Mr. Trouble glanced at Eric, then at the clock, then at Eric again. “Oh. Oh. Oh. Your parents.”
“Yes, our parents,” Eric said. Well, one of his, anyway.
“Then I guess we should hurry things along.”
“Definitely.” Eric grabbed Maggie’s arm and pulled her up. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. One more thing,” Mr. Trouble said.
Eric stepped toward the door. “You can tell us in the car.”
“I have to do it here. The package I gave you this afternoon?”
“What about it?”
“Inside you will find a useful general-information pamphlet. I suggest you read it.”
“Sure, sure. Now can we go?”
“You will also find three small metal discs like this.” Mr. Trouble opened a drawer on his desk and pulled out a thin black disk no larger than a quarter. He showed it to Eric. “These will help us keep track of you. Place one in your bag, one in your pocket, and leave one at home as a spare.”
Eric hesitated. “Really? Tracking?” Now that was cool. “I promise I’ll check it out as soon as I get home.”
“And one last thing,” Mr. Trouble said, still not getting up.
Eric threw his arms in the air. “I thought we already did the one last thing.”
“You’ll also find a necklace in the box.”
He paused. “A necklace?”
Mr. Trouble sighed. “We also have key chains, but someone forgot to pack them, so you’re stuck with the necklace. If you’re in real trouble, rub the charm at least three times. It’ll activate an emergency beacon and we’ll immediately come to wherever you are.”
Eric narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “What kind of charm?”
Mr. Trouble forced a smile. “A…uh…unicorn.”
“A what?”
Maggie started laughing.
“There’s one more thing you need to know,” Mr. Trouble said.
“Seriously. You can’t keep saying ‘one more thing.’”
“When the time comes, it’ll all be up to you.”
“What’s that supposed to—”
Mr. Trouble jumped up from his chair. “All right. Who’s up for a ride home?”
As they climbed down the ladder to the ground outside, they found Uncle Colin and Uncle Carl standing nervously at the bottom, waiting.
“Hello, my boy, hello,” Uncle Colin said. His smile was a bit more nervous than before and his eyes kept darting to Mr. Trouble. “Ronan, a moment of your time?”
“Not now, Uncle Colin,” Mr. Trouble said. “We’re running a little behind schedule.”
He, Eric, and Maggie headed toward the sedan. A second later, Uncle Colin and Uncle Carl caught up to them.
“I think you’ll want to hear this,” Uncle Colin said, breathing heavily. “We have preliminary results on the data.”
“Okay. So?” Mr. Trouble said.
Uncle Colin hesitated. “First, it’s confirmed. He is a candidate.”
“Okay, but we already expected that.”
“Yes, we did.” Uncle Colin paused. “We also did a surface level scan.”
“And?”
“Uh, well, so far everything points toward this being an…MA813.”
Mr. Trouble stopped in his tracks and spun around. The uncles hadn’t expected this and halted just short of running into him.
“Are you sure?” Mr. Trouble said. He switched his gaze from Uncle Colin to Uncle Carl. “Is that confirmed?”
Uncle Carl tried to speak, stopped, took a deep breath, then tried to speak again. “Trace and thermal…both…show…same…results.”
“What about hair?” Mr. Trouble asked.
“We thought the possibility was remote so we didn’t take a sample,” Uncle Colin said. He took a step toward Eric. “We could do that now.”
Eric edged backward.
Uncle Carl reached out and put a hand on his brother. “Hair analysis won’t tell us for sure, either. The only real way to know is a deep scan.”
“That’s true, that’s true,” Uncle Colin agreed, his head bobbing up and down.
“We can have him in and out in twenty minutes,” Uncle Carl said.
“No way,” Eric said. “We can’t stay another twenty minutes.”
“He’s right,” Mr. Trouble agreed. “There’s not enough time now. Run your tests again to double-check your numbers. We’ll set up a scan for later.”
“Of course, of course,” Uncle Colin said. He tried to smile. “Eric, friend of Eric, it was a pleasure to meet you.”
Maggie said, “My name is—”
“Let’s go!” Mr. Trouble announced, cutting her off.
He grabbed Eric and Maggie by the arms and ushered them quickly to the sedan.
Much to Eric’s surprise, they pulled up in front of his house by 9:01.
“Home as promised,” Mr. Trouble said.
“Thanks.” Eric reached for the door but hesitated opening it. “You don’t think those other guys are still around, do you?”
“Who?”
“You know, the ones we ran from in front of Maggie’s house.”
“First of all, we didn’t run from anyone. It was just easier to have a conversation somewhere they were not. And no, they won’t still be around. That would be very, very unusual.”
Eric felt there was something Mr. Trouble wasn’t telling him. Well, there were probably a ton of things Mr. Trouble wasn’t telling him, but his mind was so full of everything that had happened that evening that he didn’t even know what to ask. He opened his door.
“I’ll walk from here,” Maggie said, also opening her door.
As Eric started to climb out, Mr. Trouble touched him on the arm.
“Quick question,” Mr. Trouble said in a whisper. “The phone-book incident? Do you still have the page you tore out?”
It took Eric a second to figure out what he meant, then he nodded. “Yeah. It’s in my bag.”
“Could I possibly get that from you?”
“Right now?”
“Now would be good. We may forget later.”
Eric pulled the page out of his bag and handed it to Mr. Trouble.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Mr. Trouble folded it and put it in his shirt pocket. “Now, I don’t want you worrying about anything. Soon your Maker problems will be all gone.”
Eric stopped as he was about to shut his door. “Maker problems? What do you mean?”
“What?”
“You said Maker problems?”
“I’m sure I didn’t.”
“I’m sure you did. What’s a Maker?”
Mr. Trouble shrugged his shoulders. “That’s an excellent question. Okay, you have a nice—”
“You did say it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“Did what?” Mr. Trouble asked.
“Say it.”
Mr. Trouble laughed. “Oh, you are a funny one, Eric. Have a good night.” He leaned over, pulled the door closed and took off.
“What was that all about?” Maggie asked.
“I have no idea.” They stood there silently for another few seconds, then Eric said, “Thanks for coming with me.”
“Somebody has to watch out for you. Now, I suggest you forget about everything that happened tonight. Whoever these people are, they’re crazy. I don’t trust them.”
He nodded but said nothing.
“I’m completely serious,” she told him.
“I know you are.” He paused. “You want me to walk you home? Peter might still be around.”
She rolled her eyes. “Peter has never bothered me. I’ll be fine.” She took a few steps then turned back. “And don’t worry. I’ll finish our report before I go to sleep.”
“Oh, Maggie. The report. I’m sorry. I’ll—”
“Don’t say anything. It’s fine.”
As she walked off, he knew it wasn’t really fine but what was he going to do?