“You know what I mean.”
“Eric, is there something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” Mrs. Muñoz asked.
Eric sat up. “Uh, no. Mrs. Muñoz.”
Mrs. Muñoz stared at him, waiting.
“No, Señora Muñoz.”
She smiled. “All right, class. You have fifteen minutes to finish the quiz. Ready, begin.”
The quiz was a disaster. Eric had a hard time focusing on anything besides wanting to know what Fiona and Keira — she was there, too — were doing in his class. He was barely able to get through half the questions, and most of those he knew he’d gotten wrong.
When Spanish ended, he tried again to catch up to the sisters before they were gone, but once more they gave him the slip.
His next class was P.E., where boys and girls were separated, so he didn’t expect to see them there. But he was wrong.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Coach Roberts said as soon as Eric’s class assembled in the gym. They were at the end of the first of two basketball weeks. That morning, there were four balls lined up on the floor at the far end of the court. “Today we’re going to do some speed drills. I want four equal lines at this end. When I say go, the first person in line will run down to the other end, pick up the ball, run back, and give it to the next person. That person 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.
Fion
a 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 me lose a lot of friends!”
Fiona rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. If you lost any friends because of today then they weren’t really your friends, were they? What we learned is so much more important. I do want to ask you one thing, though. Just before you ran into that other boy, did you feel anything…um…unusual?”
Eric hesitated, then said, “It happened too fast.”
“So you didn’t feel anything.”
“No, I did. It happened too fast. I shouldn’t have been that close to him, but all of a sudden, I was.”
Fiona nodded. “That’s what I thought. Don’t worry. We’ve seen that before. It’s normal.”
“Normal?” Eric said. “There was nothing normal about that.”
Maggie, whose head had been moving back and forth as she tried to keep up with the conversation, finally said, “This is ridiculous. Whatever’s going on with Eric is just…I don’t know…just what happens. We all have times when things don’t go our way.”
“That’s true. Life is full of that. Even ours. But Eric’s case is definitely different.” Fiona glanced at Eric. “Did you tell her about the phone book?”
“What phone book?” Maggie asked.
Keira turned the page in her manga. “That answers that question.”
“Look, I don’t know who you people think you are,” Maggie said, “but I think you’re just trying to trick Eric so you can get something out of him. He’s been having a little bit of bad luck lately, that’s all. You’re just taking advantage of him. Maybe he can’t see it, but I can. I think you should leave him alone.”
“Are you trying to say we’re running a scam?” Fiona asked.
“Yeah, that’s it. A scam. You’re running a scam at him.”
“On him,” Fiona corrected her. “If you’re going to use the word, use it correctly.”
Eric’s best friend looked like she was about to explode.
“Maggie, it’s okay,” he said. “There’s no scam.”
“How do you know? You’re not even yourself lately. You can’t tell.”
“You nearly hit it on the nose,” Fiona said. “He is still himself, but if we aren’t able to stop his troubles, he won’t be for long.”
“Ugh!” Maggie threw her arms in the air and took a step back. “I’m not going to listen to this any more. In fact, I’m going to go to the office right now and tell them who you really are. Scam people.”
“Scam artists is the term you’re looking for,” Keira said.
Maggie’s cheeks flushed. She opened her mouth to speak but shut it again, spun around, and marched off toward the office.
Eric watched her go but didn’t attempt to stop her. It wouldn’t be any use anyway. And even if Maggie did as she threatened, he had the feeling nothing would happen to the Trouble sisters.
Once Maggie was out of earshot, Eric said, “You said you learned something important from watching me.”
“Very,” Fiona said.
“What?”
“Can’t tell you that yet.” She glanced around. “What I really need to do right now is report in. This new data should give us enough to finish the plan for getting your old life back.”
She gave Eric a hang-in-there smile and started walking away. Without looking up, Keira turned and followed her.
“Does what you learned have anything to do with Makers?” Eric asked.
Both girls froze mid-step, then, as one, they turned back around. Keira was no longer looking at her book.
“Where did you hear that?” Fiona asked.
“I didn’t tell him,” Keira said quickly.
“Your brother,” Eric said.
Fiona took two big steps back to him. “He told you about the Makers?” She sounded shocked.
Mr. Trouble had only mentioned the word Makers but Eric said, “Some.”
Keira moved in beside her sister. “What did he tell you?” she asked, her intensity surprising, given how uninterested she’d seemed all other times.
