Trouble Magnet Read online

  May be you know the feeling of how junk it is when summer ends. The good times are over. You start thinking about school, homework. Getting up early again.

  And there's nothing you can do about it.

  But I say, forget that. Get out there and squeeze the last drop of fun out of summer.

  Which is why I was down at the beach with my friends Julio Reyes and Maya Medeiros. We were watching a kiteboarder zip over the ocean. I couldn't believe how fast he was going. “Ho, man, look at that guy go!”

  Julio whistled. “Like a rocket.”

  The hot sun sparkled on the blue-green bay. The kiteboarder topped a small wave and let his kite pull him high into the sky. He did a flip and came back down. Perfect.

  “Holy moley,” I whispered.

  All three of us lived a couple blocks from the beach on the same dead-end street, in a town called Kailua, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Across from our small one-story houses, patches of jungle blocked our neighborhood from a fancy golf course. High above the jungle, green mountains sat under hats of white clouds.

  Julio elbowed me. “That guy's a famous kiteboarder.”

  “No joke? What's his name?”

  Julio pinched his chin. “I forget. Something.”

  Maya laughed. She was cool, and really good at sports. Better than me and Julio. She had a skateboard and a brown belt in tae kwon do. She was born somewhere in China. The Medeiros family adopted her.

  We were sitting on a sandy rise under a stand of ironwood trees just above the beach. It was a breezy Thursday morning, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

  The kiteboarder swung around and raced toward shore. When he got as close as he could before hitting sand, he slowed and sank to his knees. His kite settled down onto the water like a small parachute. He stepped out of his wakeboard and pulled his kite in, then spread it out on the sand.

  “Hey,” he said. “You kids mind watching my gear? I need to run over to the pavilion.”

  “Sure!” I sprang to my feet.

  “Thanks. Be right back.”

  The guy dropped his wakeboard, harness, and control bar and headed up over the rise.

  The wakeboard was black with red stripes. It had foot grips and looked new. Nice. I glanced over my shoulder to see if the guy was coming back. Nope. I waggled my eyebrows at Julio and Maya. “Watch this.”

  I stepped into the foot straps. “Bring on the wind!”

  “You better get off that, Calvin,” Maya said.

  I picked up the control bar, which was attached by cables to the kite spread out on the beach. “Yee-hah!” I gave the cables a flip. The kite caught a puff of wind, rose a foot, and settled back down. Ho, man, this was so cool!

  I grinned at Maya and Julio.

  Just then a strong gust whooshed down the beach and caught the kite. The kite blossomed and snapped up off the sand.

  “Calvin!” Maya pointed.

  I was still grinning at them when the wind grabbed the kite and whoomped it out like a sail. It shot down the beach, ripping the control bar right out of my hands.

  “Grab it!” Julio shouted.

  I leaped off the wakeboard and stumbled after it, Maya yelling, “Get it! Get it! It's flying away!”

  The control bar bounced along the sand, just out of reach. It skipped out over the water, came back over the sand, and skipped out again. I dove for it and landed on my belly. But I managed to grab the bar and hang on.

  The wind was strong! I couldn't slow the escaping kite. It dragged me over the shallow water on my stomach. It fishtailed me up onto the sand, then back into the water again.

  “Calvin!” Maya shouted, racing down the beach with Julio.

  I bounced and banged over the water, swallowing salty gulps of ocean.

  “Calvin! Let go!” Julio called. “You'll drown!”

  But I would never let go.

  A quarter mile down the beach the wind finally let up. The kite sank onto the sand. I sank into the water, gripping the control bar with white knuckles.

  Julio grabbed the kite. Maya waded into the waves. “You all right?”

  I staggered up, coughing.

  Maya grinned when she saw that I was okay. Just soaked, bruised, scratched, and covered with sand. “You look like you fell into a cement mixer.”

  “Uh-oh.” Julio nodded toward the pavilion.

  The kiteboard guy was racing toward us, shouting, “Hey! What's going on?”

