Trouble Next Door Read online

  For starters, Harper is never going to find out that he lives next door to Calvin Vickers. Never. Not if Calvin can help it. He’ll just have to sneak in and out of his own house—​starting today. He looks at his father, who’s gone back to his TV news show as if the problem is solved.

  Calvin’s dad usually drives him to school in the morning and then heads on out to his job at Big Barn Food Warehouse. He’s the store manager. Calvin has already decided to climb into the car extra early and then duck down until he sees Monster Boy leave. It’s a perfect plan.

  And then, after school, he’ll go to Gavin’s or Richard’s or Carlos’s house to . . . He stops to figure it out. Yes. To work on his science project with them.

  His father will like that. He’ll think Calvin and his friends are being responsible and finally getting the hang of using time wisely. This could go on for a while—​a long while. Maybe until he graduates from high school. And then he can go away to college and never have to see Harper Hall again.

  But that night Calvin does see Harper Hall. He’s just about to turn on his bedroom light to get into his pajamas when he glances out his window and across the driveway at the room directly opposite his. The lamp is on and the blinds are open. In the dark, Calvin moves closer to get a better view of Harper punching his pillow around his room and seemingly having a great time doing it. Toss-punch, toss-punch, toss-punch. He can’t hear him, but somehow Calvin knows that Harper is putting his all into each punch. He’s probably preparing for his next fight, keeping those arm muscles in tiptop shape.

  Calvin pulls his desk chair over to the window and takes a seat. He feels pretty safe sitting in the dark where Harper can’t see him.

  Monster Boy appears to be having great fun with his pillow boxing. When he tires of that, he sword-fights an imaginary foe with a yardstick. Why is he so angry? Shouldn’t he be in bed, anyway?

  Two

  Monday

  Calvin wakes the next morning to sunlight pouring into his room. A new day. He sits up. Then he remembers: Harper. Next door. He looks out the window to the bully’s room. Now the blinds are closed. Calvin checks his clock, scrambles out of bed, and hurries to the bathroom to brush his teeth and jump into the shower.

  As he gets dressed, he can hear his father in the kitchen talking on the telephone to his mother. He yanks his shirt over his head, dashes to his parents’ room, picks up the receiver, and says, “Mom, when are you coming home?”

  “Well, good morning, Calvin, and how are you?”

  “Fine,” he says meekly. “I miss you, Mom. Please come home, but I gotta go.” He replaces the receiver and hurries down the stairs and into the kitchen. He grabs the cereal off the top of the refrigerator and a bowl out of the cabinet.

  “Whoa,” his father says. “Where’s the fire?”

  Calvin pours the milk and stands at the sink, eating. “I have to get to school a little bit early.” It isn’t a lie. He feels he really does have to get there early. He finishes his cereal and grabs his backpack from the bottom of the stairs and the car keys off the hall table, then rushes out the door. “Dad, I’ll be out in the car,” he calls over his shoulder.

  Calvin stands a few moments on his front porch, looking toward Harper’s house, hoping he won’t come out of his front door at the same time. Calvin hurries to the car, gets the door open, climbs in, and scrunches down in the back seat, his heart pounding in his chest. After a while he shifts his position so he can peek out the window at Harper’s front door. All is quiet. Then it opens and Harper comes out. He stands for a moment on the porch and then skips down his front steps, looking not so bad. Not so mean. Then he starts punching the air as he walks all the way down to the corner.

  “I have something to tell you,” Calvin says to Carlos as they put their lunches in their cubbies.

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell everyone at recess.” Calvin looks over at the whiteboard and is pleased to see that the class has an open topic for their morning journals. He can’t wait to get it all down—​how he feels. He settles at his desk, pulls his journal out, and opens to the first clean page.

  Bad news, Journal. I mean bad. The worst thing to happen to a guy. Harper Hall has moved in next door to me. And he’s kind of crazy and he’s a real scary guy. He’s always ready to fight. He loves to fight and walk around being mean. Real mean. Now he’s next door and I’m going to make sure he never sees me.

