Here Comes Mr. Trouble

Name given to box that appears to be present at each Maker hideout at some point.

Until 1895, the square-shaped waxy residue that was often found in connection with a case was thought to be unimportant. This residue was always found on a wall in the house the Makers used as their residence.

In 1895, Robert Trouble discovered the first Maker’s box still attached to the wall in a house near New Orleans, Louisiana. The box had slots for nine drawers across the front, but all the drawers were missing. The box, though in poor condition, is stored at TFS headquarters.

A second box was discovered in 1957 in Memphis, Tennessee. This box still had four drawers intact, though empty. Attempts to figure out what they might have contained failed. This box is also stored at TFS headquarters.

As of this writing, they remain the only two boxes that have been discovered.

While it is apparent these boxes have an important function, that function is still unknown.

17

Mrs. Ortega was all smiles and hugs when they got there.

“A homework slumber party,” she said to Maggie. “Mija, what a great idea. We should do these more often. Fun and educational.”

As more proof of her approval, she got them three large pizzas — something Maggie’s mom almost never ordered — and then left them undisturbed in the dining room.

Eric could tell Maggie was seriously not happy with the situation. She barely talked to him and said nothing at all to the Trouble sisters. He tried to start a conversation a couple of times but finally gave up.

Surprisingly, the evening turned into exactly what they were pretending it was — a homework slumber party. With little else to do, they broke out their books and studied. Even Fiona and Keira had brought along work, though Eric was pretty sure Keira had tucked Noriko’s Revenge inside the history book she was pretending to read.

Having finished his math homework for Ms. Lindgren, he’d begun working on his Spanish worksheets for the coming week. Next up would be the essay for Mrs. Bernhardi’s English class.

“Ugh,” Fiona said. She was sitting to Eric’s left while her sister was directly across from them. Maggie had chosen the chair at the head of the table, as far from them as she could get.

Eric finished the sentence he was writing then looked over. “Something wrong?”

“Broke my lead and forgot my sharpener,” she said, holding up her pencil.

“I’ve got an extra one.” He got a pencil out of his bag and handed it to her.

She smiled. “Thanks.”

They worked in silence for a few seconds.

“What are you studying?” he asked her.

“Advanced Trigonometry.”

“Whoa. Seriously? What grade are you in?”

She shrugged. “Tenth, or maybe eleventh.”

“Uh, isn’t that something you should know?”

“We’re home-schooled. With the business our family’s in, if we went to a regular school, we’d be absent all the time. Schools don’t like that, no matter how smart you are.”

Home-schooled. That made sense. But it did bring up another question.

“So where do you guys live?”

“What? Don’t you think the plane’s our home?” she asked.

“Your brother called it your mobile headquarters. I just thought that meant you have a place somewhere that doesn’t move around.”

“I was kidding.” She laughed and looked back at her book.

Eric waited several seconds then said, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Nope.”

He frowned. “But you do have a permanent place, right?”

“We have to keep the plane somewhere.”

“Look, I don’t mean to disturb you,” Maggie said from her end of the table. “But I’m trying to get some work done. That’s why we’re here, right? So if you could hold it down, I’d appreciate it.”

Fiona grimaced. “Sorry.”

Eric wasn’t sorry, though. He was annoyed. Maggie was supposed to be his best friend, yet all she had been doing was denying that anything was wrong and basically saying he was crazy. But she’d seen what had happened to him after he was scanned. She’d seen the SUV trying to run them down. She’d seen the Maker’s box. Granted, none of that was as odd as, say, seeing a phone book get spit out of the air, or experiencing time speeding up, or feeling the effects of the gold-ball talisman, but still, it should have been plenty for her to at least realize that things in his life were currently miles from normal.

Before he could tell her how he felt, Fiona leaned over and silently mouthed, “It’s fine.”

What was it with girls telling him when he should and shouldn’t speak? Because this definitely wasn’t fine. But he kept his mouth shut and went back to his Spanish homework.

At ten, Maggie stood up. “I’ve got a headache. I’m going to bed.”

Keira immediately jumped up from her seat. “I’m tired, too.”

Maggie glared at her for a moment then looked at Eric. “You’re on the living room couch.” She left without saying goodnight.

“See you in the morning,” Keira whispered, then followed Maggie out.

After they’d been alone for a few minutes, Fiona said, “You know, she is a good friend.”

“Who? Maggie?”

“Yeah. She’s been concerned about you.”

“She’s not concerned about me,” Eric said. “She thinks I’m stupid for listening to you guys.”

“You don’t understand girls at all, do you? If she didn’t care about you, she wouldn’t get so upset. Look, she hopped in our car with you yesterday evening when she had no idea who we were, only because she thought you shouldn’t go alone. And she’s had plenty of time since then to tell her parents or someone at school or even the police what she thinks is going on.”

“She did tell someone at school, remember? After the fire alarm, she went to the office.”

Fiona shook her head. “You are such a boy. She just wanted you to think that’s what she was doing, hoping it might make you see things her way. But she was never going to go through with it. She was too afraid it would get you in trouble. Besides, there’s a big part of her that believes something weird is going on. She just doesn’t want to admit it.”

“How do you know she didn’t go? You were with me.”

She shrugged. “I asked her.”

“When?”

“When we were waiting in the car at school while you were playing around with your buddy Peter. But I already knew the answer. Oh, and that’s another thing. When the scanner knocked you out, no one was more concerned than she was. She’s doing exactly what a best friend should do. She’s trying to protect you.”

As much as he didn’t want to hear it at the moment, he knew she was probably right.

He decided to change the subject. “So I take it your brother hasn’t been the boss for that long.”

She gave him an odd look.

“This afternoon,” he said, “that little fight about him being in charge.”

“We weren’t fighting, we were just…”

“Disagreeing?”