Fiona was studying his face. “Well?”
“He told me…he told me they were…” He took a breath. “The cause of my problems.” That was an easy enough guess.
“He did not!” Keira said.
“Yes, he did,” Eric countered. “How else could I have heard of them?”
Keira looked at her sister. “That’s true.”
Crossing her arms, Fiona said, “I can’t believe he talked to you about the Makers. That’s completely against our guidelines.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment, then her eyes snapped back into focus. She leaned forward until she was just inches away from Eric’s face. “You can never talk about them to anyone else.”
“What about Maggie?” Eric asked. “He told her, too.”
“Unbelievable!” Keira said.
“Then you need to make sure she doesn’t say anything to anyone, either,” Fiona said. “Eric, this is very important. Can you do that?”
He held his tongue for a few moments, then said, “Yeah, sure. I guess so.”
She took a step back. “Keira. Keep an eye on him.”
“Where are you going?” Keira asked.
“I need to talk to Ronan.”
9
For the first few minutes after Fiona left, Keira watched Eric as if he might suddenly disappear. But then her interest seemed to fade and soon she lifted up her book and started reading again.
“How did you get that?” Eric asked.
“What?”
“Noriko’s Revenge #11. It’s not even out yet.”
She glanced over the top of the book. “You read Noriko’s Revenge?”
“Sure. It’s only the hottest manga around.”
She shrugged. “It’s not bad.”
He was about to tell her it was a lot more than just not bad, but then he caught sight of Peter Garr walking toward them. Peter wasn’t alone, either. With him were two other guys — Tommy Bird, the kid Eric had smashed into during P.E.; and Kyle Sanders, another member of the bully squad.
None of them were smiling.
“I think we might have a problem,” Eric said.
Keira grimaced. “Don’t take everything so seriously. I was kidding. I like the books, too.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
That got her to look up.
“Behind you,” he said.
He could tell she’d done this kind of thing before, because instead of immediately looking back and making it obvious what she was doing, she pretended she’d dropped something on the ground and didn’t take a look until she leaned down to pick up the imaginary object.
“Isn’t the guy on the right the one you knocked over during P.E.?” she asked.
“Yeah. But he’s not the main problem. The guy in front’s the one who came after us at Maggie’s house last night. He was also the one at the library the day I called you guys.”
Keira nodded, her face serious. “The air-sniffer.”
“Yeah.”
“And the third one?”
“One of his jerk friends,” Eric said.
“How far away are they now?” she asked.
“Maybe a hundred feet.”
; Keira pulled the strap of her backpack forward and turned her mouth toward it. “Fiona. We’ve got a situation.”
“What are you doing?” Eric asked.
She ignored him. “Fiona, come in.”
“What is it?” Fiona’s voice came out of the strap. It was low and hard for Eric to hear.
“You’ve got a radio?” he asked.
“Shhh,” Keira told him, then into the radio she said, “Potential surrogate confrontation. Three incoming.”
“On my way,” Fiona said.
Keira dropped her strap. “I don’t think she’s going to get here in time.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
Keira thought for a moment. “How far now?”
“Fifty feet.”
“Okay. On three, you start walking toward the school. Find someplace you can hide. But don’t run. You run, they’ll run, too.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Distract them. Ready?”
He nodded.
“Okay. One. Two. Three!”
Eric took off, using all his will to keep from breaking into a sprint. After a couple of seconds, he looked over his shoulder.
Keira had moved toward the gang of three, her arms outstretched. Though Eric couldn’t hear her, it was obvious she was trying to talk to them. Peter seemed to pause for a second, looking a bit confused.
Eric didn’t wait to see what happened next. He sped up as fast as he could without running and headed for the safety of the north entrance to the school. At least he thought it would be safe. Looking back once he was inside, he realized he’d been mistaken. Keira wasn’t anywhere in sight, but Peter and his friends, though perhaps slowed by a few seconds, were still following him and would soon reach the same door he had just passed through.
Eric looked around. The cream-colored walls of the school were covered with hand-painted signs saying things like “Studying Hard Now Pays Off Later” and “Always on Time, Always Ahead.” They were all part of school district’s campaign for “creating better students.” To Eric they were just reminders of the problems he’d been having.
He forced himself to focus on finding a place to hide.
There were several classrooms nearby but each had only one way in and out. If Peter started searching rooms, Eric would be trapped.
Here Comes Mr. Trouble tfc-1 Page 7