Here Comes Trouble

by Kate Hattemer

  “YOU’RE GOING TO prank with the triplets?” said Alex when we video-chatted after school. “Well, okay.”

  “ ‘Well, okay’ what? You’re the one who suggested them.”

  “True.”

  “And you should have seen them in science class. They’re funny.”

  “I know they’re funny. Remember their mystery video for Language Arts last year?”

  It had involved their golden retriever, a trampoline, a fedora, a trench coat, and at least four ketchup bottles’ worth of fake blood. Ruth and I still watched it on YouTube every few months. It was a modern classic.

  “They’re not epic pranksters like us,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. But they like to stir things up. Plus they live next door. They’re perfect.”

  “Perfect,” echoed Alex, but her voice was flat.

  “So what’s your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem.”

  “Fine.”

  We were quiet. She tugged one of her braids. Finally, she said, “Have you asked them yet?”

  “No. I wanted to run it by you first.”

  She perked up a bit. “Oh.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing. I guess—I don’t know. It’s weird for me to imagine you pranking with people who aren’t me.”

  “You’re the one who suggested it!”

  “I know. It’s just weird. That’s all I’m saying.” She shrugged. “But go for it. Ask them. They’d be good.”

  “And the two of us are going to prank when you visit, right?” I said.

  “If you even want to.”

  “Of course I want to!” She had no idea, I thought, how much I missed her. No idea how much her leaving had screwed up everything about this school year. “You’re the best person to prank with. I’d never even consider the triplets if you were around.”

  She smiled. One of those post-tears smiles, shaky and hopeful. I peered at the screen, but the sucky Internet plus her glasses made it impossible to tell if she’d actually cried.

  “How’s Ol’ Butt-Braid?” I said.

  “Her name is Sophia, Soren. Sophia.”

  She’d always be Ol’ Butt-Braid to me.

  “She came over after school last Friday.”

  “What’d you guys do?” I said.

  Alex flushed and started fiddling with her glasses. “Um, we watched some stuff online, and then my mom let us make trail mix, and then, um, we just sat around.” She wiggled the frame of her glasses so her nose got battered from side to side.

  “Why are you messing with your glasses?”

  She ripped her hand away from her face. “I’m not.”

  “You were.” I was grinning broadly now. I’d caught her. “Looks like someone’s telling a lie.”

  “I was adjusting them.”

  “You were straight-up playing with them. That’s your tell. Fess up. What’d you really do with Bu—Sophia?”

  Alex slumped. “Rats. I’m out of practice. Er, we…”

  I saw her hand sneak up to the side of her face.

  “Don’t even think about lying.”

  “Um. Wemadepaperdolls.”

  Had I heard what I thought I’d heard? “Say that slower.”

  “We. Made. Paper. Dolls.”

  I stared at her in both horror and glee. She shook her head. “I know. I know.”

  “You go from a life of crime to a life of making paper dolls?”

  “Sophia really likes them. She’s good at them too. She taught me this trick for making the clothes stay on—and you know what, Soren? It was fun. It was actually fun. I’m not even embarrassed. It was fun.”

  * * *

  —

  THE TRIPLETS COMPLAIN all the time about how they’re allowed online only on weekends. Their parents are the strictest in the class. Dad and Ivan were outside, harvesting (curses) even more zucchini, and Flynn and Ruth were sprawled out on the living room floor with Settlers of Catan. I had an opportunity. I grabbed the landline.

  The last time I’d touched it was when Alex and I had recorded the outgoing message to say, “Greetings! You’ve reached Slinky Sally’s, the Best Snake Vet in the Midwest!” Then we posted fake advertisements on a lot of reptile-enthusiast message boards. My parents got so many random voice mails.

  I couldn’t believe Alex had a new friend.

  Now I was the one who felt weird. I wanted to be in Minneapolis, cutting out mini blue jeans and ball gowns. Making up characters and voices and plots. And I didn’t want Ol’ Butt-Braid around either.

