A World of Trouble (6 page)

Annika heads for a stone fountain shaped like a globe. At the top, a silver
K
and
A
rotate slowly, sending water streaming down the round sculpture. A turbo golf cart is parked next to the fountain. She hops in the cart and nods to the passenger seat. I climb in. Clear plastic straps slide around my waist and chest and tighten instantly, locking me in place a millisecond before the vehicle jolts forward.

We drive to a section of campus I've never seen before. Several buildings are scattered among small hills and valleys. A narrow gravel path weaves between the trunks of towering evergreen trees. When we slow down, I see that the buildings are actually rustic log cabins with modern accents, like stainless steel porches and motion-sensor doors. I recognize a few of my classmates walking, talking, and laughing. In a large central clearing, four Troublemakers throw a football around.

It's just like summer camp. Only it's winter. And one high-tech cabin could fit two of my family's houses.

“We like to give students as much freedom as possible as soon as possible.” Annika returns waves and smiles to a trio of passing
Troublemakers. “So whoever successfully passes the first semester moves here the second semester.”

“Did everyone in my class pass?” I ask.

The golf cart jerks to a stop.

“Almost,” Annika says.

Before I can wonder who didn't make the cut, she hops out. I hurry after her. We head for a two-story log cabin with a large front yard, a tree-lined walkway, and not one but two stainless steel balconies. It's by far the biggest, fanciest house on the farm, so must belong to a teacher or some other adult in charge.

But then Annika jogs up the front steps. Reaches for the door. Says, “Welcome home, Seamus.”

And is swallowed whole by a burning black cloud.

DEMERITS: 200

GOLD STARS: 40

A
nnika!”

I drop my bags. Charge up the steps. Clamp one hand over my mouth and nose and thrust my free arm into the darkness. My throat burns. My skin itches and aches at the same time. Tears spill from my eyes, but I won't close them. I can't. I've done some pretty questionable stuff the past few months, but abandoning Annika now, letting her go up in flames . . . That would be no different from killing her myself.

I open my mouth to yell her name again, but the heat's too
intense. I start choking. My lungs tighten. My chest pulsates. I drop to my knees, hoping for clearer air, but it's just as dark by the floor. I crawl and squint, trying to see something, anything through the blackness.

It's no use. It's too hot. Too dark. I can hear crackling, so the fire must be nearby, but I can't see it. And now my throat's closing, my eyelids are drooping . . .

Annika!

Her name shoots through my head as my body sinks to the floor. My arms and legs hold out the longest, letting my chest hit last. When it does, the pain's so great, I picture my heart melting, oozing through my ribs, dripping to the floor, forming a purple molten puddle.

That's the last thing I see.

Until I see Lemon.

His face is softened by a gray haze, but I can still make out his fuzzy eyebrows and shaggy brown hair. The downward slope of his eyes. The cluster of pimples at the tip of his nose. A silver mask over his mouth.

“Breathe,” he says.

I shake my head.

“Do it. Now.”

“I can't.”

He reaches forward. His fist shoots toward my head and his fingers pop open, like he's going to give my face a high five. I close my eyes and brace for impact. . . . But it doesn't come. There's only a slight pinch as Lemon grabs my mask, tugs it away from my mouth, and gently releases it.

“Okay,” I say. “I'm breathing.”

He jumps to his feet and disappears. Sitting up, I inhale, exhale, and take in my surroundings. A silver oxygen canister sits on the floor next to me; it's connected to my face mask by a thin, clear tube. A coatrack stands next to the canister. A table holding a blackened fruit bouquet and a digital
WELCOME, TROUBLEMAKERS!
card stands next to that. Across the foyer, an open doorway leads to a living room. Through the lingering gray smoke I see overstuffed couches and chairs. A floor-to-ceiling flat-screen TV. A pinball machine and foosball table.

“Where did you get those?”

My head snaps to the left. The front door's open. A figure stands there. It's lighter outside than it is inside, so I can't tell whose it is.

“Seamus, you shouldn't have!” A second, smaller figure appears. It scoots around the first.

“Gabby?” I ask. “Is that you?”

A pair of blue eyes near mine. They open until lash meets brow, and hold. I want to slide back, but the stare's intensity locks me in place.

“It's you,” I say.

“And
that
is an amazing belated Christmas present,” she says, still staring. “You're so sweet to try it out for me! It's always such a bummer when you've been dreaming about something for, like, ever, and then when you finally get it it's broken or needs batteries or something. This one time—”

“Ten thousand credits.”

The blue eyes blink. Instantly freed, I scramble to my feet. Once upright I see that the first figure belongs to Abe.

And that my reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall is wearing the Kilter Knight-Vision Goggles.

“I got five hundred demerits for making Annika cry,” Abe continues. “That wouldn't buy half a lens.”

Annika. I've been so distracted about my own near-death experience I forgot about hers. Ignoring Abe, I dart down the
hall. I'm slowed by the oxygen tank I'm still connected to, so I yank the mask from my mouth and over my head. The mask's elastic strap catches on the goggles. They slide off—and drop into Lemon's hands.

“Sorry,” he says. “I know you were pretty attached.”

I look at him. The feeling leaves my face. “Did she . . . ? She didn't . . . ?”

Lemon's two eyebrows become one as he tries to fill in the blanks. A second later his forehead relaxes and they part again. He shuffles past Abe and Gabby and stands in the front doorway. Knowing Lemon well enough to know this is his way of telling me something without actually telling me something, I follow. Together, we watch Annika sprint across the main field, spin, and catch a football thrown by one of our classmates. She spikes the ball and curtsies as the gathered crowd cheers.

“I guess she's okay,” I say.

