Page 2

Sage

But Mom said—”

I shot Bonnie the dirtiest look I knew and hunched sideways to look out the bus window, even though doing that always made me carsick.

I already knew what Mom said. Same thing she ’ d been saying since Bonnie was born. “ Come on, Sage. Let Bonnie tag along.” Or, “ Take care of your sister, Sage.” Or, “ Friends come and go, but sisters are for life.”

Joke was on Mom. I didn ’ t have any friends, because ever since Grandpa ’ s Alzheimer ’ s had gotten worse and he couldn’t watch us after school, I ’ d spent every day on the dumb daycare bus with Bonnie and the babies. That ’ s what Mia said on the playground when she wanted to get me really mad. “ Bonnie and the babies.” Like it was some kind of cringey cover band you ’ d hear on “ Kidz Bop.”

I was the oldest kid on the Bright Beginnings bus by two full years. And with my long, skinny legs that came out of nowhere last summer and made me the tallest student in the sixth grade, I looked even older. Grandpa was always saying that sixth grade wasn’t meant to be part of elementary school. It hadn’t been like that when he was a kid. And I agreed with him. The only reason I wouldn’t be going to Bright Beginnings daycare with Bonnie after school next year was because I ’ d finally turn twelve and go to junior high. And even Bright Beginnings knew that twelve was way too old for daycare.

Today was swim day, which was usually my favorite. The blue twisty slide in the indoor pool went so fast it made your swimsuit ride up your butt if you weren’t careful. And best of all, the older kids—who could actually swim—got sorted out from the younger kids who had to stay in the shallow pool. But last week, Bonnie had gotten pushed down the slide by a third-grader named Kenan. So this week, Mom wanted me to stay in the baby pool with her. No slide.

I kept looking out the window and ignored the rest of what Bonnie was saying, watching the foothills turn into long rows of cherry trees as we got off the highway. There wasn’t really fruit on the branches anymore. The cherry festival in Emmett happened last month, and the harvest was over. But if you pressed your nose to the crack of the bus window, you could smell the last of the ripe fruit that had missed getting picked.

“ Ms. Jessa is nicer than Mr. Edward,” Bonnie said abruptly, leaning so close to me that the faint, sweet smell of cherries was replaced by the peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich she ’ d eaten for lunch. I could still see a little smear of red on her chin.

“ How do you know if she ’ s nice or not?” I mumbled, hunching my shoulder and pressing my nose back against the window crack. “ She only said you could sit by me because you were blocking the aisle.” Bonnie was right, though. Anybody was better than Mr. Edward. He ’ d made Rose cry at the end of last year, when she dropped the apple from her lunch box and it rolled all the way up the aisle of the bus and lodged under the brake. He ’ d pulled over to the side of the road and started yelling and swearing like she ’ d done it on purpose. “Oh for shit ’ s sake,” he kept saying while he tried to pick up the pieces of the smashed apple, flinging them into the aisle. “Fucking hell.”

I ’ d never heard a grownup use that combination of swears, not even Grandpa, and any other day I might have laughed, but he just sounded so mad and mean. All the kids on the bus had gone quiet, and that pretty much never happened. That was the last time anybody saw Mr. Edward, so that definitely meant he ’ d been fired.

Bonnie shifted on the bench beside me. To my surprise, she didn’t say anything else about Mr. Edward or Ms. Jessa. Instead, she asked, “ Why are we stopping?”

I sat up and leaned forward so I could see out the windshield of the bus. We were still headed toward the cherry orchards—and Southridge Elementary so we could pick up Amber Jensen. But we were slowing down. We never slowed down here.

Then I saw the big orange DETOUR sign with an arrow pointing down a dirt lane that looked like it led right through the orchard.

A little ways past the sign, parked on the shoulder of the road, was a big white van. SPEEDY SHUTTLE, it said on the side.

Something about that van seemed strange to me. I almost made a joke to Bonnie about the shuttle not being a very speedy shuttle right now, but I was still mad at her, so I kept my mouth shut.

Ms. Jessa slowed the bus to a crawl, inching closer to the detour sign, as if maybe she wanted to go around it instead of turning right, like the sign said we were supposed to. She was leaning forward, looking down the road past the sign at the parked Speedy Shuttle.

