“It’s not a helmet. It’s a scanner.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “I’m fine.
“Of course not. We haven’t turned it on yet.”
“Then why did you ask—”
“Switching on now,” Uncle Carl announced.
Eric’s eyes moved nervously from side to side as he braced himself for whatever was about to happen. He tried to catch Maggie’s attention but she was avoiding his gaze.
The helmet began humming lightly then started to vibrate. Surprisingly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, it was just the opposite, like someone was massaging his scalp. He kind of liked it.
Suddenly something started going
“Please,” Uncle Carl said. “Hold still.”
Though the clacking noise continued, it did nothing to change the feel of the helmet — sorry, scanner — on his head. So Eric started to relax again.
“Are you getting anything?” Uncle Colin asked.
“Coming through now,” Uncle Carl replied.
Eric moved his eyes, trying to see what was going on, but Uncle Carl was too far to his right and all he could see was the man’s back.
“Thirty more seconds,” Uncle Carl said.
“Are you all right, Eric?” Uncle Colin asked.
“I guess so,” Eric said.
“Excellent. Excellent. Thirty seconds and we’ll be done.”
Eric tried to count down the seconds in his head, but all of a sudden he was having a hard time concentrating and kept having to start over. Then he couldn’t remember why he was counting in the first place. In fact, he couldn’t remember why he was sitting on this stool, or was even in this weird-looking room. And who were these strange people staring at him?
“Right here,” he mumbled.
He waited for the voice to say something more. It was a nice voice, pleasant, like a massage for his ears to go with the one his scalp was getting.
Yes. Sleep. That’s what he needed. Sleep. Just because it was the middle of the day didn’t mean he couldn’t take a nap. Naps were awesome. So what if he hadn’t taken one since he was five? Naps were perhaps the best things ever invented.
Why was everything shaking all of a sudden? How was he supposed to sleep when it felt like he was in the middle of an earthquake? He just needed a nap. It didn’t have to be for long, just a little while. If the world would just cooperate, he could be in dreamland. He liked dreamland. Dreamland was where—
“Hurry! Hurry!”
The voice was far away, barely loud enough for him to hear. But he didn’t
But both the talking and the shaking continued.
“I think he said something.” This voice was closer and different from the first. “Eric, can you hear me?”
“Stop the shaking,” he mumbled.
“Don’t worry about him,” the first voice said, not so distant now. “Someone get the back door.”
Eric wondered why these people couldn’t leave him alone. He just needed to sleep and everything would be all right. Everything would be just fine.
There was a thud, then someone said, “Oomph,” and someone else said, “Sorry.”
“You’re going to have to hold him on your laps,” the first voice said.
Eric could feel his head move lower than his feet, then he was jostled around for several seconds, and finally seemed to be level again.
From somewhere not too far away — everything seemed to be getting closer now — came a loud roar. It was followed by a second roar, and a third, and a fourth, each adding to the other until it was one giant thunderous rumble.
“Shut the doors! Shut the doors!”
Metal slammed against metal. Car doors, or at least Eric was pretty sure they were car doors. Then there was another roar, but this one was nowhere near as loud as the others. This one sounded like…a car engine?
He felt motion again.
“I think we’ve gone beyond an MA813,” a fourth voice said. This one was older, with an accent, a man’s voice. Familiar. Actually, all the voices were familiar. All but the beautiful one that had told him to sleep.
“What’s an MA813?” A girl’s voice.
“We have a ranking system for attacks. MA813 is…uh…was the strongest we’ve ever recorded.”
There was more movement.
“Eric. Can you hear me?”
Someone grabbed his shoulder and shook him.
“Hey,” he said, trying to bat the person’s hands away. “Just let me sleep.”
“That’s not sleep you feeling,” the older man’s voice said. “It’s my fault. We kept you under the scanner longer than we should have.”
Scanner? What was he talking about?
Eric tried to roll over so that he didn’t have to face whoever was trying to bother him, only there was nowhere for him to roll. The bed he was on was impossibly narrow, and even more uncomfortable than the cot he’d slept on at summer camp in July.
“Eric. You need to open your eyes. I know you can do it.”
Well, if Maggie wanted him to open his eyes, maybe it was okay. It felt like he’d slept for a little bit anyway. He couldn’t sleep forever, could he?
Distantly, in the very back of his mind, he heard the sing-songy voice again.
Eric’s left eye opened just enough to let light rush in. He immediately jammed it closed, but the mere act of doing so woke him even more.
“Good. You’re almost back.” A girl’s voice. Not Maggie’s. “Try it again.”
Bracing himself for more light, he cracked open each eye so he could peer through his lashes. While it was bright, it was no longer too bright. He opened them a little more. Shapes and colors. He let his eyelids part even further. The shapes turned into arms and faces. Three faces.
Maggie, an older man, and another girl. Fi…Fi…Fiona. Yes, Fiona.
Fiona Trouble.
The Trouble family.
The attack at school. The plane. The beat-up sedan. Mr. Trouble. Mother Trouble. Keira. Uncle Colin. Uncle Carl.
The scanner.
His eyes shot all the way open.
Maggie, Fiona and the man — it was Uncle Carl — were all looking down at him from a strange angle. It took Eric a second before he realized he was lying across their laps.
Suddenly the whole world bounced, and he flew up a few inches before falling back down hard.
“Ow!” Fiona said.
“We’ve got to hold him,” Uncle Carl said. “That way we all move up and down together.”
“Where are we?” Eric asked. They certainly weren’t in the workshop any more.
