Here Comes Trouble

by Kate Hattemer

  “Soren!” said Dad, wiping droplets from his face.

  “Gross!” said Ruth, rubbing her eyes.

  “BLECH!” said Ivan in imitation, spitting out a glob of Coke and drool.

  I sprinted to the sink and stuck my mouth under the faucet.

  “Want me to brew you a full cup?” said Flynn.

  “That tasted like pig pee!”

  “Manners!” said Dad.

  “How do you know what pig pee tastes like?” said Ruth.

  “Disastrous game of truth-or-dare—let’s not get into it. Flynn, you drink that?”

  “I think it’s good.”

  But for the first time since he’d arrived, he sounded hesitant.

  “It’s dead-on pig pee,” I said. “Come out to Jim Bob’s pen and I’ll prove it.”

  “Unacceptable,” said Dad. “Soren, apologize to your guest.”

  “Sorry, Flynn,” I said, “but it’s got that tang, you know?”

  “To your room, young man!” said Dad.

  “I don’t have a room anymore,” I reminded him.

  “Soren Ebenezer Skaar. Immediately.”

  I whirled around and left.

  “Please excuse us, Flynn,” I heard Dad say as I stomped up the stairs. “Soren needs to work on his manners.”

  “I listen to an etiquette podcast I could recommend to him,” Flynn said. “Maybe it would help.”

  “COCK-A-DOO-ARGH-ACK-ECK-EH!”

  I was released from solitary confinement just as Martha, our rooster, decided it was dawn.

  “COCK-A-DOO-ARGH-ACK-ECK-EH!”

  He starts out with your standard crow, but then he switches to a terrifying hacking noise. It’s like he’s puking. Or dying. “Good afternoon, Martha,” I called, giving the coop a wide berth.

  He snarled at me. His wives pecked at invisible bugs. When he was a chick, he looked like our most adoring great-aunt, all fluffy-haired and wrinkly-ankled, so we named him Martha. Then he turned out to be a scrawny old rooster and she stopped being so adoring. Oops.

  I dug around in the garage and found the old soccer ball I use for shooting on the woodpile. I shot—thwop—and the ball bounded back. The woodpile’s almost as good as a friend. Alex and I used to spend a lot of time out here on the driveway, kicking around and plotting our next prank.

  Thwop.

  It had been sunny earlier, but now clouds were blowing in. Ruth came outside. “Where’s Flynn?” I said.

  “Taking a nap.”

  “Voluntarily?”

  “He said he wants to be rested for the first day of school tomorrow.”

  “Oh. Weird.”

  I passed to her. She did a nice trap and passed back. “Will you tell me?” she said. “Please?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “I’ll keep it a secret. I promise.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Tomorrow’s the first day of school, Soren.” She gave me a significant look. “The first day of school.”

  “Do you have to rub it in?”

  “Just tell me what you’re planning! I’m old enough now. I won’t spill to Mom and Dad.”

  I hit my pass too hard. It went wide, and I had to jog to the chicken coop to get it. When I came back, I said, “Nothing.”

  “Come on, Soren. What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. I told you. Nothing.”

  “But you always have an epic prank for the first day of school!”

  “Well, not this year.”

  It had been a tradition, the epic welcome-back prank. Alex and I used to spend all summer planning. We’d had our share of failures (when the thousand live crickets we’d bought online had escaped in her bedroom a week early), but people still talked about our successes (when the trophies for the Kick-Off Kickball Game had been found mysteriously encased in Jell-O).

  But now that she’d moved three hundred miles south…

  “I might have retired from pranking,” I told Ruth.

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “I saw what you put in the saltshaker last week.”

  “That wasn’t a prank. That was a modest joke. How am I supposed to pull off an epic prank without Alex?”

  “I could help,” she said.

  “You’re only nine.”

  “You pulled off Tapegate when you were nine!”

  I smiled despite myself. We’d replaced all the toilet paper at school with rolls of duct tape. “Everyone got stranded,” I said reminiscently.