  I shoved away those thoughts and dialed the phone. It rang four times. “Hello?” said a male voice.

  “Um, hi. This is Soren Skaar. May I speak to the triplets, please?”

  “Which one?” said the person at the other end, who sounded too young to be their dad.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  The other end laughed. “They do have separate personalities, you know.”

  “Right. Yeah.”

  “So which one do you want?”

  “Uh, all three? Do they do conference calls?”

  He snorted. “For a fee, probably. Hold on.” I heard a clank and a muffled shout: “HEY, DOOFAE, YOU’VE GOT A PHONE CALL!” With a rustle, he was back.

  “They’re on their way. Do you go to their school?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool. Listen. Do you have any dirt on them?”

  “Dirt?”

  “You know. Stuff I’d find useful.”

  “Useful?”

  “I’m Ethan. Their big brother. Home for a visit. Look, those girls have been tormenting me for eleven years, three months, and seventeen days.”

  “You did that math quick.”

  “They announce their age every morning at breakfast. You know how they are. Imagine what it was like to live in the same house as them. Outnumbered, outsmarted, outmaneuvered.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks, man,” he said, sounding touched. “So—they’re coming—quick—a little blackmail fodder?”

  I scrolled through my memory. The triplets were constantly causing trouble, stirring the pot, but they stayed under the radar. The teachers thought they were angels, mostly because they were blond and round-faced and girls. “Just say the words Noodle Incident,” I said. “They never got caught for that one. They’ll flip.”

  “You’re my hero. Here they are. Shh. Nice chatting.”

  “What were you chatting about?” I heard one of the girls say suspiciously.

  “Oh, nothing,” Ethan said airily. “Here’s Soren.”

  “Soren? Soren Skaar? He called? On the phone?”

  “Quaint, no?”

  A pause.

  “Hi,” said a voice into the receiver. “It’s Tabitha. What do you want?”

  “I want to collaborate,” I said.

  WHEN FLYNN HAD first arrived, he and Ruth had stuck together on the walk to the bus stop, mostly talking Settlers of Catan strategy. I’d trail behind, partly because I’m never in a hurry to get to school and partly because there’s something about know-it-all-ness that turns my stomach in the morning, and Flynn, frankly, is a know-it-all when it comes to Catan.

  Walking alone had given me a lot of time to think about how it used to be. There’d been three kids then, too, a pair and a spare, but back then it was Alex and me together with Ruth trailing behind, since we never let her in on our pranks. It had been a depressing walk this year. It was when I missed Alex the most.

  But lately, ever since the chicken coop, all three of us walked together. And ever since the triplets and I had started planning a prank together, they’d wait on their porch until we came by. So we were this huge pack, throwing pinecones and rating Halloween decoration
s and practicing our cock-a-doo-argh-ack-eck-eh-ing. It was different. I liked being part of a pack. It was fun.

  Even if Flynn was still a know-it-all.

  On the day of the class spelling bee, he was crabby. “No reason,” he said when I asked why he wasn’t laughing at Olivia’s spot-on Principal Leary impression.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you in a bad mood?”

  “It’s not all about you, Soren.”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  “I’m just crabby, okay? It happens. My mom says it runs in the family. Artists are moody, she says. It’s the way we are.”

  I went up ahead with the triplets and Ruth.

  At the spelling bee, I nailed apologize and had a lucky guess on the number of c’s in recommend, but then I stuck an e in the middle of orchard. I wasn’t upset. My only goal was not to be the first one out.

  Flynn was still in. And he was still in when it was down to three, and still in when Tabitha misspelled scepter. (She “accidentally” kicked an empty chair on her way back to her seat, just like me at dinner that one time.) He was still in when Kiyana messed up pandemonium, and he spelled it right to win.

  “Our champion!” said Mr. Pickett. “Congratulations!”

