Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Get in Trouble is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Kelly Link

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

“The Summer People”: Originally published in Tin House (fall 2011).
“I Can See Right Through You”: Originally published in McSweeney’s (fall 2014).
“Secret Identity”: Originally published in Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci (Little Brown, 2009).
“Valley of the Girls”: Originally published in Subterranean Online (summer 2011).
“Origin Story”: Originally published in A Public Space (winter 2006).
“The New Boyfriend”: Originally published in A Public Space (fall 2014).
“Two Houses”: Originally published in Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, edited by Mort Castle and Sam Weller (HarperCollins, 2012).
“Light”: Originally published in Tin House (fall 2007).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Link, Kelly.
[Short stories. Selections]
Get in trouble : stories / Kelly Link.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-0-8041-7968-3 (acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-0-8041-7971-3 (eBook)
I. Link, Kelly. Summer people. II. Title.
PS3612.I553A6 2015
813.6—dc23
2014011170

Book design by Caroline Cunningham

v3.1

Epigraph

Year after year

On the monkey’s face

A monkey face

—Basho, trans. Robert Hass

The Summer People

Fran’s daddy woke her up wielding a mister. “Fran,” he said, spritzing her like a wilted houseplant. “Fran, honey. Wakey wakey.”

Fran had the flu, except it was more like the flu had Fran. In consequence of this, she’d laid out of school for three days in a row. The previous night, she’d taken four NyQuil caplets and gone to sleep on the couch while a man on the TV threw knives. Her head was stuffed with boiled wool and snot. Her face was wet with watered-down plant food. “Hold up,” she croaked. “I’m awake!” She began to cough, so hard she had to hold her sides. She sat up.

Her daddy was a dark shape in a room full of dark shapes. The bulk of him augured trouble. The sun wasn’t out from behind the mountain yet, but there was a light in the kitchen. There was a suitcase, too, beside the door, and on the table a plate with a mess of eggs. Fran was starving.