  Calvin doesn’t know what else to write. He hopes this isn’t one of those times Ms. Shelby-Ortiz will call on someone to read their entry. He’s not ready to let the world know about his problem.

  He thinks some more. He should write something about that mean grandmother of Harper’s. Yeah.

  And Journal, he’s got this mean grand­mother who fusses at him and all he can do is stick out his lip. He doesn’t even back talk her. He just does what she tells him to do.

  Calvin reads over what he wrote. He likes it. He looks around the room. A lot of the kids are still writing, or trying to. A few are staring at what they’ve written. He glances across his table at Richard’s journal. He’s barely written a paragraph, and now he’s drawing a picture to go with it. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz lets them do that sometimes. But the drawing should be at the bottom of a page that’s almost filled with writing. Richard’s drawing of a fancy racing car takes up half the page.

  “So what’s the news?” Carlos asks as he, Richard, Calvin, and Gavin make their way to the handball courts. That’s their recess area for the week. Two girls from their class are already there playing. Calvin frowns. How did they get ahead of the boys? he wonders.

  “It’s bad,” Calvin says.

  “Just tell us,” Richard urges. “Come on.”

  Calvin decides to draw it out just for fun. “The Hendersons moved.”

  “Who are the Hendersons?” Richard asks.

  “What’s wrong with you? They’ve been my neighbors all my life.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Richard says. “The grandparents of those kids who live in Florida, right? What’s so bad about that?”

  “Well, it means I’m never going to see Robbie, Todd, and Evan again. But there’s something worse,” Calvin says.

  “Just tell us!” Gavin exclaims. They reach the handball courts and get in line behind Ayanna and Deja and a bunch of other girls. Gavin looks over at the other court, where more kids stand in line.

  “Harper Hall now lives next door to me,” Calvin says.

  Everyone’s mouth drops open.

  “You’re lying,” Richard says.

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Oh, dude,” Carlos manages after he recovers. “That can’t be true.”

  “It’s true.”

  “No way,” Gavin says. “You’re joking, right?”

  “I’m not joking.”

  “What are you going to do?” Richard asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Remember that time he spray-painted some bad words on the back of the auditorium?” Carlos asks. “The janitor had to paint over it.”

  Calvin nods miserably.

  “I heard he beat up this seventh-grader at the movies because the guy looked at him funny,” Gavin adds.

  Calvin feels a heaviness in the pit of his stomach.

  “Oh. And last week I heard he turned over his desk in his classroom because he thought someone was laughing at him,” Richard says.

  “He got detention,” Gavin chimes in.

  “My dad says Harper’s troubled,” Calvin offers.

  “What does that mean?” Richard asks.

  “I don’t know. He’s got some kind of trouble, I guess,” Calvin says, shrugging. The line moves, and they all shuffle forward. “I gotta stay out of his way. I gotta do everything I can to just stay out of his way.”

  There’s only one more person ahead of Calvin; then it’s his turn at handball. He’s good at handball. He can really slice the ball—​low and fast—​and get kids out. He dominates the game, actually.

&n
bsp; Three

  The Petersons Have a Dog?

  Gavin is sure it’s okay for everyone to come to his house after school to “work on projects.” Parents are more likely to say yes to company if they think everybody’s going to be doing homework and encouraging one another, but the boys all know what “working on projects” really means.

  “I got the latest Wuju Legend game,” Gavin says smugly.

  “You have it too?” Calvin exclaims. Everyone’s going to get that game before me, he thinks.

  “Yeah. But before we can play it, we gotta work on our science-fair projects first.”

  Gavin leads the group into his house through the back door. His sister, Danielle, is sitting on the counter, eating an apple and yapping on her cell. She frowns at Gavin and pulls the phone away from her ear.