  “Not Connor Carraway,” said Ruth. “He wiped.”

  The sky had gone a yellowish gray, and we heard a clap of thunder. “Kids!” Dad yelled out the window. “Tarp the chicken coop before it rains, would you?”

  Ruth and I groaned. Our coop’s sort of ramshackle. It doesn’t have a real roof, just a wire grate. You probably think throwing a tarp doesn’t sound too bad, but that’s because you haven’t met Martha.

  The thunder clapped again, a lot louder. “Don’t dilly-dally!” yelled Dad.

  Ruth shot me a dark look. “Let’s get this over with.”

  We got the tarp from the garage. The chickens, sensing the coming rain, had huddled on the roosts and in the nesting boxes, but Martha was eyeing us. “COCK-A-DOO-ARGH-ACK-ECK-EH!” he screeched.

  “He saw the tarp,” said Ruth.

  I felt a drop of rain on my cheek. As bad as it is to tarp the coop, it’s worse to clean it once it’s gotten wet. The bedding gets all mildewy, and the chicken poop liquefies and makes paste with the dirt. “Hurry,” I said.

  We stretched the tarp between us. It was really raining now, drops hitting the packed dirt so hard they spattered up on the rebound.

  “Ready?”

  We approached the coop. This is the part that’s terrifying. Martha hates being tarped. So when he sees it coming, he hurls himself against the wire walls of the coop.

  And yeah, the walls are going to hold. (Probably.) But if a twenty-pound rooster with ferocious claws and a pointy beak and a high-decibel crow is hurling himself at you, you’re going to want to fling yourself out of danger.

  The part of your brain that’s evolved for survival doesn’t think much of chicken wire, is what I’m saying.

  “One,” we chanted. “Two. Three—”

  Martha attacked just as the tarp was sailing toward the coop. Ruth dove to the ground. The tarp got all wadded up. “Sorry,” she said.

  “I was about to go down myself,” I admitted.

  “It’s a simple task, kids!” yelled Dad. “Just get it done!”

  “I’d like to see Dad face down Martha,” I grumbled. Our parents don’t believe us about how mean he is.

  “One,” said Ruth after we’d gotten into position. “Two. Three—”

  “AHHH!” I launched myself to the ground. I couldn’t help it. He’d flown right at me.

  “Think about chicken fingers,” said Ruth, who looked as pale and shaken as I felt.

  “How did we end up with a rooster who’s claustrophobic and a psychopath?” I said.

  “We dominate you, Martha!” Ruth shouted into the coop. “We have your kind for dinner!”

  “One. Two. Three!”

  We threw the tarp. It landed. We could hear Martha freaking out inside—flapping his wings, pitching himself against the walls, and cock-a-doodle-vomiting while his poor wives clucked—but we were safe. “Come on,” said Ruth. We ran through the pouring rain to the house.

  “WHAT A NIGHT!” said Dad over dubious-looking plates of eggplant, couscous, and something stringy and orange. The storm was wailing outside. We had the lights on in the kitchen. Every so often the rain was interrupted by the roar of thunder, the snap of branches, and the distant, haunted screeches of Martha. “We’ve got a lot to celebrate!”
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  “A lot to mourn,” Ruth corrected him. “School starts tomorrow.”

  “Yes, school starts tomorrow!” said Dad in exactly the opposite tone. “And this morning, Ivan went to music group and didn’t hit anyone with his tambourine!”

  “DID!” Ivan insisted.

  “Well, only me.”

  “Progress,” said Mom, patting Ivan on the head. “Good boy.”

  “But most importantly,” said Dad, “we’re welcoming our dear nephew and cousin to Camelot!” He raised his glass. “To Flynn’s year studying ‘abroad’!”

  “And to my gracious hosts!” said Flynn. They clinked glasses. “This reminds me.”

  He stood.

  “I just started playing the banjo.” He whipped it out from under his chair.

  “Very cool!” said Dad.