  He ran up, breathing hard.

  “The wind grabbed your kite, mister.” I handed him the control bar. “We, uh … we saved it.”

  The guy looked at me, then at Julio with the kite bunched and overflowing in his arms. “I must have been careless. Hey, thanks for running it down for me.”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  He laughed. “No problem? You look like roadkill.”

  He gathered up his equipment and started back up the beach.

  “Hey!” I called.

  The guy stopped and turned back.

  “Are you a famous kiteboarder?”

  “Pshh. I wish.”

  I frowned at Julio. “You idiot.”

  Julio shrugged.

  Maya pointed at my arms and chest. “Yikes! Blood.”

  I looked down. Cuts and scratches ran across me like spiderwebs. “Cool.”

  Maya stared at me. “I think you might be the idiot, Calvin.”

  “And I think you're prob'ly right.” I grinned.

  Julio slapped my back. “You sure know how to end summer with a bang, bro.”

  I rinsed off at the beach park pavilion. Sand was caked in my hair, my ears, my underwear, and the pockets of my shorts. I squeezed the water out of my T-shirt and threw it over my shoulder.

  “Hey, Cal,” Maya said. “Are you supposed to meet your mom here?”

  “No,” I said, checking the scratches on my arms and chest. They stung, but not too bad.

  “Well, look.” Maya pointed with her chin.

  Just down the way, Mom and my six-year-old sister, Darci, were spreading a blanket out on the grass. Weird, I thought. Mom hardly ever comes to the beach. She's always working.

  We headed over. Mom saw us and waved.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Mom gasped when she saw my cuts and scratches. “Cal! What happened?”

  “He went kiteboarding,” Julio said.

  Mom gaped.

  “He just went in the ocean, Mrs. Coconut,” Maya said.

  Mom looked at me and sighed. “Well, anyway, I was hoping to find you here, Cal. I have something special to tell you and Darci.”

  “What is it?”

  Mom glanced at Maya and Julio. “It's kind of a surprise.”

  I winced. Mom's surprises could be good. Or not.

  Julio sat, always ready for a good surprise. Maya knew better. “Let's go, Julio. I think this is private.”

  “Oh … sure.” Julio sprang up. They left. I sat down next to Darci. “What's up, Darce?”

  She shrugged.

  Mom smiled. A big smile. A big fake smile.

  Uh-oh.

  She clapped her hands together. “Guess what, kids? Someone is coming to live with us, someone you're going to love. Isn't that great? Her name is Stella. She's fifteen.”

  I blinked. What?

  Darci brightened. “You mean I'll have a sister?”

  “Yes, Darci, she'll be just like a big sister. Stella's mom and I were best friends in high school.”

  Sand must have found its way into my brain, because it wasn't working. Did someone say big sister?

  “She's coming from Texas,” Mom added.

  “But why?” Darci asked. “Doesn't she have a house?”

  “Of course she has a house, sweetie
. Her mom just … well, her mom thinks she needs to get away for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “Well,” Mom said, then stopped to think. “Sometimes teenage girls and their moms need a break from each other. It will be good for Stella to live here.”

  “Big sister?” I finally said.

  Mom snapped on that fake smile again. “It's so exciting, Cal. She's arriving Saturday.”

  My thoughts swirled like water going down a drain.

  “I know it's kind of sudden,” Mom added.

  Kind of? Then I thought, Hmmm. Maybe this could be a good thing. “Are you going to make her the man of the house instead of me?”

  Mom laughed.

  I'd been man of the house since my now-famous dad, Little Johnny Coconut, hit it big with a song called “A Little Bit of La-la-la-love” and left the islands for the bright lights of Las Vegas. He never came back. That was four years ago. I was five.

  Being man of the house meant responsibility. I wasn't so good with that.

  “No,” Mom said. “You'll still be the man of the house.”

  “A girl can't be the man,” Darci said.

  I frowned. Too bad. The man of the house had to do too much stuff. And do it right, too. Mom was always saying, “Why can't you pay attention? Be more responsible, Calvin, for heaven's sake?”

