Here Comes Trouble

by Kate Hattemer

My team jogged back up to midfield. We were only down one, and then we were tied when Kiyana scored on a beautiful floater from twenty yards out.

  Goldie was about to take their kickoff when Flynn appeared. “You want to play?” she said.

  He didn’t say anything, but he nodded. “We get him,” said Billiam. “We’re down a man.”

  “A person,” said Kiyana.

  “Whatever,” said Billiam. “As long as we get Flynn.”

  There wasn’t really any arguing, not when it was five versus four, so Flynn jogged over to their right wing. Of course Goldie passed it to him. “Mark your man!” yelled Kiyana to our team.

  “Person!” yelled Billiam.

  She ignored him. “Spread out!” Flynn passed so much that we’d learned how to face him: let him do what he wanted and cover the rest of his team. Let them make the mistakes, basically.

  I was left to mark Flynn. I ran up to him, expecting him to pass as soon as I got there, but instead he took off down the wing. And I mean took off. I’m pretty fast, and before that day I’d thought I could beat him in a race, but I’d never seen him go all out. He was flying.

  A bunch of his teammates were open, open enough to pass to, anyway, but he didn’t even consider it. He hosed me—I was five feet behind, then ten—and swept the ball into the top left corner of the net.

  “GOOOOAALLLLLLL!” Billiam screamed. He ran over to chest-bump Flynn, but Flynn wasn’t having it. Flynn didn’t even smile. He jogged back up to the line, barely winded, and he said, “Take the kickoff.”

  That was how it went for the rest of the emergency recess. If we’d ever wondered what Flynn was really capable of, now we knew. He scored on midfield shots, on dribbles, on headers. He scored with his right foot and his left. He didn’t break a sweat and he didn’t crack a smile. It was 8–1, maybe 9–1, when Mrs. Andersen knuckle-whistled us in. “VICTORY!” yelled Billiam, raising his arms in ninety-degree angles and doing this robot dance thing, but Flynn just slumped down, like he was a puppet and the game was his string, the only thing holding him up. He started back toward the school immediately.

  “What’s with him?” said Jéro.

  I shrugged.

  “He could go pro,” said Soup. “He could get free cleats.”

  “Yeah, he’s really good,” I said. I wished I could be a good sport, the kind of loser Dad always says we should be, but I felt like the bad kind of loser, the kind who shouts about unfairness and kicks the dirt and never wants to play again. I said, “Too bad he’s scared of piglets.”

  Jéro and Soup and Freddy laughed. I thought it’d make me feel better, but it didn’t really work.

  * * *

  —

  I’D TRIED TO keep a low profile after school, but I had to come down when I was called for dinner. I was nervous. Ruth knew it was me, and Flynn probably did too. What if they’d told Mom and Dad? Or worse, Leary?

  “Set the table, Soren,” Mom told me.

  “For six?”

  “I called your sister in, but Flynn has another stomachache. Five.”

  Ruth came to the kitchen door holding Jim Bob.

  “You know the rule,” said Mom. “No animals inside.”

  Usually when Mom says that, Ruth and I mouth except Ivan at each other. But she didn’t look at me. “Fine,” she told Mom. “I’ll eat slops. I’m not leaving him alone until he feels better.”

  “Honey, he’s just a piglet—”

  “Lucinda,” said Dad, “let her be.” He gave Ruth a PB&J for her and some unsalted peanuts for Jim Bob, and the two of them went back outside.

  “Four,” Mom told me.

  The door between the kitchen and the mudroom is glass, so if you had the right seat, you could watch the chickens from the table. They were boring—mostly they pecked at nothing and readjusted their feathers—but that evening, dinner was even more boring. Ivan’s always quiet on spaghetti nights because he’s busy painting his entire body orange. Mom talked about a work thing and Dad gave her advice that she viciously tore to shreds, which is a thing they both enjoy. I was just grateful they didn’t ask me any tough questions about how, exactly, Jim Bob had found himself at the spelling bee.

  Like I said: they were clueless.

