Here Comes Mr. Trouble

Brett Battles Here Comes Mr. Trouble

Epigraph

“Thank you, Mr. Trouble. I don’t know what I would have done without you! You saved my life!”

Donna, Kansas*

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never have to see you again. If I do, I may just run the other way. Thanks for your help, though.”

Kerry, Minnesota*

*Testimonial reprinted by permission, from the TFS Introductory Pamphlet. All Rights Reserved.

1

It started with a guuuuuuurgly suuuuuuuck.

Eric Morrison twisted around, trying to see what had caused the noise.

“Are you going to just sit there all afternoon?”

He would have sworn the sound had come from the other side of the classroom, but he didn’t see anything over there that could have caused it.

Please tell me I’m not hearing things, too.

As he started to turn back around, someone punched him in his arm. “Hey, are you ignoring me?”

He glanced over his shoulder. Maggie Ortega was standing right next to his desk. He’d been concentrating so hard on the gurgly suck he hadn’t heard her walk up.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked, rubbing the spot where she’d hit him.

She stared at him over the top of her glasses as if he’d lost his mind. “The bell? It went off like two minutes ago. You’re usually the first one out the door.”

Eric glanced at the clock hanging at the back of the classroom. Two fifty-two p.m. School was out. How had he missed that?

“Thanks,” he said. He gathered his books and started shoving them in his backpack. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

She looked down at him for a few seconds, then said, “What’s wrong with you?”

What’s not? “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been acting all weird for days now. Stop it. I don’t like it.”

“No, I haven’t,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you have,” she said, heading for the door.

She was right and Eric knew it. He had been acting weird, but given what was going on, how else was he supposed to act?

“Everything all right back there?” Mrs. Bernhardi asked from her desk at the front of the room. She was their sixth-period English teacher.

“Yeah. Fine,” he said as he stood up.

“Eric, I expect you to have your essay in on time next Monday. It’s not like you to fall behind.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Like he needed that reminder. Still, just like Maggie a few seconds earlier, Mrs. Bernhardi was also right. It wasn’t like him.

He was a good student who always got his work in on time in the past. But for the last two weeks, even though he was sure he’d put his finished assignments in his backpack, when it came time to turn them in, they weren’t there. Math, history, English — it didn’t matter.

It almost felt like he was going crazy.

Actually, maybe not almost, he thought. If I am going crazy, that would explain everything.

“Hurry up!” Maggie called from the doorway.

“Have a nice afternoon,” Mrs. Bernhardi said.

“You, too,” Eric replied quickly, then headed for the door.

The main corridor of Valley View Middle School was nearly deserted as they headed toward the front exit.

“Come on, come on,” Maggie said.

“If you’re in a hurry, don’t let me hold you back,” Eric said. “I’ll just see you tomorrow.”

She whirled around, stopping right in front of him. “Tomorrow? What do you mean tomorrow?”

“I’m just saying, if you need to be somewhere, I don’t want to be the one who makes you late. I know you hate that.”

She did hate it, but that wasn’t the real reason Eric was urging her to go on without him. Unlike the rush she seemed to be in, he definitely was not in a hurry. Chances were there’d be another one of the Neanderthals waiting to mess with him on his walk home. It had been happening almost every day lately, since about the same time he’d started forgetting his homework.

Plus there was another reason he wasn’t anxious to get going. Eric really didn’t want to be at his house at all, not if it meant opening his front door again and finding out his mother was still gone. It would be the fourth day in a row.

His dad had told him she’d gone on a business trip, like it was a normal event, and had been completely unconcerned about the fact she hadn’t said goodbye to either of them before she left. But it wasn’t normal. Not even close. And skipping goodbyes? No way.

Eric’s mom worked at a small beauty salon in town. She didn’t go on vacations, let alone business trips. “Time away means time we’re losing money. And we can’t afford that.” How many times had he heard her say that?

“Have you forgotten what we’re supposed to do today?” Maggie asked.

Guuuuuuuuuurrrrrgly suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Eric turned his head, trying once more to pinpoint where the odd noise was coming from. “Did you hear that?” he asked. It sounded both distant and right around the corner.

“Hear what?”

“That sound.”

“What sound? I didn’t hear anything.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “You’re just trying to distract me, aren’t you? Well, that’s not going to happen. We agreed to go to the library this afternoon to work on our China report, remember? Now, come on.”

The China report. Right.

She took off down the hallway at a pace that was more a run than a walk. After a deep breath, Eric started after her.

* * *

The Tobin City Library was a single-story building about three times larger than Eric’s house. It was only six blocks from the school so the walk didn’t take them long. But because they had gotten a late start — Eric’s fault, as