  “And as a small gesture of appreciation to you—you’re so generous, taking me into the bosom of your family—”

  I gagged. The combination of eggplant and the word bosom was just too much. Flynn waited till I was done coughing.

  “—I wrote you a song on the plane. It’s to the tune of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem.’ I’m a huge fan of using religious songs for more inclusive purposes.” He strummed a chord. “May I?”

  “Of course, Flynn!” said Mom. “We’re honored!”

  Another chord, and he began.

  “O tiny town of Camelot,

  Thy fields have lured me in.

  This city mouse has found a house

  With country mice, his kin!

  I’m already enchanted

  By rustic, homespun charm.

  My city grit, my jaded wit,

  Are sweetened on thy farm.”

  “We don’t live on a farm,” said Ruth.

  “Shush,” said Dad.

  “O peewee town of Camelot,

  Where all is sky and tree,

  No subway trains mar these great plains,

  There’s nothing to do but be.

  How quaint the prairie seemeth,

  When I think of whence I roam,

  Yet earthy scents and dirt-cheap rents

  Make this my home, sweet home!”

  He strummed one final chord and looked up eagerly. “What do you think?”

  * * *

  —

  IF I WERE starting at a new school, I’d be nervous. So after dinner, after Dad told Flynn to skip the dishes, after Ruth and I did the dishes, after we got into a splash fight over the dishes, after we got yelled at for getting water on the floor, after we mopped, I went to his room. Which, until yesterday, had been my room. Now I was sharing with Ruth and Ivan.

  I did a double take when I walked in the door. “You rearranged the furniture,” I said.

  “Do you like it?”

  “It’s different.”

  “Thank you.”

  I didn’t really mean it as a compliment, just a comment. He’d put the bed at a diagonal, and the room seemed off-kilter. It reminded me of these Mondrian paintings we’d learned about in art. They’re white with lines and blocks, but they aren’t symmetrical at all, and though I’m not a neat freak—kind of the opposite, actually—it bothers me.

  Flynn was arranging mason jars on the windowsill. “I like to keep these filled with seasonal plants,” he told me. “Lilies in the summer, goldenrod in the fall, et cetera.”

  “I guess that’s goldenrod?”

  “Your dad took me out to pick it after dinner. You don’t know the plants in your own garden?”

  Flowers have petals. Weeds are ugly. Don’t step in poison ivy. That’s about the extent of my plant knowledge. “Why are you doing all this decorating, anyway?”

  “I’m very sensitive to my surroundings. My mom says so.”

  I plopped down on the diagonal bed. “This angle would make me seasick.”

  “Good thing I’m sleeping here, not you.”

  It was weird hearing that about my room, but I guessed I’d get used to it. I’d have to. “Listen, about tomorrow,” I said. “We’re in the same class, so stick with me. I’ll introduce you to all the teachers.”

  “I can introduce myself.”

  “Sure, but they teach fifth grade too, so I know them really well already.”

  “In Brooklyn, we start middle school in sixth grade.”

  “Well,” I said, kind of annoyed at his interruptions, “Camelot’s not big enough for a middle school. So we have K to six and seven to twelve. Any other questions?” He shook his head. “Okay. Teachers. Ms. Madigan is math. If you raise your hand for the bathroom, she acts all disappointed, so what you’ve got to do is make a thoughtful comment and then ask to go. Ms. Hutchins is science, and she’s super intense about lab safety, so I know it’ll be tempting, but if we do anything with acid, do not pretend to drink—”

  “I’m good with teachers,” said Flynn. “Adults like me.”

  “Still, I wouldn’t suggest fake-chugging acid in front of Ms. H.”

  “I’ve been going to school in New York. I think I’ll be able to handle it here.”

  “But you don’t even know where the cafeteria is!” I wasn’t halfway through the fundamentals of survival at Camelot Elementary School. “You don’t know where detention is!”

  “I’m not planning to get detention.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I always say too,” I said grimly. “You don’t even know which teachers give detention. Or which stall doesn’t flush, or which water fountain tastes like blood. You don’t know what we do at recess!”

