horses, haven’t you?”

“Sure,” Grim replied. “My friend, Brent, owns a few horses and I’ve helped him out every once in a while.”

“I just need someone to take care of the daily chores. It shouldn’t require much work since Victoria’s horse will be the only tenant in the stables. Could you do that for me?”

“Sure, no problem,” Grim replied.

“Thanks,” his uncle said, sounding relieved.

Grim thought for a moment and then said, “Wait…did they do a background check on me?”

“Yes, they did.”

“And?”

“And you are, apparently, a model of virtuous living and propriety,” his uncle said with a grin.

“I think that’s a euphemism for ‘boring,’” Grim laughed.

Grim looked out the window at the passing landscape. They were out of the city now and it had started to rain.

“It’s so green,” he mumbled, as the exhaustion took hold. He leaned his head against the window and tried to stay awake by mentally cataloging the trees as they flashed across his field of vision, but it was no use.

“So, so green…” he thought. And for the first time since he was a baby, he fell asleep in a moving car.

As Grim pulled up in front of his house he saw Benji Andrus standing beside the sycamore tree that dominated the front lawn of the Magnusson’s home. At Benji’s side stood another boy, about the same age as Benji.

This could mean only one thing. Something was stuck in the tree.

This was a little game that they played. Benji would lob some object into the high branches of the sycamore and it was Grim’s job to retrieve it. Grim was like a trained, tree-climbing pet monkey that Benji liked to show off whenever he had visitors.

“Hey, Benji,” Grim said as he got out of the car. “Who is your friend?”

“He’s my cousin, Benji,” Benji replied.

“Your cousin, Benji?” Grim repeated, not quite sure that he’d heard correctly.

“Yeah, Benji.” Benji replied.

Grim paused.

“You two are cousins and you’re both named Benji?” he asked incredulously. “Isn’t that a little odd?”

“What’s your name?” asked Benji, the cousin.

“Touché,” said Grim, acknowledging the hit.

“Your name is ‘Tushy?’” asked Benji The Cousin.

“No, sorry…it’s Grim. My name is Grim. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Benji The Cousin,” he said, shaking Benji The Cousin’s small hand.

Grim looked up into the tree.

“So, what is it this time?” he asked.

“A Nerf football,” Benji replied.

“The green one?”

“Yep.”

“Where is it?”

Benji pointed to a spot in the tree about halfway up.

Grim looked at Benji The Cousin. “How many times did Benji have to throw it into the tree before it got stuck?”

Benji The Cousin blinked and looked nervously at Benji, not quite sure whether he should divulge that information. “I don’t know. About 20, I guess.”

“OK,” said Grim, taking a deep breath. “Time me!”

And with that, Benji lifted the stopwatch he was holding in his right hand and tapped the button on the top. Benji had recently become enamored with his father’s stopwatch. He carried it everywhere, timing everyone, doing everything. Benji’s father, the coach at the junior high school, had eventually become tired of having to search for his stopwatch every time he left for work, so he’d purchased himself a new one and relinquished the old one to Benji.

As Benji started the stopwatch, Grim took two quick steps toward the tree, placed his toe on a large knot about three feet off the ground, and launched himself up into the tree. He grabbed the lowest branch, which was about nine feet off the ground, and used the upward momentum to swing up and disappear into the canopy. He did this with such speed that to Benji The Cousin, who had been busy looking at the stopwatch, it seemed like Grim had simply vanished.

“Where’d he go?” asked Benji The Cousin.

Benji again pointed to the tree, this time his finger following Grim’s upward progress. The Magnusson’s sycamore was almost the ideal climbing tree, with a thick central trunk and large branches radiating out from the center. The branches were almost perfectly spaced—not too dense, not too sparse—so once you cleared the second branch you could easily climb the interior branches as if you were climbing a ladder. There was a gap about halfway up the east side which required a jump across to the south, but from there it was a straight shot to the top.