  She was right. I was a goof-up. Sometimes a big one. I couldn't help it. Trouble zoomed up to me like a paper clip to a magnet. Look what had just happened with the guy's kite.

  Or take yesterday, when Mom got all over me because I forgot to drag the garbage can out to the street. Now we had to wait a whole week for the next pickup. By then the garage will smell like dead fish.

  I grumbled, “What's man of the house mean, anyway?”

  “I know,” Darci said. “It means you can grow a mustache.”

  “For real?” A mustache would be cool.

  Mom chuckled. “That's something you don't have to worry about just yet, Cal.”

  Dang. “Do you think she'll laugh at our name, Mom?”

  “She already knows.”

  “That's good.”

  Coconut was my dad's idea. He made it up. For a famous singer, Little Johnny Coconut sounded way more interesting than Little Johnny Novio, which was our real last name. Dad was so pleased with himself, he made the name legal. Now we were all Coconuts.

  Mom leaned back and let the sun warm her face. “This is going to be a terrific year, kids. Stella's coming to live with us; Macy's is moving me up in the jewelry department; Darci, you'll be a first grader; and Calvin, wow— you're going into fourth grade.”

  I stroked my upper lip. Should I grow a pencil mustache? Or one of those walrus ones?

  “Will Stella go to school?” Darci asked.

  “Tenth grade,” Mom said. “She'll babysit, too.”

  My mustache dream popped. “Babysit?”

  Mom patted my knee. Another bad sign. “Let's give her a big welcome when she gets here, okay?”

  Darci clapped and nodded.

  Mom looked me in the eye … with that fake smile … and with her hand still on my knee.

  “What?”

  “There's one more thing. Um … honey … we're going to give Stella your room and move you out to the storage room in the garage.”

  “What!”

  “A teenage girl needs her privacy.”

  “But Mom, the storage room is full of bugs!”

  “Ledward will help you clean it out.”

  “But …”

  My thoughts tumbled like wild surf. I didn't mind bugs that much, but sleep in the storage room? That was crazy.

  Mom shook my knee and winked. “I want you to fix the lock on your bedroom door so Stella doesn't get stuck in there like you always do. Then you can start cleaning out the storage room.”

  My head felt like a firecracker had just gone off in there. “Mom, can I go live at Julio's house?”

  “You're going to love Stella, Cal. You'll see.”

  Back home, I put dry clothes on and went out to look at the storage room. I inched open the door. I poked my head in. Dark. Dusty.

  You gotta be kidding. Prob'ly I should just run away from home. It smelled like damp cardboard.

  Boxes of junk cluttered the floor, and spiderwebs connected everything like Halloween decorations. When I turned on the light, six roaches raced for cover and a monster centipede slithered past my bare foot.

  “Yahh!” This one was as long as a rat's tail!

  It stopped. I could tell it was glaring at me, like it was saying, You want trouble? Come on, I'll give you trouble. Those things could sting like a wasp. But for some reason I liked centipedes. All those creepy legs.

  I spotted an old peanut butter jar and grabbed it.

  “Hey,” I whispered to the centipede. “Don't attack, okay?” I got down on one knee. Carefully, I scooped the centipede into the jar and capped it. “Gotcha!”

  It squirmed in the jar. I held it up. “Don't worry, I won't kill you.” I could never do that. But Mom could. “If we're going to be roommates I sure don't want you running loose.”

  I nearly leaped out of my skin when someone tapped my shoulder. “Jeese, Julio! You scared me.”

  “What you doing in here?”

  “You wouldn't believe it if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “Later.”

  “Maya has money. We're going to the store.”

  “What for?”

  “Just come.”

  “I gotta tell my mom where I'm going.

  Here, hold this.”

  Julio staggered back. “No way!”

  “He can't bite you. He's in the jar.” “I don't care if he's on the moon, I'm not touching it.”

  I put the jar on top of the garbage can.

  “Don't open it. He's not very happy right now.”

