Here Comes Mr. Trouble

“They cut your finger?” Maggie said. She grabbed his hand. “Let me see.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t a cut. More of a scrape, really. Just needed a skin sample,” Mr. Trouble said. “Now —”

“A skin sample? Why would you need a skin sample?”

“It’s all part of the assessment. What we also need to do is get a clearer picture of what’s going on with you so we can determine how to deal with it.”

“You mean like with my mom?” Eric said.

Mr. Trouble nodded somberly, a concerned look on his face. “I know you’re worried about her. And you have a right to be. But I want to tell you that we haven’t lost a parent yet and I’m not about to start with you.”

Maggie let go of Eric’s hand. “What’s he talking about? I thought your mom’s on a business trip.”

“Well, she’s away,” he said.

“So she’s not on a business trip?”

“I don’t think we have an answer to that yet,” Mr. Trouble said before Eric could answer. “It’s possible that she is away at a convention of…” He whirled back to his desk, grabbed a piece of paper and looked at it as he turned back around. “Hair stylists, but it’s also possible she’s in mortal danger.”

“What?” Eric and Maggie said in unison.

“An extreme possibility at best,” Mr. Trouble said, shaking his empty palm in front of them. “There is no reason to think that’s really the case.”

Maggie leaned toward Eric and whispered, “This guy’s insane. We really need to leave.”

Mr. Trouble set the piece of paper back on his desk. “Now, back to that assessment. The only foolproof way to get an idea about what’s really going on with you is to observe you in your natural habitat.”

“My what?” Eric asked.

“Do you mean like with wild animals, like lions in Africa?” Maggie asked. “I’ve seen it on Animal Planet.”

“Well, similar, yes,” Mr. Trouble said. “Only Eric’s life will, of course, be more complicated than that of the common lion. And with far less killing of antelope.” He started to chuckle but no one else laughed.

“So what, exactly, am I supposed to do?” Eric asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Mr. Trouble repeated. “Well, not actually nothing. Just go through your day like you usually do and we’ll do the rest. Don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Just pretend like it’s a typical Tuesday.”

“Tomorrow’s Friday,” Maggie said.

“Ah, right. A typical Friday, then.”

“And you’re going to…?” Eric asked.

“Observe.”

“So you’ll be standing around watching me?”

“Oh, it’s not quite as simple as that. Just leave the details to us. We’ve done this countless times. This first day is usually very easy. You won’t even know we’re there. Most of our clients say they actually experience fewer problems on the day we observe them than they’d been having for a while. So there’s that to look forward to.”

“What about school?” Eric asked. “How are you going to watch me there?”

“Again, details. Trust that we will take care of everything.”

“Are you seriously thinking about going along with this?” Maggie asked.

Eric sighed. That was a good question. Was he really going to—

His gaze fell onto the clock sitting on the dresser across the room. It was 8:45.

He jumped up. “We need to go now.”

“What’s your hurry?” Mr. Trouble asked.

“Nine o’clock?” Eric said, looking at him. “You promised to get us home? No way we’re going to make it in time.”

Mr. Trouble glanced at Eric, then at the clock, then at Eric again. “Oh. Oh. Oh. Your parents.”

“Yes, our parents,” Eric said. Well, one of his, anyway.

“Then I guess we should hurry things along.”

“Definitely.” Eric grabbed Maggie’s arm and pulled her up. “Let’s go.”

“Wait. One more thing,” Mr. Trouble said.

Eric stepped toward the door. “You can tell us in the car.”

“I have to do it here. The package I gave you this afternoon?”

“What about it?”

“Inside you will find a useful general-information pamphlet. I suggest you read it.”

“Sure, sure. Now can we go?”

“You will also find three small metal discs like this.” Mr. Trouble opened a drawer on his desk and pulled out a thin black disk no larger than a quarter. He showed it to Eric. “These will help us keep track of you. Place one in your bag, one in your pocket, and leave one at home as a spare.”

Eric hesitated. “Really? Tracking?” Now that was cool. “I promise I’ll check it out as soon as I get home.”

“And one last thing,” Mr. Trouble said, still not getting up.

Eric threw his arms in the air. “I thought we already did the one last thing.”

“You’ll also find a necklace in the box.”

He paused. “A necklace?”

Mr. Trouble sighed. “We also have key chains, but someone forgot to pack them, so you’re stuck with the necklace. If you’re in real trouble, rub the charm at least three times. It’ll activate an emergency beacon and we’ll immediately come to wherever you are.”

Eric narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “What kind of charm?”

Mr. Trouble forced a smile. “A…uh…unicorn.”

“A what?”

Maggie started laughing.

“There’s one more thing you need to know,” Mr. Trouble said.

“Seriously. You can’t keep saying ‘one more thing.’”

“When the time comes, it’ll all be up to you.”

“What’s that supposed to—”

Mr. Trouble jumped up from his chair. “All right. Who’s up for a ride home?”

As they climbed down the ladder to the ground outside, they found Uncle Colin and Uncle Carl standing nervously at the bottom, waiting.

“Hello, my boy, hello,” Uncle Colin said. His smile was a bit more nervous than before and his eyes kept darting to Mr. Trouble. “Ronan, a moment of your time?”

“Not now, Uncle Colin,” Mr. Trouble said. “We’re running a little behind schedule.”

He, Eric, and Maggie headed toward the sedan. A second later, Uncle Colin and Uncle Carl caught up to them.

“I think you’ll want to hear this,” Uncle Colin said, breathing heavily. “We have preliminary results on the data.”

“Okay. So?” Mr. Trouble said.

Uncle Colin hesitated. “First, it’s confirmed. He is a candidate.”

“Okay, but we already expected that.”

“Yes, we did.” Uncle Colin paused. “We also did a surface level scan.”

“And?”

“Uh, well, so far everything points toward this being an…MA813.”

Mr. Trouble stopped in his tracks and spun around. The uncles hadn’t expected this and halted just short of running into him.

“Are you sure?” Mr. Trouble said. He switched his gaze from Uncle Colin to Uncle Carl. “Is that confirmed?”

Uncle Carl tried to speak, stopped, took a deep breath, then tried to speak again. “Trace and thermal… both…show…same…results.”