Trouble Magnet by Graham Salisbury Read Free Book Online

yet.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Hammer and a screwdriver.”
    “You're not going to break down the door, are you?”
    “I'm going to take it off its hinges. Julio did that once.”
    I started toward the garage.
    “Wait,” Mom said. “The hinges are on the inside.”
    I hesitated. “They are?”
    “Of course they are. What good is a lock if they're on the outside? Anyone could just do what you're planning to do.”
    “Oh.” I slumped against the doorjamb. “Then I think she's going to have to climb out the window.”
    Mom put the palm of her hand to her forehead. “If you could just for once have shown a little responsibility and fixed that lock, we wouldn't be having this problem.”
    “Sorry.”
    Mom sighed. “Go tell her.”
    Darci called as I passed her room. She was sitting in her bed rubbing her eyes. “What's all the noise?”
    “Stella's stuck in her room. She has to climb out the window.”
    Darci leaped out of bed. “I want to see!”
    “Calvin!” Mom called from the kitchen.
    “Yeah?”
    “I have to leave now. I'm supposed to meet Ledward at Costco, and there's no way I can contact him. Get Stella out of that room, you understand?”
    “Yeah, Mom. I'll get her out.”
    “I'll be home sometime this afternoon. You and Darci do everything Stella tells you. She's in charge while I'm gone, is that clear?”
    Great.
    “Yeah, it's clear.”
    The kitchen door banged shut. I heard the car start.
    Then Julio showed up.
    “Calvin,” he called from the front door. He cupped his hands around his eyes and looked through the screen. “Come out.”
    I ran to the door. “Wait … I have to do something first.”
    “I'll be out back on Darci's swing,” Julio said.
    I crept up to Stella's door. “Stella?”
    “What.”
    “Um … you have to, uh, to climb out the window.”
    Silence.
    “Stella?”
    “You did this on purpose, didn't you?”
    “What? No!”
    “You're going to pay for this.”
    “But I didn't—”
    “What's your favorite color?”
    “What?”
    “Color, your favorite color.”
    “Blue?”
    “I'll tell everyone to bring blue flowers, then.”
    “Bring them to what?”
    “Your funeral. When I get out of here, you're dead.”

D arci followed me out the sliding patio door. The rusty chain squeaked as Julio slowly kicked back and forth over the muddy puddle beneath the swing. “Something going on?”
    “Stella has to climb out the window,” Darci said.
    Julio looked at me. “Lock stuck again?”
    Stella was at the window, scowling.
    “Calvin was supposed to fix it.”
    “Hey, you!” somebody called. “Calvin Coco-dork.”
    Tito and Frankie Diamond had pulled themselves up on the back side of our fence. Their heads and hands were all I could see.
    “Go in the house,” I said to Darci. “Talk to Stella through the door.”
    “Why?”
    “Just go.”
    Darci left, glancing back at Tito and Frankie Diamond.
    Julio jumped off the swing.
    “You and me still got business to settle,” Tito said.
    “Why?” I said, which was probably the dumbest thing I could ever have said at a time like that.
    Tito scoffed. “You owe me a new shirt, that's why… Oh, and I owe you a broken face.”
    Tito pulled himself higher, as if he was going to jump over into our yard.
    But he stopped when Stella banged the screen off the window. I turned to look back. Stella poked her head out, then pulled herself up and hung out over the windowsill on her gut.
    I whipped back around to see if Tito was coming over the fence to get me. No. He was gaping at Stella.
    I turned to Stella just in time to see her tumble headfirst out the window in her hot-pink shortie pajamas. She flipped and fell flat on her butt in the muddy grass.
“Ooof!”

    I winced.
    Stella staggered up and brushed herself off. Her face went bright red when she saw four boys staring at her.
    No one peeped.
    Stella glared rusty razors, mostly at me, then headed inside through the sliding patio door. I flinched when she slammed it