As Grim neared the halfway point he looked aout and spotted the Nerf football wedged into the crook of one of the larger branches about 12 feet out from the trunk. He grabbed a smaller branch about six feet above his target and swung his legs up. Then, hanging upside-down like a three-toed sloth, he made his way, hand over hand, leg over leg, to the football.

The further he climbed out on the branch the more it bent under his weight, so by the time he was directly above the football he only had to reach down about a foot and a half to grab it. The two Benjis were directly below him, so Grim took aim like a bombardier and let the football go. It was a perfect hit, bouncing off Benji’s head and landing at Benji The Cousin’s feet.

“Hey!” Benji yelled, rubbing the top of his head.

“Oops, sorry about that!” Grim shouted less-than-sincerely. “What was my time?”

Benji glanced at the stopwatch. “17.2 seconds!” he shouted back.

“I must be getting old,” Grim muttered as he made his way back down the tree, swinging down from the last branch and dropping the final distance to the ground. “Now, Benji, try not to get anything stuck up in the tree while I’m gone. I don’t want to come home and find a hundred miscellaneous household items stuck up there.”

“OK,” Benji promised and ran off with the Nerf football in one hand and his stopwatch in the other, Benji The Cousin following close behind.

Grim glanced at his watch and, realizing he was going to be late, dashed through the front door and up the stairs to his room where he stripped, showered, ran his fingers through his hair (which was the extent of his grooming routine), and threw on a fresh pair of shorts and a tee shirt. The shorts and tee shirt were Grim’s summer uniform. Other than when he attended church, he would wear nothing else until school started in the fall.

After he was dressed, he dashed out to the car, unhitched the trailer, and drove the few blocks into town. As he pulled into the parking lot of Ruffles Drive-In he saw Todd’s and Brent’s cars already parked outside. He walked in and headed toward their traditional booth.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “I had to get something out of the tree.”

“What was it this time?” Brent asked.

“A Nerf football,” Grim replied.

“Where was it?”

“About halfway up.”

“What was your time?”

“17 seconds.”

“You’re getting old,” Brent said. “You used to be able to make it halfway in less than twelve.”

“Give me break! It’s been a long day,” Grim said as he headed to the counter, ordered a Fresh Lime (a concoction of simple syrup, soda water, and two fresh limes over pebble ice), and took it back with him to the booth.

“What time do you leave in the morning?” Brent asked as Grim flopped into the booth.

“Five o’clock. I fly from Idaho Falls to Salt Lake, then to New York, and then on to London.”

“This is your first time flying, isn’t it?” Todd asked.

“Yep,” Grim replied.

“You’ll love it.”

“I hope so. I’m going to be doing it for 18 hours.”

“They give you peanuts, you know.”

“Not anymore,” said Brent.

“Really?” asked Todd. “That sort of takes away some of the magic, doesn’t it?”

“I keep forgetting the name of the castle where you’re working,” said Brent. “What’s it called? Wicked? Wikiup? Wikipedia?”

“Wickham! It’s Wickham Castle,” Grim replied.

“Never heard of it.”

“Neither had I. It’s one of the Royal Family’s…” Grim searched for the right word, “…’secondary’ castles.”

“A secondary castle?”

“It could be a tertiary castle, for all I know.”

“I had a tertiary castle once,” Todd interjected, “but my doctor gave me some ointment for it and it cleared right up.”

“Are you going to be handling the gardens all by yourself?” Brent asked.

“No, no…I’m sort of like an intern. I’ll probably end up doing all the grunt work.”

“And will a grunt like you get to meet any members of the Royal Family?” Todd asked, raising his eyebrows knowingly.

“Why are you raising your eyebrows like that?” asked Grim, but getting no response from Todd (other than the raised eyebrows) he turned to Brent, “Why is he raising his eyebrows like that?”

“You know…” Brent said, also raising his eyebrows knowingly. “Will you get to meet any members of the Royal Family?”

