Children of the Stars

Prologue

Mr and Mrs Grimsby had always believed that the best way to fix a bad child was through strict parenting. 

This was especially true of Mrs Grimsby, who had worked as a nanny for 45 years and seen her fair share of trouble makers. From toddlers scribbling on walls with mummy's lipstick to rebelling pre-teens slamming doors, she had handled such situations with a firm word and, occasionally, a clip around the ear. 

Some parents... well, most parents didn't agree with her methods, but as far as Mrs Grimsby was concerned, they were quite simply wrong. She forgave them for their accusations though, as it took a real expert in parenting to know the nuances of childcare and, while she had no children of her own, her knowledge surpassed that of any loving parent.

Besides, working as a nanny and having to care for so many rotten children always served as a good reminder to why she and her husband made the choice to never have kids.

One thing was for sure though, she thought, and that is if they had had children, they would never have dared misbehave like some of the kids she had to look after did.

Though Mrs Grimsby was a true parenting virtuoso, Mr Grimsby was no stranger to bad children himself, having worked in security at Honor Oak State School in the 70s before moving on to the treacherous job of being a train guard for the London underground - something for which he held a lot of pride. 

While working at the school, he found himself with quite the collection of confiscated property: packs of cards graffitied with dirty words, clackers and lego, and even poker chips from the sixth formers. Whenever children came to collect their belongings, Mr Grimsby would shake his head and give them a good telling off, telling them "I blame your parents'' and "If I had had children, they would never have dared misbehave like you do!"

Even when working as a train guard, Mr Grimsby had to deal with many delinquent children. One time, while working at Waterloo, a young boy had not been able to get on to the train on time and had lost his mother. 

Well, of course the first thing Mr Grimsby did was yell at the foolish boy, 'How stupid of you - you should have kept up with your mother! Were you dawdling in dream land?'. Only when the boy apologised for such stupidity did Mr Grimsby take him to the other side of the platform, where his mother quickly returned and apologised profusely. "Don't worry, madam," he had said, "It was your child's fault - perhaps you should enlist him in a school with harsher punishment!".

Well, the mother wasn't pleased with this statement at all and put in a complaint about him, but Mr Grimsby held no hard feelings for the misguided woman - after all, not everyone could be a connoisseur in child care as he was.

With all of the Grimsby's parenting knowledge and excellent way of handling children, it came to no surprise that, when the couple heard of two troubled orphan children needing a new foster home after three previous failures in only one year, they were excited to rise to the challenge and whip those troublemakers into shape.

On the day of their meeting, the boy and girl that stood before them on their doorstep certainly didn't seem like troublemakers, though Mrs Grimsby knew those were the kind of children to watch out for. The ones who looked as if they wouldn't dare slam a door were usually the most sneaky and unruly of the lot.

"Nice to meet you." Said the eldest, a tall and angular 11 year-old girl with long copper hair reaching down to her lower back and pretty hazel eyes, though a particularly sour face that did her no favours, or so the Grimsby's thought. 

The youngest, only 9 years old, said nothing and smiled, slightly hiding behind his sister. He was even paler than her with freckles plastered across his face, though his hair was a softer ginger than hers. The innocence in his appearance made him even more suspicious to Mrs Grimsby. 'Ah yes,' she thought. 'That one there is the true troublemaker. I can see it in his eyes.'

Weeks later, the children had not caused trouble yet, but the Grimsby's weren't letting their guard down... Afterall, there was no such thing as a well behaved child now, was there?