Here Comes Mr. Trouble

will then take the ball back to the other end, put it down, and run back. We keep going until everyone in your group has done it. And just to make sure there’s no cheating, I’ve enlisted the help of a couple girls from Coach Trenton’s class.” The coach looked down the court and called out, “Girls?”

From around the side of the bleachers, two girls appeared. Fiona and Keira, of course. Eric knew it would be them before they even stepped out.

“They’ll make sure you cross the line before you pick up the ball,” the coach went on. “If you don’t, they’ll blow a whistle, and you’ll have to come back to the start and do it again. The last team done does ten laps around the court. All right. Everyone ready?”

Eric was the second-to-last person in his group. His task was to take the ball back up and put it down on the line. When Jerome Usher shoved the ball into his arms, the other members of his line started yelling, “Go, Eric! Go!”

As he raced down the court, he could see there were only two other teams behind him, and neither by very far. If he didn’t want to be responsible for his team running laps, he needed to turn on the speed.

Putting his head down, he ran as fast as he could to the line. When he reached it, he put the ball down and turned to run back.

Suddenly a whistle shrieked.

“Morrison!” Coach Roberts shouted. “Pick up the ball and come back. You need to go again.”

“What?”

“Oh, no!” some of the guys in his group groaned. Eric was going to be in last place by a long way. There was little chance they would avoid the laps now.

As he grabbed the ball, he looked over at Fiona leaning against the wall, her whistle in her hand.

“Thanks,” he said sarcastically.

“You’re the one who missed the line,” she replied.

He glared at her then raced back to the starting line. When he was halfway there, the whistle went off again.

“Peterson,” the coach said. “You gotta go again.”

Suddenly the guys in Eric’s group came back to life, waving at him and screaming, “Hurry up! Hurry up!”

Eric felt a surge of adrenaline. They still had a chance! Brian Peterson had messed up, too. And his team was already behind Eric’s.

Eric rushed to the start line, turned, and started his run again. This time he made sure he got beyond the line before he set the ball down, then raced back toward his end. When he got to half court, he glanced back to see where Brian Peterson was. He smiled when he saw the other boy was hopelessly behind him.

“Hey, watch out!”

Eric whipped his head back around. The start line was just a few feet away. How did that happen? He was sure he hadn’t been that close.

Tommy Bird, one of Peter Garr’s brute friends, had been waiting right at the edge of the line to take his turn as the last of Eric’s group. But now his hands were flying up in front of his face as he tried to scoot back. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quick enough to prevent Eric from smashing into him.

They crashed to the floor with a loud whap.

Tommy groaned as Eric rolled off him. Some of their other teammates were grabbing Tommy by the shoulders and trying to get him back on his feet. “Get up! Get up!”

One of the others, Dwayne Wilson, glanced back at Brian Peterson. “He’s almost back!”

“Come on, Tommy. You gotta go!”

Tommy groaned once more, then shoved himself to his feet. He staggered for a second, then focused on the court and started running.

Only by then, it was too late.

Eric’s team lost by almost half a court.

As they were doing their ten laps, guys who were normally friends of Eric’s either gave him the evil eye or ignored him all together.

“I’m not going to forget this, Morrison,” Tommy said as he ran past Eric.

Eric had never been the one to mess up like that before. If Fiona had her whistle out of her mouth, everything would have been fine. Of course, Fiona hadn’t made him run into Tommy. That had been just plain weird. The more he thought about it, the more he was positive he shouldn’t have been that close to the line. It was like one second he was still around half court, then the next he was two feet from the finish. He could run fast, but not that fast.

He didn’t even try to find Fiona or Keira after class. In fact, given the mood he was in, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to see them again. Maybe he should tell Mr. Trouble to just go home and leave him alone. Whatever was going on, Eric could handle it himself. Or perhaps just let it happen and accept it. Maybe giving in was the only answer.

After P.E. came Computer Keyboarding. Sure enough, the Trouble sisters had somehow managed to get into his class.

Orange soda on his math homework, a failed quiz for Spanish, the doomed competition in P.E. For Computer Keyboarding? Nothing short of a disaster affecting the entire school, after the keyboard he was using started smoking, setting off the fire alarm and sending all the kids streaming out of their classrooms into the central quad.

Maggie, who had Art for fourth period, found Eric sitting by himself on one of the benches they often used at lunchtime.

“I wonder what happened,” she said.

“You don’t want to know.”

She cocked her head. “Why? Do you?”

Just then one of the kids from his computer class walked by. “Hey, quick fingers. Nice job.”

Maggie looked at the kid, then back at Eric. “Quick fingers? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Just then the lunch bell rang. At least he wouldn’t have to go back to face everyone in class.

Maggie sat down next to him. “Eric, what happened?”

“I said I don’t want to—”

“It wasn’t his fault.”

Both Eric and Maggie twisted around. Fiona and Keira were standing behind them. Fiona was smiling, while Keira had her nose stuck in her copy of Noriko’s Revenge.

As soon as he saw them, Eric stood up. “I don’t want to talk to either of you.”

“Because your keyboard caught on fire?” Fiona asked.

Maggie looked at him, surprised. “Your keyboard caught on fire?”

“Not because my keyboard caught on fire,” he said. “The whistle? Remember that?”

“Oh, sure,” Fiona said. “But you didn’t cross the line.”

Maggie, looking even more confused, said, “What whistle? What line?”

“I crossed it,” Eric said.

“You didn’t,” Fiona said.

“Even if you had, she’d have blown the whistle,” Keira said, without looking up from her book.

Fiona shrugged. “That’s true. But, for the record, you didn’t cross it.”

Eric looked at her, dumbfounded. “Why would you have done—” He stopped and held up his hands in front of him. “Never mind. Don’t tell me. Just leave me alone.”

“No problem,” Fiona said. “That works better for our observations anyway.”

“Your what?”

“Observations. That was the plan for today, remember?”

“So you’ve snuck into my school to observe me?”

“We didn’t sneak in,” Keira said, sounding bored. “We enrolled.”

“I don’t care how you got here. If you’re just observing me, why did you blow the whistle at all?”

“To see what happened, of course,” Fiona said.

“To see what happened? What happened is you made