“I have no idea what you two are talking about. Is that code for something?”

“Princess Victoria, you idiot!” sputtered Todd. “We’re talking about Princess Victoria!”

“No, of course not!” Grim sputtered. “The castle’s empty! They don’t use it anymore. There are tour groups that go through occasionally, but other that that it’ll just be us lowly serfs working the soil.”

“Too bad,” Todd said.

“Why do you say that?” asked Grim.

“Because Princess Victoria is hot,” Todd said.

“‘Hot?’ Did you really just use the word ‘hot?’” Grim asked, laughing.

“What? Is she not hot?” Todd asked. “I’m mean, sure, she’s a mess, but she’s a hot mess. And with those lips…” he added, staring off into space for a second. “I’ll bet she’s a great kisser.”

“I’ll let you know,” Grim said blithely.

“Yeah, right!” Brent said, punching Grim playfully on the arm. “You said she wasn’t going to be there. Besides, you wouldn’t even know what a great kisser was?”

“At least I’ve had some experience in that area!” Grim insisted.

”’Some experience in that area?’ Talk about padding your résumé! It was one lousy kiss! One lousy kiss does not qualify as ‘some experience in that area,’” Brent countered.

“What ‘area’ are we talking about exactly?” Todd asked.

“Never mind!” Grim said, hoping to end the discussion before someone brought up the inevitable.

”’I forgot something!’” Brent said mockingly, bringing up the inevitable.

“Cut it out,” Grim objected. “Yes, it was just one kiss, but that’s one more than both of you losers combined!”

“Well, I’m saving myself,” Brent said demurely.

“For what? Your 40th birthday?” Todd asked. “I’m not saving myself. I’m a math geek, and math and kissing seem to be mutually exclusive.”

“Who knows, maybe we’ll all get lucky this summer,” Grim offered, but he knew that was wishful thinking. If his subtle charms were lost on the girls of St. Albans, he held little hope that they would be any more effective half a world away. But, as the saying goes, hope springs eternal…even if kissing doesn’t.

St. Albans, Idaho, population 7,276, is nestled on the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River, about 40 miles west of the Grand Tetons. The town was established in 1870 by Mormon pioneers, most of whom had emigrated from Norway, Sweden, and Iceland.

Given its Mormon origins, it might seem odd that St. Albans was named after a Catholic saint, but the name was a borrowed one. The area had reminded one of the early settlers of his hometown in Wisconsin which, as home to a large granite quarry, had been named after St. Alban of Mainz, the patron saint of hernias.

But even though St. Albans, Idaho, didn’t have a granite quarry, its roots were firmly planted in the earth. St. Albans’ rich, volcanic soil was ideal for growing root vegetables and while the high altitude, harsh winters, and short growing season had proven to be too daunting for previous settlers, the Scandinavians felt right at home. Within a decade of their arrival, the area was one of the largest potato-producing regions in the U.S.

Agriculture was still a big part of the economy of St. Albans. Up until a few years ago, most people in the town were either potato farmers, ranchers, or, like Grim’s father, taught at the college in nearby Rockford. But even though none of these occupations paid particularly well, St. Albans had one of the highest average incomes in the state. When one of your neighbors is a billionaire it skews the numbers a bit.

Pete Peterson was born in St. Albans in 1923 and, after a brief stint in the Navy during World War II, he headed off to Chicago to attend Northwestern’s business school on the G.I. Bill. After graduating, he married Florence Smyth-Hamilton (of the Chicago Smyth-Hamiltons) and returned to St. Albans with an eye on modernizing the potato processing business.

He noticed one day that a lot of potato scraps were wasted during processing, so he devised a way to mince the scraps, add a little seasoning, and form them into bite-sized nuggets. He called them Spud Nips™ and in the post-war era, where frozen foods were a symbol of Modern Advancement Through Science, Spud Nips™ became a fixture, along with TV dinners and chicken pot pies, on the TV trays of Americans everywhere.