“Of course she is. I was talking about these.” He holds the goggles toward me. “I grabbed them because I thought the bump under your coat was your K-Pak, and I didn't want you to sound the alarm before I had a chance to get the situation under control. I didn't expect you to scream instead.”

Remembering the searing pain I felt only moments earlier, which was apparently caused not by fire but by fire starter tearing duct tape from skin, I take the goggles.

“Um, hello?” Abe asks. “Can we please get back to more important matters?”

Lemon's eyes slowly roll up and to the left, meeting mine. I smile. We both turn around, and seeing neither smoke nor flames, I close the door.

“Such as, Abraham?”

Abe's neck juts forward. His head drops to one side. His gaze and both pointer fingers shoot toward the goggles still in my hands. “Ten.
Thousand.
Credits. Even if Gabby had a red braid and no friends, Hinkle still wouldn't have blown that much bank on her. Because no one in our class has that kind of coin—or at least, they shouldn't.”

One of several responses would be appropriate right now. Like the fact that I didn't buy the goggles. And that the red-braided girl he's referring to does have friends, although his point is pointless since that's all she and I are. And that he has no idea how many credits I've earned. And that even if I did buy the goggles, for Elinor, with my own Kilter currency, it's really none of his business.

Unfortunately, not one of these responses makes it from my head to my mouth. Fortunately, Lemon answers on my behalf.

“Two things.” He leans back against the door, slides his hands into his jeans pockets. “First, it's way too early to start power-tripping. And second, Houdini probably gave Seamus the goggles on his mission, for his mission.”

“Three things,” Abe retorts. “First, this isn't about me. It's about playing fair. Second, the so-called real-world combat missions were like normal assignments done at home. All I got from Wyatt for completing mine was a box of watercolors. And third, Seamus is a big boy. He can speak for himself.”

Abe looks at me. Lemon looks at the floor. Gabby, apparently convinced that no matter what, the goggles aren't for her, picks up her suitcase and heads down the hall.

I didn't do it.

Suddenly this is the most tempting response. Abe's been suspicious of me from my very first day at Kilter, which came several weeks after everyone else's, and that feeling was multiplied by millions when Mom announced my crime on Parents' Day. He seemed to come around a bit after the Ultimate Troublemaking Task, when we all worked—and succeeded—together, but his
reservations clearly run deep. If I tell him the truth, that it was all a big misunderstanding because I didn't actually kill Miss Parsippany, so I can't be the supertalented Troublemaker every Kilter faculty and staff member thinks I am, maybe he'll back off. Maybe we can even be friends.

“Help!”

I'm so focused I don't know if Gabby actually cries out or if I'm still suffering from an acute case of damsel-in-distress savior syndrome.

“Somebody?
Anybody?
”

I glance at Lemon. “You put out the fire, right?”

His lips settle into a straight line as he steps, then sprints, down the hall. Abe and I follow close behind. We find Gabby in the kitchen. She faces a long wall of stainless steel cabinets, her back to us.

“Where is it?” Lemon asks.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Are you kidding?” Abe asks.

Gabby groans. Her body rocks back and forth. A quick scan of the room shows it's free of flames, and besides the stuff spewing from the open suitcase on the kitchen table, nothing seems out of place.

And then a thought occurs to me. Our class is divided into six groups by troublemaking talent. I'm in the Sniper Squad. Lemon's in the Fire Starters. Abe's in Les Artistes. Gabby's in the Biohazards, which uses both real and fake bodily functions to startle unsuspecting targets. Is this some kind of trick? To give her a head start while the rest of us waste time arguing?

If it is, she's just warming up. Because she raises her shoulders sharply, lets them drop, and spins around with a sigh before one of us gets too close to spook.

“It's broken,” she announces.

“What is?” Lemon asks.

“This drawer. And this drawer and this drawer and this drawer.” She taps the glistening silver counter as she walks alongside it. “None of them open.”

Abe strides across the room. He grabs the handle of the first drawer with one hand and pulls. When it doesn't give, he takes the handles with both hands and tries again. The third time he plants his feet before the bottom cabinet and leans back until his arms straighten and his body stands at a forty-five-degree angle.

“Yup.” He pulls himself up, releases the handle. “Broken.”

“Maybe they're locked,” I offer.

“There are no keyholes,” Lemon says, investigating.

“Maybe they're computer-controlled,” I say. “Or voice-operated.”

Lemon steps back. Lowers his head. Thinks. Several seconds later he reaches into his sweatshirt pocket and returns to the drawer. He crouches down and bends forward. His torso blocks my view, but I know what he's doing as soon as I hear the soft, familiar click . . . of his lighter.

“Know what?” Gabby says. “It's okay. I'm sure Kilter has a fabulous handyman. I'll just shoot him an e-mail.”

Lemon doesn't say anything. He doesn't move, either. Soon thin, gray wisps appear. They float toward the ceiling.

“Dude,” Abe says. “Melting the thing isn't going to—”

There's a sharp pop, like a firecracker going off. Gabby cries out. Abe bolts for the kitchen door. I leap up and lunge for the sink. Lemon steps back. The gray wisps floating before him thicken, darken to black. Red flames shoot up from the drawer. Before I can figure out what just happened—or how to work the faucet—ice-cold water sprays down from the ceiling. I smile, relieved that our somewhat faulty state-of-the-art house is equipped with a perfectly functioning sprinkler system. . . . But then I realize the liquid doesn't
look like water. It's not clear. It's not white, either, like the foam from a fire extinguisher. It's pink. Blue. Yellow. Purple. Green. It smells funny too. Kind of like Mrs. Lubbard's bathroom. And rather than put out the fire, it makes it grow.