Young adult novels by Kate Hattemer
The Land of 10,000 Madonnas
The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Kate Hattemer
Cover art copyright © 2018 by Marie Thorhauge
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hattemer, Kate, author.
Title: Here Comes Trouble / Kate Hattemer.
Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf | Summary: Soren is famous for his pranks, but with his best friend gone and well-behaved cousin Flynn visiting for a year, he tries to mend his ways.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017028599 (print) | LCCN 2017040461 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1846-6 (trade) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1847-3 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1848-0 (ebook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Practical jokes—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Cousins—Fiction. | Behavior—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.H2847 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.H2847 Her 2018 (print) | DDC
[Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9781524718480
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
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Contents
Cover
Young Adult Novels by Kate Hattemer
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Acknowledgments
Kate Hattemer
for Henry
OUR MISSION: to see out the window without anyone seeing us.
Difficult, sure, given the whole windows-made-of-glass thing. But Ruth and I have had a lot of experience with spy work, and we instantly saw the potential in the long white curtains. She swaddled herself in one and I took the other. We couldn’t move, and we couldn’t retaliate when our brother, Ivan, who’s two and terrible, hit us with his Barbie. But we would get the first look at any car coming down our street.
“They better get here soon,” said Ruth. “I feel like a mummy.”
“Mummies can’t feel,” I told her. Ruth is only in fourth grade, and sometimes her lack of education shows. As her big brother, I feel it’s my duty to enlighten her. “Their brains have been siphoned out—ah-choo!”
“Don’t tell Dad how dusty these curtains are,” said Ruth. “He’ll make us vacuum.”
“Ah-choo!” I wiped my nose on the fabric. “What if I’m sneezing and I miss the car? I’m keeping my eyes open next time.”
“No! Soren! No!” The white column that was Ruth swayed in panic. “If you keep your eyes open when you sneeze, they explode out of your head.”
“No way.”
“I read it in a book.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Fine,” said Ruth. “Try. See if I care.” She stared dourly out the window. “See if I’ll pick up your bloody eyes from the floor. See if I’ll put them on ice while we wait for the ambulance. See if—”
“Okay! Okay! I’ll—ah-ah-ah-choo!”
I’d closed my eyes.
“Thank you,” said Ruth.
It wasn’t fun, being burrito-wrapped in a curtain that was rapidly coming to resemble the inside of a tissue, but I needed to get a look at Flynn before he got a look at me. A newcomer is big news when you live in a tiny town. And I mean tiny: there’s not a single person in Camelot who doesn’t know me, my parents, and how old I was when I last wet the bed.
(Too old.)
You see, Flynn’s mom, our aunt Linnea, is an artist. She won a prize where she gets to study in Paris for a year, and she doesn’t have to work in a restaurant, too, the way she does in New York. It was a big deal. Probably a bigger deal, though, was that our cousin Flynn was coming to live with us for the entire school year. It was the most exciting thing to happen in Camelot since Mr. Flick’s pig made it to the Sweet Sixteen of the Northern Minnesota Hog Farmers N-C-Double-Oink March Madness Tournament.
“My new best friend is about to get here,” I said to Ruth, “and I don’t even know what he looks like.”
Flynn and I hadn’t seen each other since we were Ivan’s age, nine years ago. I had no memories of the visit, but Mom sure did. “You didn’t get along,” she’d said. “You had entirely different senses of fun.”
“What do you mean?”
“Flynn was calm. He would sit in a corner and page through books, even though he couldn’t read. His favorite toy was a child-sized yoga mat.”
“He did yoga?”
“He’d be in downward dog,” said Mom, “and you’d be sprinting circles around him, whumpa-whumpa-ing, pretending you were a helicopter.”
“I bet Flynn’s more fun now.”
“People are different, Soren. People have fun in diffe
rent ways.”
She’d kept talking, but I’d tuned out. The thing was, Flynn couldn’t have been coming at a better time. Alex, my best friend and partner in crime, had moved away at the beginning of the summer, and I was lonely without her. Ruth and I were pals—we’d really bonded since Ivan was born; nothing like a common enemy—and I had other friends at school. But a best friend is different. A best friend is your default. Your other half. If you’ve had a best friend and then not had one, whether because of moves or new schools or betrayals, you know. You know how much it stinks.