  “Did Mom say you can have company?” she asks. “Hold on, CeeCee,” she says into her phone. “My brother just walked in with three of his little knucklehead friends.” She slides off the counter and puts down her apple. She folds her arms and stares at Gavin. “Did she?”

  “We’re gonna work on our science fair projects,” Gavin tells her.

  “You get permission?” she asks again, adding a neck roll to her question.

  “It’s okay,” Gavin says to his friends while leading the way through the kitchen, past Danielle, and up the stairs to his room.

  “I’m checking with Mom,” she calls after him.

  “I’m hungry,” Carlos announces. “Can’t we even get a snack?”

  “Later,” Gavin tells him.

  As soon as they walk into his room, Gavin grabs a small Nerf basketball and aims it at the hoop mounted on the closet. Richard catches it before it hits the floor, and they take turns shooting hoops for a while. Suddenly Danielle is standing in the doorway, squinting at them. “This is working on your science fair projects?” she demands.

  Gavin gets up and closes the bedroom door in her face.

  “I’m really calling Mom now!” she yells from the hallway. “We’ll see about you having company.”

  Gavin turns back to his friends. “Okay, let’s come up with our hypotheses and write them down in our notebooks. Then if my mom gets back from work and asks us what we’re up to, we’ll have something to show her.”

  “I already know what I’m doing,” Richard says, flopping on Gavin’s bed. “I’m going to do that volcano with the steamy stuff bubbling up out of it.”

  “That’s an observation kind of thing,” Carlos says. “Ms. Shelby-Ortiz said we have to have a hypothesis. We have to have a question and then a prediction. No more observations.”

  “So, I’ll think up a question to go with it.” He takes out his notebook from his backpack, opens it, and stares at a blank page.

  Calvin is even more sure he’ll win first place if all his competition is like Richard. He sits down on the floor and takes out his notebook.

  “I read about this experiment where you can use a comb to separate salt from pepper,” Gavin says. He has an action figure in his hand and is now sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I can probably come up with a hypothesis if I think about it.” He puts the figure aside and pulls his notebook out of his backpack.

  Carlos mentions a food-coloring experiment that this girl did when he was in second grade. She put blue dye in the water of a bouquet of white carnations, and after three days the carnations turned blue. “That was kind of interesting,” he says. “Maybe I’ll do that.” He pulls his notebook out of his backpack, climbs on Gavin’s bed opposite Richard, and starts writing something. Then he stops. “No. I got something better.” Calvin’s ears perk up. He hopes Carlos doesn’t have something better. He hopes Carlos sticks with the boring flower thing.

  But Carlos says, “I’m going to do something with my geckos.” He stops as if to think. “Yeah. I’m going to think up an experiment with their food. Like what food they prefer. What food they’ll go to more often or fastest.”

  “I’ve never seen geckos go fast to anything,” Richard informs him.

  “It’ll be fast for them,” Carlos insists. “Let’s just write down our hypotheses and be done for now.”

  Richard finally begins to write. It’s quiet for a while.

  Soon Richard puts down his pencil. “Finished,” he says. “I got dibs on Wuju Legend.”

  “It’s my game,” Gavin says. Then he relents. “Okay, Richard, I’ll play you first.” He closes his notebook. “I’m finished.”

  This is definitely going to be boring, Calvin thinks as Richard scrambles down from the bed and settles beside Gavin on the rug. Maybe he can run home and get his PSP. It would make the boring waiting for his turn easier. But then he remembers that he can’t run home. Funny how you can forget something unpleasant and then have it circle around and hit you right in the gut. Harper. He can just see himself climbing his front steps, getting ready to go into his house, right when Harper comes walking down the street punching the air. He can just imagine a slick, scary smile sliding over Harper’s face when he sees Calvin.

  “Booyah!” Gavin shouts as his video-game player jumps the moat that surrounds the castle. “Booyah!”

  Calvin gets up and heads for the door. “I have to run home and get something. I’ll be back.” He’s decided to chance it. Anyway, Harper probably has detention or something. Even if he doesn’t, he often stays behind on the playground, going from one area to the other as the whim hits him.