Unfortunately, less than a year after the successful nationwide launch of Spud Nips™, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite into orbit and the American public flew into a panic, figuring that if the Russians could send a metal sphere the size of a basketball into orbit over U.S. soil, it was only a matter of time before nuclear warheads came raining down on their pot pies of prosperity.

Since the name of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, bore an unfortunate resemblance to the name of Pete’s starchy confection, his competitors (Alma and Heber Driggs, of La Grande, Oregon) took advantage of the anti-Soviet backlash to launch a competing product. The name of their snack, Tater Tykes™, didn’t conjure up the same vision of nuclear apocalypse in the American mind, and by the end of 1959 the Driggs brothers had captured over 90% of the bite-sized potato market.

Pete lost almost everything in the Spud Nips™ fiasco and decided that catering to restaurants would be less risky than dealing directly with fickle consumers. So, he developed a method of parboiling and freezing thin strings of potato which could then be shipped to restaurants where they would be cooked in oil, salted, and served with a tomato-based condiment. Within a year he had a contract to be the exclusive provider of french fries for a small chain of hamburger restaurants that was experimenting with the concept of franchising. The rest is history.

As Pete’s fortunes rose, so did Florence’s expectations. In the early 1970s, Florence insisted that Pete’s new billionaire status warranted a move from their unassuming, ranch-style home on the outskirts of town to something a little more prominent.

The new house, designed and built under Florence’s supervision, was a mid-century behemoth of cantilevered steel, cement, and glass, perched on the top of the highest hill in the valley. But instead of facing east toward the town, its large plate glass windows were turned 10° to the North, toward the Tetons. From the town’s perspective, the Peterson home was like a rude conversation partner who keeps looking over your shoulder in hopes that someone more interesting will come along.

But if Florence’s house seemed to be ignoring the town, the town tended to ignore Florence in return. Pete was considered a local and made frequent trips into town in his 1969 Ford pickup for groceries and hardware supplies, but Florence had worked hard to foster an outsider status and hadn’t set foot in St. Albans since 1978. Even after Pete died in 1985, she rarely left The Fortress (as it came to be called). What little interaction she did have with members of the community was usually quite unpleasant. Her tongue lashings were legendary and there were credible rumors that she’d reduced each of the last four mayors to tears.

The only thing Florence seemed to enjoy was gardening. The Fortress was surrounded by five landscaped acres and while a commercial firm from Idaho Falls had always taken care of the lawn, she’d done everything else herself. She had a small orchard with a variety of fruit trees, a rose garden, grape vines, raspberry and blackberry bushes, a kitchen herb garden, and a large vegetable garden, all of it scrupulously maintained.

In the last decade, however, Florence’s arthritis had progressed to the point that she wasn’t able to get around the gardens like she once did. The lawns remained in good shape, but since she was too proud to have anyone else come in to tend them, the rest of the grounds fell into disrepair.

This situation wasn’t unusual. While the average Idaho farmer could expect to live into his mid-70s, it was not unusual for Idaho farmers’ wives to live into their 90s. As these women got older, health problems often limited their mobility. Getting around indoors was difficult enough; getting outdoors to do yard work was often impossible.

Grim’s introduction to horticulture came when his neighbor, Mrs. Skarsgaard broke her hip and Grim’s mother asked him if he’d be willing to go over once a week and mow her lawn. Shortly thereafter, he started mowing Mrs. Stratton’s lawn, followed by Mrs. Nay’s, followed by the nearly-blind Mrs. Johansson’s. Mowing led to sprinkler work, which led to flower beds, which led to vegetable gardens and soon he was the groundskeeper of a dozen of the best-looking yards in St. Albans.