“There!” squealed Ruth.
I peered out the window. Ruth did the same. Even Ivan attempted a pull-up to boost himself above the windowsill.
Dad’s Honda crawled down the street and stopped in front of our house. Our eyes were trained on the passenger door.
It slowly opened.
A bowling shoe emerged.
An argyle sock.
A cuffed pair of—
“Are those skinny jeans?” said Ruth.
Then the other leg, and then the torso: a purple plaid shirt, a black bandanna tied in a jaunty, cowboy-like V.
Longish brown hair, topped by—
“Is that a beret?” said Ruth.
And under the beret, a face that looked way too much like mine—
“Is that Flynn?” said Ruth.
That was Flynn.
* * *
—
FLYNN HAD TWO pieces of luggage: a messenger bag and a trunk. He handled the messenger bag. Dad heaved the trunk up the walk to the house, his lips pursed into the face that I privately call if I weren’t a dad, I’d be cursing right now.
Flynn followed, his mouth moving fast. Dad dropped the trunk on the porch and crumpled against a pillar, wiping the sweat off his shiny bald head. As Flynn reached for the doorknob, Ruth and I jumped to get untangled from the curtains.
“Greetings!” Flynn called into the house.
Ruth and I looked at each other.
“You have dust on your forehead,” I told her.
“Well, there’s something hanging from your nose,” she told me.
We wiped our faces on our curtains.
“Are we good?” I said.
“We’re good.”
I’d expected some kid in gym shorts and a ratty T-shirt.
Someone like Alex.
Someone like me.
We went into the entry hall.
“Flynn,” said Dad, panting slightly and gripping his lower back, “you remember your cousins. Soren and Ruth.”
Flynn extended his hand with a dramatic windmilling move. “Delighted.”
“Um,” I said, gingerly shaking his hand, “me too.”
“Absolutely delighted.”
“Same,” said Ruth.
We stood there. I kicked my left shoe with my right. Ruth fiddled with her pigtail. Dad, who is oblivious to awkwardness, and in fact creates it whenever possible (do not, under any circumstances, allow this man to chaperone your school dance), said, “A family reunion! What a day, what a day!”
Ivan charged into the entry hall, still wielding the Barbie.
“And this,” said Dad, “is—”
Ivan crashed into Flynn’s legs.
“—Ivan.”
“The Terrible,” Ruth and I added in unison.
Dad scooped him up. Ivan hates being restrained—strollers, car seats, cribs, he sees them all as the prisons they are—so he started howling. “Oh, shush,” Dad said crabbily. “I’m not letting you maul your cousin on his first day.”
Flynn flinched. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “Ivan’s relatively harmless. He’ll throw food, sure, and toys, especially pointy ones, and he’s got really good aim, which is weird, since he’ll run right into a wall if there’s nothing in his path, but he’s not that bad….”
“Lies,” whispered Ruth.
“Well?” Dad asked Ivan. “Do you promise not to attack Flynn?”
“WON’T!” hollered Ivan.
Personally, I’d have asked Ivan to specify: Won’t attack, or won’t promise? But Dad, a hopeless optimist, set him down. Ivan growled in satisfaction.
“Well, well, well, Flynn!” Dad said. “We’ll have dinner when your aunt Lucinda gets home, but what would you like to do now?”
“Ruth and I can give you a tour!” I said.
We’d practiced that morning. I was the tour guide, and she was Flynn. She kept saying things like “Wowzers!” And “We don’t have chicken coops in New York!” And “How amazing is it that you have a pet piglet?”
It had made us both even more excited for his arrival.
“I don’t know,” said Flynn. “How extensive is this tour?”
“Very,” I assured him. “The house, the garage, the chicken coop, the vegetable garden, the tree platform, the clubhouse, the dock, the pigpen—”
“You keep pigs?”
“One piglet,” said Ruth. “One adorable, roly-poly piglet.”