  I loaded the dishwasher without being asked. (Obvious sign of a guilty conscience, but I couldn’t help it.) Afterward, I went to shoot on the woodpile. It was dark, but there’s a light on the garage that helps a bit.

  Pow!

  Pow!

  Pow!

  Ruth heaved herself up the hill from the pigpen. “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi.”

  I shuffled the ball between my feet, mostly to have something else to look at. “Is he, um, okay?” I said.

  “He’s not back to normal. But he lost that wild look in his eyes after he got the peanuts.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Here,” said Ruth. “Pass.”

  I passed. She shot. “So,” she said as it rebounded. “That was you, right?”

  I cringed.

  “Well?”

  I wished I could lie. But I couldn’t, and to be totally honest, it wasn’t because lying’s wrong; it was because I didn’t think Ruth would buy it. “Me and the triplets.”

  “Wow,” she said. Her voice was quivering. “Jim Bob is my favorite person in the world, and you kidnapped him? You kept him in your backpack?”

  “I didn’t zip it all the way!”

  “He could have died!”

  “I put a banana in there! Which he ate! He couldn’t have been too unhappy!”

  She kicked the ball at me, hard. I barely managed to snag it before it went into the street. “Are you mad at the triplets too?” I asked.

  She considered. “Not as much. You’re the one who stole him.”

  “That’s unfair.”

  “Besides,” she said, “that was really mean of you, what you did to Flynn.”

  I passed back. “It’s his fault he’s scared of a harmless piglet.”

  “No. With the bee. He was about to win. Now they have to replay the last word tomorrow.”

  “He’ll probably win anyway.”

  “Maybe,” said Ruth.

  “Pass.”

  She set a firm foot atop the ball. “He knows it was you,” she said. “And I bet he thinks you did it on purpose.”

  “Well, we didn’t bring Jim Bob to the spelling bee by accident—”

  “No. I mean. That you targeted him.”

  “Of course we didn’t!”

  “Well, he was about to win and you stopped the bee. And you knew he was scared of Jim Bob.”

  Obviously we hadn’t targeted Flynn. How were we supposed to know he’d be the last speller? The real problem, anyway, was that Jim Bob had escaped one letter too soon. “What happened with you and Principal Leary?” I asked Ruth.

  “He said that as soon as he found out who brought the piglet, they’d get expelled.”

  “Expelled?”

  “He was really mad. He wrenched his knee on one of those diving leaps.”

  “Did you—did you tell him you thought it was me?”

  She gave me a withering look. “Of course not.”

  “Oh. Good. Phew. Thanks.”

  “I told him it definitely wasn’t you. I told him I saw inside your backpack on the bus and it was full of books.”

  “Ruth…” I was a bit overcome.

  “And I told Mom and Dad someone must have snuck over here and stolen Jim Bob. I said maybe Billiam Flick. You know Mom’s thing with him.”

  Billiam wrote his name in the wet concrete when we got our driveway repoured. Mom’s held a grudge ever since. The poor kid was six.

  “Well. Thanks, Ruth.”

  “You don’t deserve a sister like me.”

&n
bsp; I really didn’t. “I’ll give you my dessert tonight.”

  “Just because I’m not getting you into trouble,” she said, “doesn’t mean I’m not still extremely mad. And so is Flynn.” Abruptly, she turned and headed inside.

  “Wait—Ruth—”

  She didn’t stop. She hadn’t even kicked me the ball. It began to roll down the slight slope of the driveway. I started to jog after it, but then I stopped too. I didn’t feel like kicking anymore.

  “GOOD MORNING,” Principal Leary said on the screen.

  “A new tie!” whispered Soup.

  Jéro scribbled hurriedly. New ties always gave him a lot of calculations. This one featured a globe surrounded by the words World’s Coolest Elementary School Administrator.

  How much competition was there, anyway?

  “We have several announcements,” said Principal Leary. “The Lego League will meet after school in Mr. Rashid’s classroom.”

  Beside us, Chloe had gone all pale and sweaty.

  “Are you okay?” said Tabitha.