  Everyone clapped the way you’re supposed to clap in class, a.k.a. quietly so it doesn’t go through the walls and make other classes jealous that you’re having fun, but I whooped. “That’s a Skaar!” I yelled. “That’s my boy!” Soup and Jéro and Freddy laughed.

  “Indeed,” said Mr. Pickett, frowning at me. He put the alphabet crown on Flynn’s head. “Flynn will be our representative to the school bee next month, and we’ll all be rooting for him!”

  I whooped again. Finally, Flynn cracked a smile.

  * * *

  —

  AT RECESS, I had a job: scoping out whether it was possible to sneak into the gym during recess. The triplets and I were getting ready for P-Day. That’s Prank Day, of course, but the P also stands for something else, because the only way to talk your way inside from recess is to convince Mrs. Andersen that you have to twirl some chocolate soft-serve onto the big white cone. If you know what I mean.

  I staggered over to her. “I need to use the bathroom,” I said.

  “You can’t wait?”

  I tried to look strained. “It’s an emergency.”

  Mrs. Andersen tilted her head to the side.

  “It’s just, egg sandwiches at lunch, and after last night’s burrito—”

  She winced. “Go. Go.”

  I lurched into the school. As soon as I was out of view, I started walking normally, but fast, to the gym. There was an all-school assembly next Thursday. It’d be after lunch—they always were—so if the triplets and I could infiltrate the gym during recess…

  Would it be locked?

  I tried the doors.

  Nope.

  Bingo.

  I peeked in, expecting to see nothing but a shiny sweep of floor. But Flynn was sitting on the stage. His legs were hanging off, and his ankles looked all bony and knobbly, poking out from the bottom of his skinny jeans. He wasn’t on his phone or reading or doing last-minute homework or anything.

  “Hey,” I called. The sound echoed in the big empty room.

  Flynn looked up. “Hey.”

  “Why aren’t you out at recess?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You won the spelling bee.”

  “Yep.”

  “I didn’t know you were that good at spelling.”

  “Guess I am.”

  “Winning didn’t cheer you up?”

  “Guess not.”

  Weird. If I’d won—well, that would never happen. Not in the real world. So yeah, if I’d won, I’d have been extremely cheerful, because it would have meant I’d slipped down a wormhole to an alternate universe, which is a major dream of mine.

  “You were right about the triplets,” I said. “We’re planning something good.”

  “I don’t even want to know.”

  Just as well. If he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell. “Won’t you come outside?” I said. “Jéro’s trying to get a soccer game going. We need you.”

  “Don’t feel like it.”

  “Are you homesick?”

  “I just want to be alone.”

  “Momsick?”

  “Bye, Soren.”

  “Oh.” I stood there sort of awkwardly. I watched the laces dangle off his one untied shoe as he swung his feet against the stage. “You have a lot of friends here,” I tried. “Everyone likes you. Goldie and Kiyana and those girls, and Jeremiah, and all the teachers—”

  “Do you know what alone means?”

  Fine. If he wanted to sit in the gym, missing the best part of the day, probably about to get in trouble for skipping, well, I’d let him. If he was uncheerupable, I wouldn’t try. “Your shoe’s untied,” I told him, and I left.

  IT WAS P-DAY. My secret alarm went off before the sun rose. I stumbled out of bed, pulled on a sweatshirt while Ruth and Ivan snoozed, and tiptoed down to the garage.

  The triplets were already there, with their identical squashed noses and wispy hair and bleary, early-morning eyes. “Hey,” said Olivia.

  “No time for politeness,” said Lila, swishing a legal pad through the air. “We’re here for a reason.”

  “Oh, stick it up your ear, Lila,” said Tabitha, who is not a morning person.

  “I don’t know about you,” said Lila, glaring at her, “but I am trying to make sure this plan goes smoothly.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure nobody else wants that….”