When our neighbor Mr. Flick had offered us Jim Bob, the runt of the litter, the idea was that he’d live a typical piggy life: gain four hundred pounds, turn into sausage. Then Ruth had gotten attached. She’d rather eat her own arm than a Jim Bob patty.
Her expression had gone all hazy and lovestruck. “One darling pork dumpling, cuddleable, snuggleable—”
Flynn shifted from foot to foot. “I’m not sure about touching a live pig.”
“Let’s go introduce you two!” said Ruth.
He glanced up at Dad. “It’s just, I’ve been traveling all day….”
Dad jumped in. “Come on into the kitchen. We’ll relax, catch up, get reacquainted. May I offer you a Coke?”
* * *
—
RUTH, IVAN, AND I will do anything for Coke. We never get it except for holidays. So we followed Dad into the kitchen like ants following a sugar trail, which I guess we kind of were.
“You pour and we’ll choose,” I told Ruth. She got down four glasses, and I monitored her to make sure she wasn’t pulling the ol’ ice cube trick. (You put less ice in your own glass so you get more drink. Ruth is known for it.) “You can have first choice,” I told Flynn, like the gracious host I am.
“Actually,” he said, “I don’t consume corn syrup.”
“You mean—”
“I don’t want any. Thanks, though.”
Ruth, shocked and appalled, stared at Flynn. I must have looked the same way, because Dad said, “Children! Manners! Do we stare at our guests?”
“But he doesn’t want Coke,” Ruth told Dad.
“A healthy choice!” said Dad, clapping Flynn on the back. “Maybe we should all cut out corn syrup.”
Ruth and I shot each other identical looks of dismay.
“I’ll stir up some lemonade instead,” said Dad.
“Actually,” said Flynn, “I don’t consume any sugar. No white sugar, no brown sugar, no corn syrup, no rice syrup, no dextrose, no sucrose, no evaporated cane juice—”
“What’s left?” said Ruth.
“I used to eat honey, but then I became concerned for bee welfare. Uncle Jon, may I use the kettle?”
Dad, clearly gobsmacked, gave a nod.
“Would anyone like a hot cup of Japanese green tea?” Flynn rustled around in his messenger bag and pulled out a bag of brown twigs. “It’s sourced directly from Mount Fuji.”
“DIRT!” cried Ivan. “STICKS!” He beamed—he’s used to receiving massive amounts of positive reinforcement every time he uses a word other than no, won’t, or don’t—but nobody paid him any attention. We were watching Flynn measure twigs into a tiny strainer.
“I get this at a specialty store called Sereni-Tea,” he said. “Back in Brooklyn, of course. I can walk there by myself.”
> “We’re allowed to walk around Camelot by ourselves too,” said Ruth.
“It’s next door to Spinster, my favorite record shop. And down the street is L’Éléphant—they sell vintage luggage; that’s where I got my trunk. Ooh, water’s boiling!”
He poured the water into the strainer and set an hourglass on the counter. The sand trickled down. “It steeps for five minutes.”
“Couldn’t you use the microwave timer?” I said.
“I like to keep the tea ceremony pure.”
“I have a feeling this family will learn a lot from you,” said Dad.
Flynn smiled in a way that reminded me of this angel ornament we have. Ruth and I call him Little Angel Two-Shoes, and every Christmas Eve we have a secret contest that involves beaning him in the head with peanuts.
The last grains of sand slipped through the hourglass. Flynn crouched to photograph the tea. “Who wants a sip?” he said.
He looked so eager. Round eyes, raised eyebrows, a hopeful smile. He looked from Ruth to Ivan, and I thought, Fat chance in those quarters. They were sucking down Coke like they were being paid by the ounce.
“I’ll try it,” I said.
I lifted the cup. The steam hit my nose. I nearly heaved. I had to set it down so I could swallow the saliva filling my mouth. The tea smelled, no joke, like a barfy toilet.
But I couldn’t back out now.
I took a sip.
“BLECH!”
A warm mouthful of Japanese green tea, sourced directly from Mount Fuji, splattered across the kitchen.
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