When Grim turned 14, he started feeling the keen adolescent need for spending money, but money was a little tight at home, so if he wanted some disposable income he knew he was going to have to earn it. The employment options for a 14-year-old don’t extend much beyond yard work, which was fine with Grim, but he couldn’t very well start charging the widows for his services. There was only one person in St. Albans who could afford to pay for yard work, and that person was Florence Peterson.

So, one May afternoon, Grim hopped on his bike and made the trip out to The Fortress. He was naively unaware of how nervous he should be about meeting the Queen of St. Albans, but apparently it pays to be young and clueless because this inadvertent confidence was one of the first things she noticed about him.

Grim had a proposal: He would work for three weeks for free. If at the end of the three weeks she wasn’t satisfied with his work, she was under no obligation to keep him on. But if his work was satisfactory, she would hire him as her gardener.

If Florence had known that what she was really doing was subsidizing a dozen widows’ yard work, she might not have agreed, but she did. The truth is she didn’t think a 14-year-old boy would have the maturity and discipline to do the work and she’d secretly been looking forward to firing him at the end of the first week. But he was much tougher than he looked. For three weeks, he woke at sunrise, rode his bike out to The Fortress, worked like a dog until sundown, rode back home again, and collapsed into bed, his arms, legs, and back aching like they had never ached before.

He spent his first week at The Fortress doing demolition: pruning shrubs and trees, thinning the flower beds, aerating the lawn, amending the soil, turning the garden, and weeding everything. The second week he repaired the irrigation systems, fixed the broken panels on the small greenhouse, and (with some help from his father) repaired the electrical wiring for the outdoor lighting. The third week he had his Mom drive him to Idaho Falls where he picked up seeds, vegetable seedlings, annuals, ground covers, a new plum tree, and some dwarf evergreens to replace the ungainly, aging junipers that flanked The Fortress’ driveway.

As he worked, Florence would make frequent trips out onto the porch to criticize Grim’s pruning technique, second-guess his plant choices, and click her tongue at every perceived horticultural misstep, but in the end even Florence had to acknowledge the results. The grounds were beautiful again, and though Florence would never admit it, they’d never looked better. Grim got the job.

He’d never worked harder than he did that first summer and the results were striking, but it wasn’t just The Fortress’ grounds that were transformed. That summer Grim went from being a scrawny boy to being a tall, lean, muscular young man. When he returned to school that fall, all of the girl at school did a collective double-take, but after realizing that it was “just the lawn mower,” they shrugged it off and went about their regular business.

Grim had spent the last three years refining what he’d started that summer at The Fortress and it had turned into a year-round job: landscaping in the summer; snow removal in the winter. The previous summer, when he turned 16, Grim purchased an old Toyota station wagon from a gentleman in Jackson Hole who had decided to abandon the rustic life in favor of a career in marketing. The car had over 160,000 miles on the odometer (which was broken) and 20 years of road salt had taken its toll. The brown paint on the roof and hood of the car was peeling off in large sheets and parts of the floor had rusted through so that driving through puddles usually meant getting your socks wet. Florence was so appalled by the appearance of the vehicle that she banned it from her driveway. Grim had to park at the bottom of the hill and ride the lawn mower up.

The car was not what you would call a “babe magnet,” but it ran well and the price was right. In fact, the trailer he pulled behind the Toyota was worth double what he’d paid for the car, and the mower he carried in the trailer was worth double the value of car and trailer combined.

But now he was leaving them all (the car, the trailer, the mower, The Fortress, St. Albans) behind…at least for the summer. His brother, Thor, was taking over lawn mowing duties for the widows in town and Mr. Nelson, who was at that moment being lectured by Florence Peterson (still wearing the gas mask) on The Florence Peterson Rules of Horticulture, was going to be in charge of The Fortress while he was gone.

Grim waited for a pause in the lecture and excused himself. He said goodbye to Mr. Nelson and Mrs. Peterson (whose muttered response was unintelligible through the gas mask) and rode the mower down the hill to his car. He loaded the mower into the trailer, slammed the tailgate shut, and looked back up the hill one last time. He was going to miss this place, there was no doubt about it. But this opportunity to go to England was the chance of a lifetime and, despite everything that had happened in the last few months, his father was still insistent that he take advantage of it.