Then she sighed like the sign had been put there just to annoy her, flipped on the turn signal, and turned the bus onto the narrow dirt road into the orchard.

“ Um, this isn’t the right way,” Ked announced, his voice monotone but loud from a few seats behind me. Ked was always piping up about something. “ Ms. Jessa, this isn’t the right way,” he repeated.

Ms. Jessa flicked her eyes up to the big rearview mirror so she could see him without turning around in the driver ’ s seat. “ It ’ s all right. There ’ s just a little road construction … or something.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bonnie lean down, reach into her backpack, and pull her “ clay person” out again. It was an ugly, brown squiggle that looked more like a turd than a person to me, but I knew Bonnie would cry if I said that. “ Did you see how I gave him hair, Sage?” she chirped, pointing out the tiny squiggles of clay on top.

“ Yeah, I saw,” I said, keeping my eyes out the window as the bus finished its turn, trying to catch a glimpse of orange barrels or cones in the distance past the Speedy Shuttle. The road looked exactly the same as yesterday, though.

I shrugged and faced forward again.

It wasn ’ t like I was in a hurry to get where we were going. I ’ d rather drive through the cherry orchard than babysit Bonnie in the rec center kiddie pool, anyway.

The wheels bumped down the narrow dirt road, and some of the kids laughed when we hit a deep pothole, bouncing us in our seats. I smiled, hoping the road would keep us in the orchard for a while. The smell of overripe cherries was all around us now, and it made me think of fall. I closed my eyes as that smell drifted through all the windows while the bus brushed against the leafy tree branches on both sides of the road.

Ms. Jessa hit the brakes as the road dipped then curved sharply enough that Bonnie tumbled against me, pushing my nose into the window. Someone—maybe Rose again—said “ Whee!”

“ Ouch!” I opened my eyes, pulled back from the window, and rubbed my nose. “ Stay on your side, Bonnie!”

“What the hell?” Ms. Jessa said, loud enough for everyone to hear as the bus slowed, then stopped. I felt Bonnie stiffen next to me, no doubt remembering the apple incident with Mr. Edward.

Little gasps prickled across the bus.

At first, I thought it was because of Ms. Jessa ’ s swearing.

Then I sat up tall and looked out the windshield. There was another vehicle completely blocking the narrow dirt road in front of us. Its hazards were on, flashing red.

Bonnie leaned into the aisle so she could see it, too. “ What are they doing, Miss Jessa?” she asked.

Ms. Jessa looked over her shoulder at us and scrunched up her forehead so her eyebrows disappeared beneath her bright red bangs. She ignored Bonnie.

“ It ’ s fine. They’ll move out of the way in just a sec,” I told Bonnie. The words felt sticky in my throat, though. Something about the ugly gray van with its brake lights glowing orange felt wrong.

Ms. Jessa just seemed annoyed. She made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, and her hand hovered above the horn. “ Let ’ s go,” she muttered and hit the horn.

When nothing happened, she reached for the gear shift to whip the bus into reverse and drive backward, like I ’ d seen Mom do when we zipped right past a good parking spot at the Merc in Sunset Springs.

Then another sound rose above the low hum of kid voices.

It was coming from behind the bus. The rumble of an engine.

I shifted on the bench, swiveling my head to see out the back window of the emergency exit. A few of the other kids did, too.

The window back there was grimy, but it showed enough.

A big white van was coming up the road.

It came to a stop right behind the Bright Beginnings bus, angled a little bit so that I could just barely see the writing on its side.

Speedy Shuttle .

“ Are you serious?” Ms. Jessa tilted her head into a beam of sunlight that made a strip of her hair glow neon red.

Bang, bang, bang.

Bonnie and I jumped as three hard raps came at the bus door. One of the kids shrieked in surprise.

Ms. Jessa made a noise like she ’ d choked on a sip of water as she stared out the glass of the bus door.

I smashed my face against the window to see for myself.

On the other side of the aisle, Ked sucked in his breath, then he said, “ There ’ s a man. He has a gun.”