  I forgot all about the centipede long before I followed Julio and Maya through the gate in Julio's backyard. I forgot to fix the lock on my bedroom door, too. But I could do it later.

  Maya jingled the change in her pocket. “Found it in the couch.”

  We headed over to Kalapawai Market to buy some sodas and say goodbye to summer vacation. The next day was Meet Your Teacher Day.

  Julio kicked a paper cup someone had run over. “I hate when vacation ends.”

  “Yeah, but what you gonna do?”

  We headed toward the small park across the street from Kalapawai Market.

  “Can you believe it?” Maya said. “Tomorrow we'll all be in Mr. Purdy's class!”

  Julio whooped.

  I jumped and punched the sky, because everyone who'd ever been in Mr. Purdy's fourth-grade class said he was the best teacher on the planet. Especially the boys, because Mr. Purdy still thought he was in the army.

  “Bring on the homework,” I said. “Not!”

  Julio scowled and shoved me. “Aw, man, why'd you say that? Now you ruined it.”

  “No, I never.”

  “Yes, you did, you had to go and remind me of—”

  “Hey,” Maya said, grabbing Julio's arm. “Look.”

  A cop car with its lights flashing skidded to a stop in front of Kalapawai Market. A huge policeman stepped out. He hitched up his pants, grabbed a notebook, and went into the store. The lights kept flashing.

  “Ho, man!” Julio said. “They got robbed!”

  Whenever I see a cop car with flashing lights I almost stop breathing. “Maybe he'll bring a prisoner out in handcuffs.”

  “Shhh,” Julio said. “Watch.”

  A few minutes later the cop came out of the store … with someone we knew.

  “Ho,” I whispered. “It's Tito.”

  “He finally got caught,” Julio said.

  Tito Andrade was a sixth grader at our school, Kailua Elementary. For years he'd been vacuuming stuff out of our pockets-pennies, nickels, dimes, candy, beef jerky, dried squid.

  Tito robbed me once. He did it with a smile and said, “Thanks for
the donation, Coco-dork.” I didn't complain, and for sure I didn't tell the principal. If I had, Tito would've made me pay. And not with money.

  Tito's head was bowed. Long dark hair hung into his eyes.

  “He doesn't look too happy,” Julio said.

  As the cop put Tito in the backseat of his car, a lady from the store came out to talk.

  “Do they take sixth graders to jail?” I asked.

  “No,” Julio said. “They take them to pro bation.”

  “Where's that?”

  “It's like a bad-boys’ home.”

  The cop and the lady talked by the cop car. All I could see of Tito was his head in the back window.

  Finally, the lady waved her hand, saying, No big deal.

  The cop looked at Tito in the car.

  “He's going to let him go,” Julio said. “Watch.”

  Julio was right. The cop opened the back door and helped Tito out. Tito blinked and looked around.

  “He fell asleep,” Maya said.

  Julio humphed. “Prob'ly seen that backseat a hundred times.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Like his second home.”

  “You know what's his middle name?” Julio said. “Sinbad.”

  “How you know that?”

  “I saw his health form in the school office-Tito Sinbad Andrade.”

  “Perfect. He sins, and he sins bad,” Maya said.

  We cracked up.

  Tito turned and looked across the street. When he saw us laughing, his eyes narrowed.

  We stopped laughing. Quick. That wasn't smart, I thought.

  Tito was still looking at us as the cop put his hand on Tito's shoulder. They talked for a while. Tito nodded, and I imagined him lying, saying, I'll be good, Officer, don't worry, I won't steal nothing, I'm honest.

  He must have been a good talker, because the cop finally got back into his car, turned off the flashing lights, and drove away … without Tito.

  Tito watched the police car head down the road.

  Then, slowly, he turned and looked across the street.

  “Uh-oh,” Julio said.

  Tito swaggered over and stood looking down on us. “Whatchoo insects was laughing at?”

  I acted surprised. “Us? We weren't laughing.”

  “No lie, I heard you.”