So, even though he had never in his live travelled more than 300 miles from St. Albans, tomorrow morning he was getting on a plane (for the first time) and flying 4,731 miles to England. If he’d known just what was in store he might have had second thoughts. But, as he’d learned once before, sometimes it pays to be young and clueless.

Grim. It’s not the kind of name you hear every day. Unless, of course, your name is Grim.

Grímner Hallbjörn Hafnarfjörður Magnusson, to be exact, which isn’t so much a name as it is the sort of mythological, genealogical, and geographical mash-up you end up with when your father is a Distinguished Professor of Scandinavian Studies.

Grim’s mother, who lovingly indulged her husband’s Scandinavian tendencies, had initially been happy to go along with the unconventional naming scheme, but when Grim was born six weeks early and she held the four-pound infant in her arms for the first time, it suddenly seemed like too hefty a name to bestow on a such tiny newborn. She feared the next day’s newspaper might bear the headline, “Infant Crushed By Weight Of Own Name.” So she had called him “Grim” from the moment he was born, thinking, perhaps, that by pruning his name to a single syllable she would be increasing his chances of survival.

She had never called him by his full name, even when she was angry. It was never, “Grímner Hallbjörn Hafnarfjörður Magnusson, you come down here this instant!” Instead, she had turned the “r” into a growl. “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrim!”

But despite Grim’s scrawny beginnings he’d grown into his name quite nicely. Now 17 years old, he was six feet tall and 160 pounds, with his father’s dark hair and olive complexion. He’d always been a little envious of his younger brothers, Thor and Njáll, who had inherited their mother’s blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. When he looked in the mirror the only thing he had to remind him of his mother was half of his eye color. Grim’s parents used to joke that they’d mixed his father’s brown eyes with his mother’s blue to come up with his green eyes.

At the moment, Grim’s eyes were closed and he was standing in the middle of the expansive west lawn with his shirt off, head back, arms outstretched, waiting.

Three, two, one…and there it was, the gurgling and sputtering of water flooding underground pipes followed by the angry hiss of sprinkler heads. Grim needed to cool off and the fine spray of the west lawn’s #18 fixed-pattern orbital nozzles should have done that quite nicely, but after a few seconds he realized that the only thing being cooled off quite nicely was his left shin.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the sprinkler in front of him. Instead of the strong, round spray pattern you would expect from a #18 fixed-pattern orbital nozzle, it was sputtering limply on his left leg. He looked around, spotted two other sprinklers with similar problems, and started making the rounds. He loved doing sprinkler work when the weather was hot. When you reach adolescence, most people think you’re too old to run through the sprinklers on a hot summer day. But if you pick up a wrench and walk through the sprinklers you can call it irrigation maintenance.

Within a few minutes, he’d taken care of the three misbehaving sprinkler heads and was standing back on the sidewalk, his khaki shorts dripping water onto the hot cement where it evaporated almost as fast as it hit the ground. Even though it was only the end of May, the afternoon temperatures had been hovering in the mid-90s all week. It was going to be a very long, very hot Idaho summer and he was almost thankful that he wasn’t going to be there to experience it.

As he stood dripping on the sidewalk, he heard the squeak of a screen door behind him followed by the clicking of heels on cement and he knew what was coming.

“Mr. Magnusson,” said Florence Peterson, who looked down from the expansive cement patio as a queen might look down on her subjects. “It’s not enough for you to abandon me for the summer to go traipsing across the English countryside. You now seem intent on giving my nosy neighbors the impression that I hire male strippers to do my yard work. Would you kindly put your shirt on before one of the town spies sees you and starts another round of vicious rumor-mongering.”

