The Grimm Legacy Read Free Page A

college—I was the only kid left to do chores.
    “About how often?”
    “Most days. Five or six times a week, probably.”
    “And how many have you broken this year?”
    “Dishes?”
    “Yes, dishes, glasses, that sort of thing.”
    “None. Why?”
    “Oh, we can never be too careful. When was the last time you lost your keys?”
    “I never lose my keys.”
    “Excellent. All right, sort these, please.” Dr. Rust handed me a box of buttons.
    “Sort them? Sort them how?”
    “Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?”
    This had to be the strangest interview I’d ever heard of. Was I going to lose the job because Dr. Rust didn’t like the way I sorted buttons?
    I poured them out on the desk and turned them all faceup. There were large wooden disks and tiny pearls, shiny square buttons made of red or blue or yellow plastic, sparkly star-shaped ones with rhinestones that looked as if they would shred their buttonholes, little knots of rope, a set of silver buttons each engraved with a different flower, tiny rabbits carved from coral, plain transparent plastic buttons for inside waistbands, big glass things like mini doorknobs, a heavy gold button studded with what looked like real diamonds.
    I grouped them by material: metal; wood and other plant products; bone, shell, and other animal parts; stone; plastic and other man-made materials, including glass. Then I divided each category into subgroups, also by material. Within the subgroups, I ranked them by weight.
    “I see. Where would you put this?” Dr. Rust handed me a metal button, the kind with a loop on the back rather than holes. The front part had a piece of woven cloth of some sort, set behind glass.
    I hesitated. Should it go in metals, in man-made materials for the glass, or in plants for the cloth? Maybe the cloth was wool, though, which would put it in animal parts. “Am I allowed to ask a question?” I said.
    “Of course. Always ask questions. As the Akan proverb says, ‘The one who asks questions does not lose his way.’”
    “Where’s Akan?”
    “The Akan people are from west Africa. They have a remarkably rich proverb tradition. Perhaps because they believe in asking questions.”
    “Oh. Okay—what’s the button made of?”
    “Excellent question. Gold, rock crystal, and human hair.”
    Not man-made materials, then; maybe stone. Other than that, the answer didn’t help me much. By weight, the button was mostly gold, so maybe it should go in with the metals? But I had put the diamond-looking one in stone, not metal. I decided to classify the new button by its weirdest component and put it in the animal pile.
    “Interesting,” said Dr. Rust. “Sort them again.”
    I scrambled them and resorted, making an elaborate grid of size and color. It started with red at the top and ran through the rainbow down to violet at the bottom, with extra rows for black and white. From left to right, it started with tiny collar buttons and finished with vast badges.
    “Where would you put this?” Dr. Rust handed me a zipper.
    A zipper! “Why didn’t you give me this the last time?” I said in dismay. “I could have put it with the metals.”
    Was it my imagination, or had Dr. Rust’s freckles moved? Hadn’t the large one over the left eye been over the right eye earlier?
    I scrambled the buttons again and started over. This time I sorted them by shape. I put the zipper with the toggles and a rectangular button carved with zigzags. I didn’t like that solution, but it was better than nothing.
    Dr. Rust raised an eyebrow (no large freckle anywhere near now) and asked, “Which do you think is the most valuable?”
    I considered the diamond one but picked an enameled peacock with blue gems in its tail. Dr. Rust seemed pleased.
    “The oldest?”
    I had no idea. I picked one of the silver ones.
    “The most beautiful?”
    I was getting a little impatient with all this. I picked one of the plastic ones, in a lovely shade of green. Dr. Rust didn’t seem