Here Comes Trouble

by Kate Hattemer

It was weird how Mugshot, which was so warm the windows steamed up, could feel so cold. I wanted to leave. Being around Flynn made me feel guilty and sad and mad all at once, and I guess being around me didn’t make him feel too great either, because he didn’t even bother raising a stink about the bug thing. We went with the first idea we had. We’d get two specimens—pill bugs, maybe—and raise them differently, and see if one did better. Done.

  “How are we going to raise them differently?” I said.

  “Different diets, maybe. Something like that. We can get full points for the initial idea even if we don’t have all the details hammered out.” Flynn was the kind of guy who knew where his points came from, so I wasn’t about to argue. “Where are we going to get the experimental subjects?” he said.

  “You mean the bugs?”

  Jo Ann was sweeping around our chairs. “You need bugs? We’ve got bugs.”

  “Really?” I said. “What kind?”

  “Silverfish, millipedes, stinkbugs. All in the kitchen, free for the taking. And Don caught a couple cockroaches this morning. They’re still under a glass. He hasn’t gotten around to squishing them.”

  “Can we have them?” I asked.

  “I don’t see why not, hon.”

  “You really want to experiment on cockroaches?” Flynn whispered urgently.

  “Cockroaches are amazing creatures,” I told him. “They’re the only animals on earth who’d survive a nuclear holocaust.”

  “But they’re…cockroaches.”

  “You do the data and graphs and writing. You do the board. And I’ll take care of the experimental subjects.”

  “Actually,” Flynn said, “that could work.”

  * * *

  —

  THE WHOLE RIDE home, I watched the cockroaches crawl around their jar, up and down and over each other. I already felt fond of them. They were amazing creatures. They were trapped in a jar with only a few holes for fresh air, but they didn’t get depressed or bored. They kept on exploring. “Since they’re experimental subjects, we should probably go with simple names,” I told Flynn and Mom.

  “What about A and B?” said Flynn.

  “I’m thinking Cah and Croach.”

  “Don’t expect me to remember their names.”

  “Cah’s the one with the longer antennae.”

  “I don’t believe in naming cockroaches.”

  “If you were a cockroach, I bet you’d want a name.”

  “What a great idea to make you two partners,” said Mom. “I’m going to email that Ms. Hutchins and tell her so.”

  “Don’t,” Flynn and I said at the same time.

  Mom just laughed.

  THE NEXT FRIDAY, Mr. Pickett and Ms. Hutchins combined their class time so the whole sixth grade could watch Hoot. I love team-teaching days. Ms. Hutchins gives all these super-specific instructions about SILENTLY collecting a mat and SILENTLY crossing the hall and SILENTLY, CLASS, AND I MEAN SILENTLY finding our place in Mr. Pickett’s room so we can start the movie WITH NOT A SECOND WASTED, CLASS, WE DON’T HAVE A SECOND TO WASTE; but sorry, Ms. Hutchins, if you cram fifty sixth graders and two non-scary teachers into one classroom—on a Friday!—it’s going to get messy.

  I reclined on my mat. Hubbub hummed around me. Ms. Hutchins and Mr. Pickett were in a frustrated huddle, trying to figure out which cable to plug in where. We had assigned places in alphabetical order, so I was next to Flynn.

  “Let’s talk about the experiment,” he said, brandishing his science notebook, “since we’re stuck together.”

  Ouch.

  “We need to be very careful to choose just one independent variable,” he said. We’d been learning about that. It’s the thing you change, so, like, what kind of liquid in the Coke-versus-water experiment. You try to keep everything else the same so that you know why the results are the way they are. “How about having two different habitats? At first I was thinking two diets, but we might not see any difference, since cockroaches can survive on practically anything, right?”

  “They can go without food for a month,” I said. I knew a lot about bugs, mostly because I’ve always kind of wanted to be a bug.

  “What if we split a fish tank into two parts, and fill one side with fertilized soil and the other with gravel?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’d hypothesize that the roach in the dirt will do better, but I’m happy to incorporate your thoughts, if you have any.”

