Here Comes Mr. Trouble

29

“What…what’s going on?”

Eric spun around. “Mom?”

His mother was standing near the boxes Vice Principal Rose had pulled her behind. She was swaying slightly, and having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

Eric ran over. “Here, sit down.” He lowered her onto one of the boxes then knelt beside her.

“Eric?” Her voice was full of sleep. “What are you…doing here? Where are we?”

“It’s okay, Mom. You’re fine now. I’m going to take you home.”

“Home?” She smiled. “I want to go home.”

Mr. Trouble walked over. “Sorry, Mrs. Morrison.”

Eric looked at him, confused. When he saw the injection gun in Mr. Trouble’s hand, he reached out to stop him, but was too late. The gun had already shot its contents into his mother’s arm.

“Ow,” she said, then swayed for a moment before falling into Eric’s arms, unconscious.

“Why did you do that?” Eric asked, staring up at Mr. Trouble.

“Do you really want to explain all of this to her?” Mr. Trouble asked.

“She already knows something’s happened.”

“Doubtful. Makers tend to keep abduction victims in a trance. Easier to control that way. We’ll take her home, put her in bed, and when she wakes up, it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

“Nothing ever happened? My father is going to wonder where she’s been.”

“Trust me,” Mr. Trouble said, smiling. “Okay, everyone, we should get out of here.”

Mr. Trouble lifted Eric’s mom in his arms, while Eric and the Trouble sisters picked up Maggie. Then, as a group, they headed back upstairs and out of the barn.

“You could have prepared me a little better,” Eric finally said, breaking his silence. “I didn’t know you meant it would actually be up to me to get rid of them.”

Mr. Trouble took several steps before he said anything. “Well, that’s not what I meant at all. What I meant was what you did there at the end, telling them to leave you alone and not come back. They had to hear that from you. It had to be said with strength and meaning.”

“You did that great, by the way,” Fiona said.

“Then what was all that other stuff about?” Eric asked. “The fire? The wind? The ashes?”

Mr. Trouble shook his head and shrugged. “That was something new.”

“Are you saying that no one’s touched a Maker before?”

“No. People have touched them. My own family.” He paused. “There’s something inside of us, given to us a long time ago. The males in the direct line of descent are immune to Maker mental attack. My sisters are resistant but not fully immune. Unfortunately, this immunity comes at a price. If Fiona or Keira were to touch a Maker, they would become very sick. If a male direct descendant, like me, were to do it, we would be the one to die, not them.”

Eric was silent for a moment. “Your father.”

Mr. Trouble nodded. “The thing is, we’ve done such a good job keeping a barrier between our clients and the Makers, none has ever touched one.”

“Until me.”

“Until you.” Mr. Trouble paused for a moment.

They walked the rest of the way to the car in silence.

Uncle Colin and Uncle Carl must have picked them up on one of the monitors, because they and Mother Trouble were soon out of the plane and heading to meet them.

“What if one of them touched a Maker?” Eric asked.

Mr. Trouble’s mother and uncles weren’t related by blood to the Trouble family.

“Nothing really. The Makers would feel like real people to them.”

“Solid?”

“Yeah. You’re actually the first person I know who’s gone through them. We didn’t know that was possible.”

Mother Trouble rushed up, her arms wide open. “Is it over? Please tell me it’s over.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Trouble said. “It’s over.”

She looked at the woman in her son’s arms. “Is this your mother, Eric?”

“Yes.

“You found her. Such wonderful news.” Though Eric was still helping to carry Maggie, Mother Trouble gave him a hug. “You done good.”

“He’s done better than good,” Fiona said.

Uncle Colin was all smiles, and even Uncle Carl’s usual scowl was gone.

Uncle Colin tousled Eric’s hair. “So? Another satisfied client then?”

Eric smiled. “Yeah. Definitely.”

“Oh,” Uncle Colin said, looking down at Maggie. “We should do something about that.” He looked at his brother. “Do you have another wake-up shot?”

“I think maybe we’ll just let her sleep,” Mr. Trouble said. “We’ll get her home, and her parents won’t even know she was gone.”

“If that’s what you prefer,” Uncle Colin said. “So, what happened? All of a sudden there was no one in the monitors and the radios weren’t working.”

“They were playing tricks with the frequency,” Mr. Trouble said.

“Wait until you hear what Eric did,” Fiona told him.

Uncle Colin’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Something we’ve never seen before.”

“What? What?”

“Later,” Mr. Trouble said. “Right now, I think we need to get these three home.”

“Ah, you can’t leave me hanging like that.”

“Sorry, we’ll tell you when we get back.”

As Mr. Trouble put Eric’s mom in the front seat, Fiona whispered to Uncle Colin, “He turned the Makers into ash.”

“What?”

“Time to go,” Mr. Trouble said. “Fiona, Keira, you’re with us. The rest of you get the Lady Candice ready. It’s time to go home.”

They stopped at Eric’s house first and carried his mom through the quiet house and into the bedroom, where they laid her down next to Eric’s snoring father. When they got to Maggie’s, all the bodies that had been lying around the yard when they’d left were gone.

“Where’d they go?” Eric asked.

“Wandered home, I would think,” Mr. Trouble said.

While Fiona and Keira combed the front lawn for any stray darts, Mr. Trouble carried Maggie into her room.

“You want us to drive you back to your place?” Mr. Trouble asked as they stepped back onto the front porch.

The eastern sky was starting to glow pink with the coming morning. “I can walk.”

“All right. Then I guess this is it. Fiona will call you with a follow-up in about a week. Standard stuff, nothing to worry about. But other than that…” He shrugged. “I guess it’s time to give you the bill.”

“Bill?” Eric asked, surprised.

Mr. Trouble smiled. “Kidding. We’re done.”

Eric took a breath, relieved. “So it’s over? My life will go back to normal?”

“What is normal, really?”

“Oh, please,” Fiona said. “Eric, everything will be fine now.”

“But remember,” Mr. Trouble said, “everyone always runs into a little bad luck now and then. And there are still jerks out there you’ll have to deal with.”

“I think I can handle them.”

Mr. Trouble gave him a knowing smile. “Yeah. I think you can.”

“Oh,” Keira said, looking quickly toward the house. “Our books.”

“That’s right,” Fiona said.

They ran back into the house and reappeared a few moments later with their book bags.

“Eric, you did great,” Fiona said. She held out her hand. “You could easily be nominated for best client ever.”

Eric shook. “Thanks.”

“Yeah. I was kind of impressed,” Keira said.

He shook her hand, too.

“If you want the car, it’ll be out at the abandoned farm,” Mr. Trouble said. “I’ll leave the keys under the seat. Oh, and there’s the truck, too. But that’s still over at the first camp.”

“I think I’ll be fine without them.”

“Your call.” He gave Eric a strong handshake. “Take care.”

“I will.”

Mr. Trouble and his sisters headed for the sedan. Halfway there, Keira stopped and turned back.

“I forgot. I have something for you.” She walked back, pulled out her copy of Noriko’s Revenge #11, and handed it to him.

“Seriously?” he said.

She smiled. “Yeah. I’ve read it five times already.”

“Thanks.”

Fiona had already taken the front passenger seat so Keira climbed into the back. Mr. Trouble was still outside, standing next to the open driver’s door.

“You still have the unicorn necklace, right?” he asked.

Eric laughed. “Yes.”

“Hold on to it. If anything comes up, and I seriously doubt anything will, you just give that a rub and one of us will get in contact with you.”

“Thanks.”

Mr. Trouble gave him a wave, then hesitated.

“And Eric.”

“Yeah?”

“Stay out of trouble.”