The Trouble is about the story of a family who is dealing with inanimate objects moving on their own in their home, while various people try to figure out the cause behind the trouble. The story appears in Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill your Bones. It is perhaps the longest story in the entire trilogy. This was based on news reports in The New York Times and Life magazine about poltergeist phenomena.
The Story
The events in this story took place in 1958, in a small white house in the suburb of New York City. The names of the people involved had been changed.
Monday, February 3rd: Tom Lombardo and his sister Nancy had just come home from school. Tom was going on 13, Nancy was 14. They were talking to their mother in the living room when they heard a loud pop in the kitchen. Sounded like a cork had been pulled from a bottle of champagne, but it was nothing like that. The cap on a bottle of starch had somehow come unscrewed, and the bottle had tipped over and spilled. Then bottles all over the house began popping. Bottles of nail polish remover, shampoo, bleach, rubbing alcohol, even a bottle of holy water. Each had a screw cap that took two or three full turns to open, but each has opened by itself, without any human help, then had fallen over and spilled. "What is going on here?" Mrs. Lombardo asked. Nobody knew. But the popping soon stopped, and everything went back to normal. It was just one of those crazy things, they decided and put it out of their minds.
Thursday, February 6th: Just after Tom and Nancy got home from school, six more bottles popped their caps. The next day at about the same time, another six did.
Sunday, February 9th At 11:00 that morning Tom was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. His father was standing in the doorway, talking to him. All of a sudden, a bottle of medicine began moving across the vanity by itself and fell into the sink. At the same time, a bottle of shampoo moved over the edge of the vanity and crashed to the floor. They watched, spellbound. "I better call the police," Mr. Lombardo said. That afternoon a patrolman interviewed the family as bottles popped in the bathroom. The police assigned a detective named Joseph Briggs to the case. Detective Briggs was a practical man. When something moved, he believed that a human or an animal had moved it. Or it had moved because of a vibration, or the wind, or some other natural cause, he did not believe in ghosts. When the Lombardos said they had nothing to do with what was going on, he thought that at least one of them was lying. He wanted to examine the house. Then he wanted to talk to some experts and find out what they thought.
Tuesday, February 11th: The bottle of holy water, that had opened the week before, opened a second time and spilled. Two days later, it spilled again.
Saturday, February 15th: Tom, Nancy and a relative were watching TV in the living room when a small porcelain statue rose up from a table. It flew three feet through the air, then fell to the rug.
Monday, February 17th: A priest blessed the Lombardos' house to protect it against whatever was causing the trouble.
Thursday, February 20th: While Tom was doing his homework at one end of the dining room table, a sugar bowl at the other end flew into the hall and crashed. Detective Briggs saw it happen. Later, a bottle of ink on the table flew into a wall and broke, spattering in all directions. Then another porcelain statue took off. It traveled 12 feet and smashed into a desk.
Friday, February 21st: To get some peace, the Lombardos went to a relative's house for the weekend. While they were gone, everything at home was normal.
Sunday, February 23rd: When the Lombardos returned, another sugar bowl took off. It flew into a wall and smashed to smithereens. Later, a heavy bureau in Tom's room toppled over. But nobody was in the room when it happened.
Monday, February 24th: By now Detective Briggs had talked to an engineer, a chemist, a physicist, and others. Some thought that vibrations in the house were causing the trouble. These could come from underground water, they said, or from high-frequency radio waves, or from sonic booms caused by airplanes. Others said that the electrical system was the cause, or down drafts coming through the chimney. The popping of bottles was blamed on chemicals the bottles contained. Tests showed that there were no vibrations in the house; there was nothing wrong with the electrical system; and there were no chemicals in the bottles that would make them pop. Then WHAT was causing the trouble? None of the experts knew. But everyday, the Lombardos received dozens of letters and telephone calls from people who thought they did know. Many believed that the house was haunted. They thought that a poltergeist was on the loose. [The noisy ghost that is blamed when things move around on their own.] No one has proved that poltergeists exist, but people everywhere told stories about them for hundreds of years. And what they have told was not too different from what was happening to the Lombardos. Detective Briggs did not, of course, believed in poltergeists. He had begun to believe that Tom Lombardo might be to blame. Whenever something happened, Tom was usually in the room or nearby. When he accused Tom of causing the trouble, the boy denied it. "I don't know what's going on," he said. "All I know is that it scares me." People said that Detective Briggs was a tough cop who would turn in his mother if she did something wrong, but he believed Tom. Only now he didn't know what to think.
Tuesday, February 25th: A newspaper reporter came to the house to interview the family. Afterward he sat in the living room by himself, hoping that something would happen that he could describe in his story. Tom's room was just across the hall from where the reporter sat. The boy had gone to bed, but he had left his door open. Suddenly, a globe of the world flew out of the darken room and smashed into a wall. The reporter dashed into the bedroom and turned on the light. Tom was sitting in bed, blinking if he had just been awaken from a sound sleep. "What was that?" he asked.
Wednesday, February 26th: In the morning, a small plastic statue of the Virgin Mary rose up from a dresser in Mr. and Mrs. Lombardo's bedroom and flew into a mirror. That night, while Tom was doing his homework, a 10-pound record player took off from the table, flew 15 feet, then crashed to the floor.
Friday, February 28th: Two scientists arrived from Duke University in North Carolina. They were parapsychologists who studied experiences like those the Lombardos were having. They spent several days talking to the family and examining the house, trying to understand what was going on and what was causing it. One night, a bottle of bleach popped its top, but that was all it happened during their visit. They did not tell the Lombardos about a theory they had that a poltergeist actually might be involved in such cases. According to this idea, poltergeists were not ghosts, they were normal teenagers. They had become so troubled by a problem, that their emotions build up into a kind of vibration. Since it was taking place in their unconscious minds, they didn't even know it was happening. But the vibrations, somehow, left their bodies, and moved whatever it struck. It happened again and again until the problem had been solved. Scientists have given this strange power a name. They called it, "Psychokinesis," the ability to move objects with mental power or mind over matter. No one knew if this really could happen or how to prove it. Yet most reports of poltergeist did involve families with teenage children, and there were two teenagers in the Lombardo Family.
Monday, March 3rd: The parapsychologists said that they would prepare a report on what they have learned. The day after they left, the trouble returned with a vengeance.
Tuesday, March 4th: In the afternoon, a bowl of flowers flew off the dining room table and smashed into a cupboard. Then a bottle of bleach jumped out of a cardboard box and popped its top. Then a bookcase filled with encyclopedias fell over and wedged itself between a radiator and a wall. Then a flashlight bulb on the table rose up and hit a wall twelve feet away. Finally, four knocks were heard coming from the kitchen when nobody was in that room.
Wednesday, March 5th: While Mrs. Lombardo was making breakfast, she heard a loud crash in the living room. The coffee table had turned over by itself. But that was the end of it. After a month of chaos, everything returned to normal.
In August, the two parapsychologists gave their report. They decided that the Lombardos had not made the story up, nor had they imagine it. Their trouble had been real. But what had caused it? They said that no pranks or tricks were involved, nor was any magic. As the police have done, they also ruled out vibrations from underground water and other physical causes. The only explanation they could not rule out was the possibility that a teenage poltergeist had been at work, moving objects with mental power. They didn't have enough evidence to prove it, but it was the only answer they had. If it was a poltergeist, they thought it was Tom. If they were right, if a normal boy like Tom had become a poltergeist, this also might happen to other teenagers. It might even happen to you.