  “Nope.”

  Irritated, he snatched away his notebook and started scribbling on a page labeled Materials.

  “Can Cah be the one in the rich soil?” I asked.

  “I think it should be double-blind.”

  “I’m obviously going to be able to tell the difference between them.”

  “Or at least randomly assigned.”

  “Well, randomly assign Cah to the soil, okay?”

  Croach was cool, but Cah was my man. The way he wiggled his antennae when I gave him a chunk of old pizza—it was like he was thanking me.

  “Maybe we should try to teach cockroaches sign language,” I said.

  “That’s not a science-fair-style experiment,” said Flynn.

  “What if I’m thinking bigger than science fair?”

  He ignored me. Ms. Hutchins and Mr. Pickett were red and flustered, wielding cables and barking out the occasional “Quiet, please!” I bet lots of people in the room could have figured it out, but teachers never admit their oldness and ask for help.

  Flynn was lost in his notebook. We weren’t supposed to leave our spots, but I decided I’d risk going over to the soccer guys. They’d borrowed a desk from one of Mr. Pickett’s students so they could play paper-clip badminton, a game Jéro invented a few years ago. I’d never played much—Alex and I had mostly hung out alone—but I’d always thought it was fun.

  “I’ve got winner,” Freddy told me, “but you’re next.”

  “Match point,” said Jéro. Soup served the little bouncy ball onto the desk. Jéro, his regulation 28-mm untwisted paper clip held between thumb and index finger, returned it. They rallied back and forth a few times. Tension grew. Then Soup hit a zinger that rebounded off the corner of the desk. It seemed destined for the floor—but Jéro flung himself to the side and nabbed the ball with his clip.

  “Ha!” he grunted.

  But he hadn’t gotten much wire behind it, and his soft lob floated over to Soup’s side. Soup slammed it back. Jéro was still recovering from his violent dive, so Soup got the point, and the match.

  Freddy and Soup spun clips to see who’d serve first. “What’s Flynn doing with that notebook?” Jéro asked, wincing as he massaged his ribs.

  “Science fair. I hate this project.”

  “Dude, tell me about it,” he said. “I got put with Lila Andrezejczak.”

  “I’m the one who should be complaining,” said Lila. The triplets, as they often did, had popped up out of nowhere. “All you do is veto my ideas.”

  “Your ideas are stupid!”

  “Just because you don’t want to do psychology—”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to test what kind of music makes people subconsciously want to obey your orders, and I think it’s creepy you do, actually—”

  “It’s not creepy!” said Lila.

  “It’s a little creepy,” said Olivia.

  “But very useful,” said Tabitha.

  “Got him!” crowed Soup, waving his victorious paper clip in the air.

  “Soup-de-dupe! Nice!” I high-fived him.

  Freddy sprawled dramatically onto the floor. “I’m over life.”

  “I’m going to take you down, Soup,” I said.

  Suddenly, there was a burst of music from the speakers. “It works!” cried Mr. Pickett.

  “We did it!” said Ms. Hutchin
s.

  They high-fived with both hands.

  “Sixth grade! Quiet, please! The movie’s about to start! Soren Skaar, why are you out of your assigned spot, and why are you holding an untwisted paper clip?”

  “You could take someone’s eye out!” whispered Tabitha in an uncanny imitation of Ms. Hutchins.

  Trying not to laugh, I skittered back to my seat.

  FLYNN AND I each had to write our own research report. The rest of the project we divided right down the middle, just as we’d agreed. He drew a diagram of the fish tank while I built a wall between the two habitats. I found Miracle-Gro in Dad’s garden supplies and Flynn read the instructions on how to properly fertilize Cah’s soil.

  “Done,” he said as I dumped the gravel into Crouch’s side of the fish tank. “Put them in.”

  “These habitats are kind of bare.”

  “What do you want to add? Paintings? A coffee table?”

  “I don’t know. Something.” I petted Cah’s head with the tip of my pinkie finger. He scampered away.