  Chloe braced both hands on her desk to keep herself upright. She looked like she might faint. Or barf. I scooched my own desk a few inches away.

  Principal Leary continued. “The Future Engineers of America will meet with Ms. Vicari after school at the circuit board.”

  “Chloe?” said Tabitha. “Did you lose another bet?”

  “I thought he’d go with stripes,” said Chloe weakly. “And I bet it all.”

  “Class!” said Ms. Hutchins. “Stop talking!”

  “I bet it all,” Chloe said again.

  “Attention up here, please!”

  “My iPod—my guinea pig—”

  “Eyes open, mouths closed!”

  “The shirt off my back—”

  “Who won the shirt?” said Soup.

  “Shush!” barked Ms. Hutchins.

  “One final announcement,” Leary said. His grim tone plus Ms. Hutchins’s orange-zone anger made everyone shut up, though Chloe was still rocking from side to side. “Yesterday, our school community was disrupted. We lost several minutes of valuable instructional time and had to reschedule the final word of the spelling bee. Furthermore, on a personal note, your fearless leader injured his knee.” He turned the webcam to a brace strapped over his pants. “If you were the one behind this inappropriate and disrespectful act,” he said, righting the camera, “don’t think you’ll get away with it. And the rest of you, as upstanding members of the Camelot Elementary community—if you saw something, say something. It is your duty.”

  I went rigid. Most likely, someone had seen something.

  And that wasn’t even mentioning Flynn.

  “If you have information,” said Leary, “please speak with a trusted adult. The safety and peace of our school depend on each one of you.”

  He stared out at us for a length of time somewhere between “awkwardly long” and “Is the webcam frozen?”

  “Thank you,” he said at last. “It’s a lovely day for learning.”

  * * *

  —

  DAD CAME BACK from his Saturday-morning run with his usual runner’s high plus a box of doughnuts from Mamie’s Donuttery. Mamie’s doughnuts are basically clouds dipped in frosting. I had a cinnamon cruller while Ruth had a cream-filled. Ivan got pink sprinkles, and Flynn, who was reading a book in his lap, had a toffee crisp.

  Our parents paged through the Camelot Roundtable. “Mateo Luna is running for town council again, I see,” said Dad.

  “And Gerald Flick’s heirloom butternut squash won second place at the county fair,” said Mom. “We should pop over for a look.”

  “Can we have the comics?” I asked.

  A few minutes later, Mom said, “Well, well. Jim Bob made the paper.”

  We craned to see the headline: SOME PIG! HOG “SPELLS” DISRUPTION AT SCHOOL BEE.

  “Let me see that,” I said, my heart pounding. Had Leary sicced a reporter on the case?

  “Looks like total chaos,” said Dad.

  Mom, skimming the article, said, “Flynn! You didn’t breathe a word! How modest you are!”

  Some Pig! Hog “Spells” Disruption at School Bee

  BY HENRY DUCK, STAFF REPORTER

  The annual spelling bee at Camelot Elementary School was given a “streak” of excitement when a piglet interrupted the proceedings.

  Kiyana Nelson, 11, said, “Usually the spelling bee is really boring, but this year I loved it!”

  As Flynn Skaar, 12, was at the microphone, spelling what could have been his winning word, the piglet was let loose. He or she (bystanders were unsure) streaked through the assembly with students and faculty alike in hot pursuit.

  Louis Leary, 49, the school’s principal, was not pleased. “We at Camelot Elementary take spelling very seriously,” he said. “Whoever did this showed a lot of disrespect to the students in the competition, not to mention those of us who risked life and limb to chase the beast.”

  The piglet was eventually apprehended, but the perpetrator remains at large. The next day, a replay of the last word was given to the two finalists. When Skaar stumbled over viscera, Macintosh Avery, 9, took the crown. Beaming, he said, “I owe it all to my parents, my teachers, and my personal hero, Noah Webster.”

  This reporter would guess that none of the students will forget how to spell pig anytime soon!

  “Well, I should hope not,” said Ruth.