  The street is clear as Calvin runs to his house and slips around to the back door. His father’s car is in the driveway. Good. He taps on the window pane.

  “I thought you were going to Gavin’s to work on your science project,” his dad says, opening the door. He has papers from work in his hand.

  Calvin opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Then: “Oh, yeah, but I forgot something that I need up in my room.” It’s not really a lie, because at that moment he does need his PSP so he won’t die of boredom watching Gavin and Richard have all the fun.

  He runs up to his room, grabs the game from under his bed, and turns to hurry back down the staircase. Then he stops. Is that the sound of a ball bouncing? Next door? A basketball bouncing in the driveway under the hoop attached to the wall above the Hendersons’ garage door?

  It’s got to be Harper, shooting hoops in what is now his driveway. For some reason, Calvin creeps down his own staircase. Then he catches himself at it and thinks, He can’t hear you. He’s next door!

  Calvin peeks out the living room window over the bookshelf. It’s Harper, all right, practicing lay-ups and messing them up over and over. Calvin almost laughs out loud, but then he remembers that he needs to get back to Gavin’s. He can’t go out the front door; Harper will see him. He’ll have to go out the back. He glances at Harper again. This time his lay-up is successful, and he starts to jump around the driveway and pump his fist in the air.

  Calvin slips out the kitchen door with his game shoved into his pocket. He looks back at his house, imagining his father stopping him to ask a bunch of questions. Quickly he scrambles over the fence and into the Petersons’ backyard.

  It’s smart thinking, cutting through the Petersons’ yard to Gavin’s around the corner. Calvin is just about to race across to the tall chainlink gate leading to the Petersons’ driveway when he hears a low growl behind him. He freezes in his tracks. He slowly looks over his shoulder. Staring back at him with teeth bared is some kind of pit bull mix. It looks like half pit bull and half Lab.

  The dog has brown fur, blotched with white around both eyes, and white fur on its chest. Its lips are curled back, and Calvin can see long, sharp-looking canine teeth. The dog is making a low, growly, gurgly noise that sounds like it’s coming from the back of its throat. Calvin doesn’t know if he should look at the dog challengingly, right in the eyes, or look down, to give the dog the feeling that it’s the boss.

  The pit-Lab is barking ferociously. It’s not charging yet, but Calvin has the feeling that it will at any second.
He doesn’t want to turn his back on it. He can’t seem to move, even though Mrs. Peterson could come out of her door any moment and ask him what in the world he’s doing in her yard.

  He walks backward toward the gate leading to the Petersons’ driveway and, beyond that, Gavin’s street. He moves slowly, one tiny step at a time. The pit-Lab drops its head and fixes its gaze on Calvin. Its growl sounds full of meanness and threat. Calvin continues to back up, inch by inch, with his eyes locked on the eyes of the demon dog.

  Suddenly it’s charging at him, barking and biting the air. Calvin turns and races for the fence, grabs the chain links above his head, pulls himself up, and gets one leg over the top before he looks back and sees the pit-Lab yank back on its leash. It was leashed the whole time! But it’s a long leash that lets it roam the yard.

  Calvin throws his other leg over the top of the fence and stops to look down again. The dog is still throwing itself in Calvin’s direction. He’s glad he’s not on the ground anymore. From his perch on the top of the Petersons’ fence he feels like teasing the dog with a “Na-na-na-na-naaaa.” But he realizes he doesn’t have time. Someone’s sure to come out of the Petersons’ back door soon, wondering what the fuss is all about. He jumps down and hurries to the sidewalk, looks both ways, and dashes across the street to Gavin’s house.

  He’s got a lot to tell his friends—​about Harper, and about the Petersons’ new dog.

  “How’d you not know they have a dog? What, it never barked before?” Carlos asks like a know-it-all when Calvin tells them what happened.