  “Armchairs? Houseplants?”

  I knew he was making fun of me. “I just think they might appreciate a sun rock. A few shrubs.”

  “As long as it’s the same between the two,” Flynn said wearily. “It has to be controlled.”

  It was thanks to me that they got varied diets, too. If Flynn had his way, they’d have been eating bread and water every day, like in a dungeon.

  “You may be experimental subjects,” I told them, “but I still respect you. I’ll treat you right.”

  Flynn eyed everything I did. “Did you weigh that?” he asked when he saw me feeding them melon for dessert.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you log it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’d you give them for dinner?”

  “One Frosted Mini-Wheat each and three cubes of cat kibble.”

  “Did you weigh—”

  “Yes.”

  He checked, though. He flipped through the marbled composition book we kept by the fish tank.

  I still hadn’t told him I’d retired, and I felt like I had to try.

  “Just to tell you,” I said, “I’m not trying to sabotage this experiment.”

  He hmmed.

  “In fact, I’ve retired from pranking.”

  “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘too little, too late’?” said Flynn. “Do you know what that means?”

  “I’m not dumb.”

  “Maybe you should have retired before you embarrassed me in front of the whole school.”

  “Nobody cares that you lost the spelling bee!”

  “I panicked when Jim Bob ran at me,” he said levelly. He shook his bangs off his face to look me straight in the eyes. “I shrieked.”

  “Everyone shrieked! Nobody remembers your shriek in particular!”

  He shrugged. “I remember. I’m just saying, Soren, claiming you’ve retired isn’t going to fix everything.”

  * * *

  —

  I VIDEO-CHATTED ALEX as soon as I was allowed on the computer again. She picked up. “Because why?” she said, as if we’d lost Internet connection for two seconds, not two weeks. “Why can’t you prank with me in December? Do you know how hard it was for me to get my mom to promise we’d come? It’s science-fair day, Soren. I looked at the school calendar. Think about the possibilities—our best one yet—”

  “I’m retiring from pranking.”

  She opened her mouth like a goldfish looking for food.

  “I’m taking a solid break, anyway. Pranks are not good for me right now.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You decide to retire right before I visit. I see.”

  “It has nothing to do with that!”

  “You prank with the triplets, but I’m visiting and suddenly you’re done? How convenient.”

  I wasn’t used to Alex dumping her sarcasm acid on me. “Alex—no—”

  “I knew you didn’t want to prank with me. Even last time, you had to pull in the triplets. Are we even best friends anymore?”

  “I’m retiring from pranking, not from being your best friend.”

  “Those are the same thing!”

  “No, they’re not!”

  “But pranking’s all we did together!”

  That wasn’t true. What about our secret code? What about all the hours we’d spent kicking on the woodpile, or digging tiger traps in the woods? What about our don’t-blush, don’t-babble practice sessions? And okay, so maybe a lot of that stuff related to pranks, but that was almost a coincidence. Pranking was just the language we spoke together. We could have had anything in common—soccer, or science, or, I guess, yeah, paper dolls—and we’d still have been friends.

  I liked Alex because she was Alex. Not because she pranked.

  But why did she like me?

  “You don’t even want me to be your best friend,” I said. “You’ve got Ol’ Butt-Braid.”

  “Sophia.”

  “I’ll call her whatever I want.”

  Alex crossed her arms. “Fine. Sophia’s my new best friend. So what? Do you even care?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  I moved to x out of the chat window, but she beat me to it. Her face swooshed away.

  Retirement wasn’t going to fix everything. It might not fix anything, I thought. It might make things worse.

  * * *

  —

  THE WEDNESDAY OF Thanksgiving week, Ms. Hutchins gave up with half the period left and told us that she was going to her in-laws for the weekend and if she wasted one single iota of patience on us she wasn’t going to be able to handle them and to please, for the love of God, give her thirty short minutes to forget that she had voluntarily chosen to spend her professional life with eleven-year-olds. Then she collapsed into the beanbag chair at the back of the room. Goldie and Kiyana brought her a cold washcloth for her forehead. “Do what you want, class,” she called. “Just keep it to a dull roar.”

