Oh No! Here Comes Trouble!

Hi! I am Kai. Surprised you never heard of me? Where I come from, everybody knows me. Not in the best way though, because I am always getting in and causing trouble. My parents told me they knew I would be troublesome since my birth. I apparently punched my dad when he first held me. To top that off, we had a dumb doctor.

My mom said, “Oh! Is he not cute? When he grows up, he is going to be …”

Smack. “Trouble!” my dad yelled.

The doctor wrote that down. So now my name is Kai Trouble Harris Jones. Most call me Trouble. Well, these days I am not really just known as Trouble. All because of a lucky incident and a wise decision I made. So let’s just talk about the events leading up to this.

I was heading to school with my best friends Alejandro and Legend. Before we went, my mom told me to pick something up at the store on my way back home, but I chose to do that before school.

“Guys I got to dip, you can leave without me,” I said to my friends.

Legend turned his head, “Leave you? Not happening.”

Alejandro laughed, “Yeah. No way. You’re gonna cause some trouble.”

I told them they would probably be late but they were not having it, so we all went. I glanced at my list and exclaimed, “Whoa, a lot today.” We would all be really late. “C’mon let’s split up and find stuff on this list. We will get more done in no time.”

We all started looking for stuff on the list.

“Easy! Already got the first one: tomato sauce,” I thought silently.

I grabbed a can and started tossing it up and down. Uh-oh. The can flew out of my hand and hit the ceiling light, which smashed sending glass flying. Which sent people scampering. Which knocked shelves over. Which fell onto an old man. Uh-oh.

Everyone ran over to help him, and once they lifted the shelves, they saw that he was badly bruised. Everyone in the store looked at me.

“Trouble!!!” they all yelled. After that I was kicked out after being yelled at by everyone, and the man was rushed to the hospital.

“Man, not again!” Legend said. “Congrats. This month you were in trouble a record fifty times, and it’s only the fifth day of the month.”

I could not help but smile. That was sure a crazy stat line. My friends, on the other hand, were not amused as they chewed me out about how that was probably the worst thing I have ever done.

“Chill out for the rest of the day. That was bad enough,” Alejandro said.

We got to school very late. Alejandro and I walked to our class while Legend went the other way. Our teacher chewed us out and as we walked to our seats Alejandro shook his long black hair out. He always does this when he’s ticked off.

“Man, you are always getting us in trouble. No more for today, okay?”

I nodded. Seemed like a good idea to me.

After that class ended, I was walking through the hallways, then I found a long strip of plastic tape and some stick spray. I picked them up and walked to the principal’s office. I spread the tape outside his door and sprayed it with stick spray. I quickly snuck away.

I peeked out from a corner and saw the door opening. Yes! Mr. Mables, the principal, stepped out of his office and had the most painful fall I had ever seen. As he laid there moaning and groaning in pain, I realized I may have gone too far.

“It was Trouble!” Some kid yelled. Snitch.

“Well of course it was! Now, where is he!?” the assistant principal yelled.

I was brought to the office and got the biggest chew out of my life. I also left with a one week suspension. Legend and Alejandro were outside the door, shaking their heads. Apparently Mr. Mables was brought to the ER.

“Well. I don’t even know what to say,” Legend said.

“Let’s just go home,” Alejandro said, shaking his hair out.

At home my parents were really not happy, probably because they had to put up with my trouble more now while staying at home for an entire week. Whatever. I got a lot of punishments from my parents, too. For one, I was not allowed to go outside now, and I could not watch YouTube either. Man, life sure was boring.

Uh! “What is that sound?” I wondered. I had been sleeping. I looked at my clock, it was five o’clock. I got up and crept out of my bed. I slowly moved down the hallways and heard my parents.

“We’ll be back before Kai wakes up,” my dad said in what sounded like a reassuring voice. Off they went.

Alright! It was finally time for some fun. I got my sports clothes and shoes on and left the house holding my basketball. I really needed some fresh air. I lifted my head feeling the breeze and headed to the city park. Suddenly, I heard a loud noise, then silence, loud again, then silence. Seemed kind of stupid to check it out but I did. I guess there was no way I could not get into more trouble. I walked towards the noise, seeing some guys laughing and walking away. I approached and glanced around the place.

“What could that noise have even been?” I curiously wondered.

I looked to the right and spotted something. I thought that was it. I picked up the object, which was kind of heavy. I dusted it off. Hmm. It looked like a digital clock. Surprisingly, the time was going down. I placed it back down and continued to walk as I asked myself what that thing was.

That is when I remembered what my parents once told me. They had advised me to report anything unusual I came across. They said, “If you see something, say something.” Well, there went my fun! I ran back to the house and picked up my phone, avoiding the temptation to go on YouTube.

I was about to make a phone call to my parents when I thought, “I better not call my parents, or I might get in trouble.” In the meantime, I had kept pondering about what I had just seen, trying to find out what that thing was. Then it hit me: “That had to be a bomb. What if I am wrong? What If I am right? Even my parents can’t do anything about it.” I dialed 911 and, fortunately, someone picked up immediately.

“911 what’s your emergency?” she said softly.

“I just spotted something strange at the city’s main park. It looks dangerous,” I responded.

“At the main park!? Are you sure it’s something dangerous? Like what?” she questioned.

“I am not, and I don’t know. But it’s counting down and making a weird sound,” I answered. I did not want to mention it was a bomb since I had actually never seen one.

“Alright then. I am sending a squad to check and evacuate the area if necessary. Stay at the scene, they might need you to show them the exact location.”

She thanked me and then hung up. After the call, I went back to the park to meet the police. There were a bunch of kids playing there. When the squad arrived, I showed them where I saw the thing. I pointed to it under the slides.

One of the policemen looked puzzled and asked me, “Do you even know what this is?”

I shook my head and said, “Nope. Not even the slightest clue.”

He was clearly concealing a laugh as he said, “Well Trouble, with this information, you just saved a lot of lives. That’s right. This is a bomb.”

“What! That’s a bomb?!” I surprisingly asked, wondering how my first intuition was true. I also wondered why I had not told the 911 dispatcher it was a bomb when she asked me.

“Yep, I just defused it, and everyone is safe now.”

I sighed in relief, “Thank you very much.”

“No, thank you! All the praise should go to you. By communicating this information to us, you protected all the kids and everybody who would be around when the bomb would have exploded.”

“Okay,” I said.

As he drove off, I walked back to the direction of my house. That’s the moment that made my reputation better. People still call me Trouble, but I’m not only known for it now.

I also learned a big lesson, communication is valuable. Without it, life would be somewhat messy. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to tease people (or maybe annoy them), talk to my friends, or family, and best of all, I would not have been able to transmit the message to the police, which saved a bunch of lives. Communication is valuable.

Back to School After My Suspension

“Hey! Why are you so quiet, Kai?” Legend said.

“Yeah, it’s creepy,” Alejandro said, while dribbling a basketball between his legs.

Legend pulled out a piece of paper saying, “Look at this school newsletter about how you saved a bunch of peoples’ lives.”

“Well Kai, you finally did something good. I even saw your name in the city newspaper,” Alejandro said while laughing.

“Hey guys, I got something cool we should do after school,” I said a bit too loud.

“Uh-oh!” everybody in the school said.