  Lila licked the end of her pencil. “I’m taking the high road,” she said. “I can’t hear you down there. Let’s run through the checklist. Backpacks?”

  “Check,” we all said.

  With a totally unnecessary flourish, she made a check mark. “Duct tape?”

  “Check.”

  “Thirty-seven alarm clocks, each set to 12:37 p.m.?”

  We’d had to raise money for this prank: two lemonade stands and a weekend spent raking leaves for old Mrs. Olson. Then we’d gone to Goodwill and Salvation Army and three garage sales and bought up all the alarm clocks that blasted out BRRRING! Now they were synced to the second in the corner of the garage.

  “Check.”

  “Load ’em,” said Lila with satisfaction.

  Our backpacks were chunky and jangling with clocks. We were ready.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS KIND of embarrassing to claim a number-two-related emergency during recess for the second week in a row. I didn’t want Mrs. Andersen to think I had particularly high-maintenance intestines. Actually, I didn’t want Mrs. Andersen thinking about my intestines at all. But I sacrificed my dignity, described breakfast (Raisin Bran) and lunch (three-bean chili), and got permission to hobble inside the building.

  The triplets were waiting for me at our lockers. “How did you all get in at once?” I said as I retrieved my clock-filled backpack. “Did you all say you had to—”

  “Ew!” squealed Olivia. “No!”

  “They let us move as a unit,” said Tabitha, shrugging. “It’s a triplet thing.”

  We headed to the gym. “Walk with purpose,” I told them. “Like a teacher sent you on an errand.” That was another thing Alex and I used to practice. We’d stride down the second-floor hallway in her house….

  I felt a pang. She should have been here.

  The gym was empty. Folding chairs were already set up for the assembly. “Go, go, go,” muttered Lila. We scattered across the floor. With a strip of duct tape, I attached the first alarm clock to the underside of a chair. When I stood, it was invisible. I laughed aloud. Somebody’d be in for a b
ig surprise when their butt started ringing at 12:37 p.m.

  We stashed twenty clocks in the audience and tucked ten on the windowsills. Two we put in the ball closet; two we camouflaged near the scoreboard timer; two we tangled in the soccer nets. Olivia, holding the final clock, hesitated. “I know we planned to put it in the lectern,” she whispered urgently, “but what if Principal Leary sees it before 12:37?”

  “Stop thinking!” hissed Lila. “Start acting!”

  “Won’t he be suspicious?”

  “Just put it somewhere!”

  Olivia shoved it under a chair in our sixth-grade section. I lunged in with a strip of duct tape.

  Our work was done.

  * * *

  —

  BECAUSE OF THE all-school assembly after recess, we hadn’t had video announcements that morning during homeroom. The gambling crowd all groaned when Principal Leary took the stage: his necktie had normal, boring gray-and-blue stripes. “The house won today,” said Jéro as he did the calculations. “Nobody expects normal. Not from Principal Leary.”

  Supposedly, the reason for the assembly was to celebrate our first-quarter achievements. Leary started by giving straight-A certificates to every single kindergartner. It went on from there, with smaller and smaller percentages from every grade. They said that was because school got harder, but had anyone asked, What if actually we were getting dumber? What if school was backfiring?

  Maybe there was an experiment you could do to figure it out.

  Oh no. Was I Thinking Like a Scientist? I hate it when teachers get into my head.

  I’d gotten a B in Language Arts because I’d started my book report at ten p.m. the night before it was due and a C+ in math because fractions, so I clapped while Flynn, Jéro, all three triplets, Goldie, Kiyana, and a few other people accepted certificates of merit. “And now,” said Principal Leary, “I have several reminders about how to conduct yourselves within these hallowed halls.”

  That was the real reason we had these assemblies: so Principal Leary could lecture us about rules. He likes a captive audience. That’s probably why he’s a principal.

  It was 12:23. Fourteen minutes to go. “In fact,” Leary said happily, “I made a slide show.”