Grim glanced down the hill to Agnes Johansson’s house. The 98-year-old Mrs. Johansson was the only neighbor, nosy or otherwise, in a one-mile radius. And while he didn’t doubt Mrs. Johansson’s ability to lead a crack surveillance team, he did doubt her eyesight. She’d been legally blind for the past 12 years and had to position her chair two feet from the TV just to make out the newscaster’s face.

“My shirt’s in the car,” he said, motioning to the venerable Toyota station wagon parked at the bottom of the driveway, “but I’d be happy to go get it.”

“Don’t bother,” she sniffed. “If you got a scratch reaching into that rust bucket you’d probably get tetanus and sue me for millions. I certainly hope that when you return in the fall it will be in a vehicle from which you didn’t have to evict chickens.”

“I didn’t evict them,” Grim said with a grin. “I told them they could stay if they helped with the car payment.”

“Has ToxicTurf arrived?” asked Mrs. Peterson, changing the subject.

“No, Mr. Nelson won’t be here for another half hour. And don’t worry, I’ve talked to him and he has assured me that he won’t do any spraying while I’m gone.”

“Well, I’m not going to take any chances!” And with that she turned and went back into the house, the screen door slamming behind her.

Grim used the next half hour to take one last walk around the grounds to make sure that everything was in order. He’d spent the spring getting things to the point where they should be able to coast through the summer, but he still worried about what condition the grounds would be in when he returned in September. It’s not that he didn’t have faith in Mr. Nelson and his ChemoGrass franchise….OK, it was that he didn’t have faith in Mr. Nelson and his ChemoGrass franchise, but Grim didn’t have much choice. ChemoGrass was the only other horticultural game in town.

ChemoGrass was a father and son concern, with Mr. Nelson handling all of the HazMat work (fertilizer, insecticide, etc) and his 14-year-old son, Michael, doing the mowing. Unfortunately, Michael was an avid comic book fan, which had a definite negative effect on the quality of his work on the riding mower. He’d been a little more careful since the incident with Mrs. Knudsen’s cat, but you’d still often see Kevin weaving back and forth across lawns, steering with his left hand while clutching the latest graphic novel in his right.

As for Michael’s father, Mr. Nelson, he was a firm believer in ChemoGrass’ unofficial motto: “There’s no problem that a heavy application of petrochemicals can’t solve.” But Grim was even more firm when he’d talked to Mr. Nelson about taking over the groundskeeping duties at The Fortress for the summer: No spraying, period. It was a bitter organic pill for Mr. Nelson to swallow, but in the end he’d agreed.

Grim made one last pass through the orchard, checking the apricot trees for any sign of the previous falls’s powdery mildew. He tied up a few errant canes on the climbing roses, pulled a few nascent weeds from the east flower beds, and was turning the compost pile one last time when he heard the sputtering diesel engine of the ChemoGrass truck making its way up the driveway. Grim got there just as the truck came to a stop, the ChemoGrass mystery liquid sloshing back and forth in its large translucent tank. Mr. Nelson hopped down from the cab. Michael sat in the passenger seat, glued to his copy of Nefarious Mushroom Lords.

“Hello, Mr. Nelson. How are you today?” Grim said, shaking Mr. Nelson’s hand.

“Well,” Mr. Nelson said quietly, glancing anxiously at the house. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about meeting Mrs. Peterson for the first time.”

“Why is that?” Grim asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Well, my wife met her once and she said it was one of the most unpleasant experiences of her life. So, I asked her if she had any advice and all she said was, ‘Be confident. She can smell fear.’”

Just then, they heard the screen door squeak open and turned to see Mrs. Peterson emerge from the house wearing a World War II-era gas mask.

Grim couldn’t help but smile, but he heard Mr. Nelson chanting under his breath, “Be confident. She can smell fear. Be confident. She can smell fear.”

Grim put a comforting hand on Mr. Nelson’s shoulder and whispered, “You’re in luck. With that gas mask on, she can’t smell a thing.”