  “I see no culprit is mentioned,” said Mom. “Should I call Principal Leary? Tell him that it may well have been Billiam Flick?”

  I gave a nervous twitch.

  “I think we’re focusing on the wrong thing here!” said Dad. He pulled Flynn into a side-armed hug. Flynn squirmed away, probably because Dad was still sweaty. “We are in the presence of greatness! Flynn Skaar, second place in the spelling bee!”

  “Thanks, Uncle Jon.”

  “Spelling must not be genetic,” Dad mused. “Why, I could barely spell my own name when I was your age. Always put an h in there. What an accomplishment, Flynn! Are you thrilled?”

  “I should have won,” he said. “All I had left on fracas was the s, but I was rattled during the replay. Macintosh kept jangling his lucky charm bracelet, the one with the tooth of Noah Webster—”

  “Excuse me?” said Mom.

  “He bought it on eBay. Certified authentic.” Flynn shook his head. “It threw me off. I confused viscera with vicissitude.”

  “Still amazing,” said Dad. “We should celebrate! We’ll bake a Silver Medal Speller cake!”

  Ivan perked up at the word cake. “IVAN LICK BOWL!”

  “We don’t eat raw eggs, remember, not after Daddy read the latest from the CDC—”

  “IVAN LIKE RAW EGGS!”

  “Raw eggs make us sick, Ivy, remember? Sick at both ends?”

  “IVAN LIKE SICK!”

  “I’m in no mood to celebrate,” said Flynn. Without warning, he stood and left. His footsteps took the two flights to the attic.

  “Oh dear,” said Dad.

  “He’s taken it hard,” said Mom.

  “Soren and Ruth,” said Dad, “I hope you know that your mother and I are proud of you whether you get first place, or second place, or dead last place.”

  “Honey,” said Mom, “are you sure that’s the message you want to send?”

  THREE MINUTES AFTER I sat down at the computer, Ruth claimed she needed to do research for her social studies project. “This is what happened the last time I needed to use the computer!” I said.

  “And it’ll happen the next time too,” she said sweetly. “And the next, and the next, and the—”

  I stomped out. Not before pushing the power button, though. And a few hours later, while Dad was distracted with building Duplo towers for Ivan to demolish, I grabbed his laptop
and took it up to our closet. I wasn’t supposed to, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had to talk to someone. Someone who got me.

  “Alex?” Her face jumped onto the screen. “I have some things to tell you.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Okay. So.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s start with the last time we video-chatted….”

  I told her everything. I told her we’d hung up on her on purpose. I told her we’d pranked without her, and I told her all about the prank.

  “Now Ruth’s mad and Flynn’s mad and you’re probably mad too,” I said, “and it’s all my fault.”

  “What about the triplets?” she said. “Don’t they deserve some blame?”

  “They asked if Ruth would care about us using Jim Bob, and I said no. They didn’t know Flynn’s scared of him. And you—you’re my best friend. I’m the one who’s supposed to be watching out for you.”

  I squirmed, which was a mistake since I was sitting on a pile of toys. I got stabbed in the butt by a dump truck. “And here’s the worst part,” I said. “I wanted to make everyone mad. It wasn’t an accident.”

  That’s what I’d realized lying in bed last night. I’d looked at the dark contours of the furniture and listened to the slow sleeping breaths of my sister and brother and I’d finally stopped fooling myself. “I wanted to blow everything up,” I said.

  “But why?” said Alex. “That’s not why we prank.”

  “I don’t know. I guess it was easier to make things worse than to make them better.”

  “I’m not that mad at you.”

  “Even though we hung up on you?”

  “Well, that was annoying. Tell Tabitha she’s way too obvious. She needs to shake the screen more.”

  “And distort the audio. Mess with the volume button, maybe?”

  We both paused, lost in thought, and I could tell that’d be added to our list of Things to Practice.

  “But anyway,” said Alex, “I was talking to Sophia about the prank thing, and she said that if she moved and told me I could only do paper dolls when she visited, I’d think that was stupid.”