Here Comes Mr. Trouble

“I can’t hear you,” Mr. Trouble said.

She spun around and stood up. “Yes. Yes. Yes. I put it in the folder.”

“Well, I can’t find it.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“Are you sure you put it in the right folder?”

Keira glared up at him and said very slowly, “Yes. I’m sure.”

Without waiting for him to say anything else, she stomped off under the plane and over to the field on the other side.

As she passed him, Eric noticed she was holding a book. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was from the Noriko’s Revenge series, a Japanese manga adventure. And if he really wasn’t seeing things, he would have sworn the number 11 was on the cover. But that would be impossible. Volume 11 wasn’t supposed to be released for another month, something he was well aware of because he’d been anxiously awaiting it.

Fiona shook her head. “My sister’s had a rough time since…well, since my brother took over the position of Mr. Trouble. It’s just a phase. Kids are so difficult at her age.”

Maggie frowned. “Kids? She looks about the same age as you.”

Eric had actually thought Keira might be older. Though Keira looked a lot like Fiona, only with light brown hair, she was at least two inches taller.

“Same age?” Fiona said, grimacing. “I’m fifteen. She’s only thirteen, barely even a teenager.”

“I’m thirteen,” Eric said.

“It’s different with boys.”

“I’m thirteen, too,” Maggie told her.

Fiona nodded. “Yeah. I can tell.” She looked in the direction her sister had gone. “I’d better go make her feel better.” As she jogged off, she yelled, “Keira, wait up!”

“Found it!” Mr. Trouble called out from above.

“Oh, good,” his mother said. “Where was it?”

“Well…funny thing. It seemed to be stuck to another piece of paper.”

“So it was in the folder,” Mother Trouble said.

“Uh, yeah.”

“I think you owe your sister an apology.”

Mr. Trouble frowned as he disappeared back into the plane, but only a second passed before he stuck his head back out the window. “Eric, can you come up here?”

“Into the plane?” Eric asked.

But Mr. Trouble had disappeared again.

Mother Trouble smiled. “Yes. Into the plane.”

“Can I go with him?” Maggie asked.

“I think that’s a grand idea,” Mother Trouble said. “It’ll be good for Eric to have someone he trusts know what the plan is.”

“The plan for what?” Maggie asked. “I still don’t even know why we’re here.”

“Why, the plan to keep Eric from slipping into the abyss, of course.”

6

Eric had no idea what Maggie had been expecting to find inside the plane, but he’d been prepared to see rows of seats with overhead storage compartments.

He was wrong.

Just inside and to the right was a door he figured led to the cockpit. That wasn’t unusual. It was a plane, after all. A little less ordinary was the logo painted on the wall beside it, the same logo that was on the outside of the plane. It was simple, really, a big yellow circle surrounding the letters TFS. Just below the bottom of the circle were two lines:

Troubleshooters

• You Gotta Problem, We Gotta Help •

Still, a logo on a wall wasn’t that unusual. The big surprise was to the left.

Instead of rows of seats and overhead bins, there was a living room.

A couch, a love seat, three recliners, a coffee table, and a TV and stereo mounted against the wall. If he ignored the fact he was in an airplane with a curved ceiling and tiny windows, the living room could have easily been in a house somewhere. Well, except for the fact that all the chairs had seat belts.

“Back here,” Mr. Trouble called out from somewhere down the hallway on the other side of the living room.

Eric and Maggie exchanged looks.

“If this thing takes off with us on it, I am so going to kill you,” she whispered.

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Of course I did,” she said, pushing past him.

The narrow hallway hugged the right side of the aircraft. Along the wall on the left were several doors. As soon as they reached one that was open, they peeked inside. Beyond the door was a small bedroom complete with a pair of bunk beds, a dresser, and a desk. There were girls’ clothes lying on the floor and several manga books on the lower bunk. It wasn’t hard to guess this was where Fiona and Keira slept.

“Eric?” Mr. Trouble asked. “That is you out there, right?”

“We’re coming,” Eric answered.

He moved past Maggie to the next open doorway.

The layout inside was basically the same as the girls’ room, only instead of bunks there was a single bed. And where the other room had been a bit of a mess, this room was very neat and tidy. Mr. Trouble was sitting at the desk, an open file folder in front of him.

“Hi,” Eric said.

“Ah! Great. Please, please, come in.” Mr. Trouble waved them toward the bed behind the desk. Eric let Maggie sit first then took a spot a foot to her right.

“Just give me a second,” Mr. Trouble said.

They stared at his back while he shuffled through the papers on his desk. Then, without warning, he spun around in his chair and slapped his hands against his thighs. “So, Eric, it’s my understanding that you are having some troubles.”

“You could say that.”

“What’s he talking about?” Maggie asked. “What troubles?”

Eric hadn’t told Maggie what had been going on. In fact, he hadn’t told anyone. Each day he’d been trying to convince himself that he’d just been imagining things, or, at the very least, he was only having some bad luck. And everyone knew the best way to get rid of bad luck was to not talk about it.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said.

“I want you to know we’re here to solve those problems with you,” Mr. Trouble said. “Trouble Family Services has never failed a client yet.”

“Okay. I really don’t understand,” Maggie said. “Your mom said something about getting Eric out of an… abyss? What is it you guys do?”

Mr. Trouble leaned back, his eyes suddenly focused on the wall behind them. “I’m sure she…didn’t mean anything…specific by that.” He was silent for a moment then popped forward again, his face once more bright and friendly. “So, moving on. What we need to do is an assessment of your situation.”

Eric raised his hand in the air. “Like what those two uncle guys just did when they cut my finger?”