  Jéro and Soup and Freddy were already shoving desks into competition formation. Paper-clip badminton hadn’t been big since third grade, but the games we’d played before watching Hoot had sparked a revival. I went over. “Can I play?”

  “Yes!” said Freddy. He sounded so enthusiastic it was kind of exciting. What with Flynn loathing me, and Alex hanging up on me, and Ruth making my life harder whenever she remembered, I hadn’t heard a lot of “Yes!” lately.

  Soup beat Jéro while I narrowly edged out Freddy. “You know what?” I said as we swapped seats. “We have almost half an hour till Language Arts. We should organize a class tournament.”

  “Great idea!” said Freddy. He whipped out a sheet of paper. “Round robin or single elimination?”

  “Probably elimination, to save time,” said Soup.

  “But then all the people who haven’t played before are going to get out really fast,” said Jéro.

  “Isn’t that the point?” said Soup. “One of the four of us will win.”

  “Let’s have two brackets,” I said. “Amateur and advanced.”

  “Genius,” said Jéro. We bent over the paper to seed the brackets. “It’s fun having you around, Soren,” he added. “You have good ideas.”

  My neck got all hot. “I’ve always been around.”

  “It’s different this year,” said Jéro.

  Freddy squinted at his list of the kids in our class. “Who’s missing?” he said.

  Alex, I thought, quick as a reflex. I glanced around. I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly I got a zoomed-out look at the classroom, like I was God or a TV camera or something. I saw the triplets reading a big book about mythology on the floor behind the begonia. I saw Ms. Hutchins conked out on the beanbag, and I saw the piece of tissue stuck to her upper lip flutt
er every time she exhaled. I saw Flynn doing Language Arts extra credit with Kiyana and Tori, like any of them needed it. And I saw myself, too. I saw where I was and who I was with, and I saw the things I’d messed up and the things I’d gotten right.

  Jéro wasn’t wrong. This year was different.

  “I should obviously be top seed,” said Soup.

  “Ha!” scoffed Freddy. “I just destroyed you! Nine to one!”

  “Only because my paper clip was messed up!”

  “Soren should be top seed,” said Jéro. “He’s got that evil slam move.”

  It was weird, missing Alex and also being glad she was gone. Those were two feelings that seemed like Harry and Voldemort: one cannot live while the other survives. But there they were, lodged in my rib cage.

  “Let’s flip a coin,” I said. “All four of us are good.”

  WHEN WE GOT home from school, Thanksgiving preparations were in full swing. Mom had taken the afternoon off to do a last-minute grocery run over the border. It’s a Skaar Thanksgiving tradition to, once we’re totally stuffed with turkey and pie, top it off with these delicious Canadian chocolates called Coffee Crisps, and we have to go to Fort Frances to get them.

  “While Mom’s gone,” Dad announced, “we’re all going to work on a holiday centerpiece for the table!”

  “Maybe I’ll go to the grocery with her,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Dad extended a bowl of oranges and a tin of cloves. “I could sure use someone to clove these oranges!”

  I inched away. My thumb still had a dent from the last time Dad tricked me into cloving oranges.

  “Or,” he said, “you could help Ivan finger-paint autumnal foliage on our Thanksgiving banner!”

  A lot of people think Dad’s a pretty smart guy, but sometimes all the evidence points otherwise.

  “Yeah, I’m definitely going to the grocery.”

  “Grab your passport and let’s hit the road,” said Mom. “It’s going to snow.”

  The border’s only a few minutes away, and Mom does Zumba with the guard, so we got into Canada fast. We found a parking spot and trundled through flurries into the store. It was packed, even though Canada had their Thanksgiving back in October. Mom had me push the cart—“If I bump into someone they’ll get mad, but if you do they’ll see you’re just a kid”—and she darted around and tossed in food. “Thanks for coming,” she said once we were finally in line to pay.