  “You have recess?”

  “You don’t?”

  “It’s considered passé.”

  I didn’t need to ask him what passé meant. If he’d let me finish my teacher intros, he’d have known our Language Arts teacher was obsessed with context clues. “I’d quit school if we didn’t have recess,” I said. “We play pickup soccer. Do you play soccer?”

  “I’m on a club team. Well, I was on a club team. At home.”

  “Really?” I said, excited. “That’s perfect! I’ll draft you for my side.”

  He had to be good, if he played club. Maybe really good. And Billiam Flick wouldn’t know how good, and my team would win. And Flynn and I could play on the driveway every day after school, and sometimes maybe we’d get Mom or Dad to take us down to the high school so we could shoot on a real goal. He could show me tricks he’d learned from club, and I could show him tricks I’d learned from YouTube, and I’d have someone to play with all the time. Someone who weighed more than fifty-four pounds, unlike my sister. Someone whose idea of “defense” wasn’t smearing the ball with deer poop, unlike my brother.

  Someone who lived in Camelot. Unlike Alex.

  This school year wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

  “It’s still light out,” I said. “Let’s go kick around on the driveway!”

  “I don’t know,” said Flynn. “I’m tired. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, um,” he said, twiddling a goldenrod stalk, “what are the other kids in our class like?”

  “Normal. Well, mostly normal. Some of them. Sometimes.”

  He twiddled more. Finally, he said, “Do you think I’ll have friends?”

  “You’ll have me.”

  “Is that it?”

  “There haven’t been any new kids since the Andrezejczak triplets came in first grade. Everyone’s going to be very, very interested in you.”

  I wouldn’t have guessed he was the shy, retiring type, not after what he’d done to that Christmas carol, but he looked terrified.

  “Soren!” Mom yelled. “The shower’s unoccupied! Now’s your chance!”

  “What if I don’t need to shower?”

  “Not an option!�
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  “But I don’t smell!”

  I could hear Mom laughing from two floors away. Flynn followed me to the door. “The bus ride tomorrow morning—can I sit with you?”

  Maybe he was nervous. Or maybe he just wanted to sing me a song. We three kids of Camelot are / On the bus we travel afar. “Sure,” I said. “You can even have the window if you want. Full disclosure, though: I get carsick on the aisle.”

  CAMELOT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is a big redbrick building. It has round towers at each corner, and it looks like a castle, except with a playground instead of a moat.

  Flynn’s banjo case knocked against the seats as we walked off the bus. I hitched up my backpack and gave my hair a quick rub. Mom likes to lick her palm and smooth it down before I leave the house, and this morning I hadn’t dodged quickly enough.

  “Move faster,” Ruth grumbled from behind us. “Some of us have friends we want to see.”

  I took a deep breath and stepped into the playground, which was already teeming. Ruth shot off.

  “Where are your friends?” said Flynn.

  “Um,” I said, “I’m looking.”

  There was Ruth’s pack of fourth-grade girls, already playing double Dutch. There were the cool kids, who all wear the same socks. There were the tetherballers and the monkey-barrers and the climb-the-firepolers and the fun-sized replicas of human beings known as kindergartners.

  But where was—

  Oh.

  Ever since kindergarten, I’d gotten off the bus and looked for Alex. I guess I was so used to it that I’d…I’d forgotten.

  “Come on,” I said to Flynn. Over by the flagpole, I saw guys from my grade: Jéronimo Luna and Freddy Firkins and Marsupial Jones. We play recess soccer together. I go to their birthday parties, and they come to mine.

  They’re fine.

  They aren’t Alex.

  But they’re fine.

  They were in a tight bunch, examining something in Freddy’s palm. I joined them. Flynn hung back. “What’s in there?” I said.

  “Mexican jumping beans!” said Freddy. “My uncle gave them to me!”

  I craned in. Six brown beans were sitting on his palm. I opened my mouth to ask what was so special about them, and then one of them jumped. It jumped half an inch, right before our eyes.