Eleven and Holding by Mary Penney Read Free Book Online

kindergartners! I pressed my face against the window, making sure my mom was still on the sidewalk. She was waving and blowing kisses at me. And she was even crying a tiny bit.
    The bus lurched away from the sidewalk. After one block my breakfast had started to grow inside my stomach. I felt fuzzy and swimmy—like the time Aunt Liv let me eat a chili dog and fries and then drink a whole bottle of root beer by myself. I had a bad feeling about what might happen next.
    Then it happened. I bent over in my seat and threw up all over my new sneakers. And hoped none of the other kids would notice. But then I threw up on the back of the bus driver’s head. That got their attentionright away. My name at school for a long time was Barferella.
    All these years later, I still got icy sweats just being near a bus. It was so lame. I shivered beneath my hoodie.
    The driver climbed out, squeezing a pair of giant hips through the narrow exit. He waited while the passengers got out. Everyone looked like they’d just woken up. They all had big hair dents in the back of their heads.
    â€œTweenty minute stop, everyone!” he shouted. “Let’s hurry back now.”
    I stared at the bus door . . . and the unexpected opportunity. I could get over two hurdles today—being near the bus and actually getting on it. I’d be way ahead of the game for Wednesday’s trip.
    I moved closer, and my gut began to boil. I backed away and sat down on the bench outside the station. I pretended I was tying my shoes and trying to keep from losing it. I did some mental calculations. Exactly how long would it take me to ride my bike to Los Robles? If I could ride 10 miles per hour, and Los Robles was about 102 miles away—uh, let’s see, it would be about next Thanksgiving when I arrived. Chuck might be carving the family turkey at our house by then. And maybe even staying to tuck Jackin and then trying for some kissy face with Mom. Forget it. I was out of options. It was the bus or nothing if I wanted to get to my dad.
    I took a bracing breath and then bolted for the bus door. I took three steps in one leap. Then hunkered down in the darkness behind the driver’s seat and wiped the sweat from my lip. Bright lights danced across my vision. That was not a good sign.
    Relax! My stomach began to roll in giant waves. Uh-oh. I looked around frantically for a trash can.
    Nothing—except for a knitting bag, and I couldn’t hurl on someone’s afghan. I peered down the aisle toward the bathroom, which at the moment looked impossibly far. But it was closer than the restroom inside the bus station. My mouth filled with something very bad like battery acid. Hunched, I ran through the bus, down a nightmare’s long dark tunnel, row after row after row of seats. Finally, I yanked open the narrow door and dove headfirst for the tiny steel toilet.
    I waited for the torrent, an instant replay of everything I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours. . . .
    Waited.
    Then waited some more.
    For anything, really.
    I heaved and hoed, but I was shooting nothing butblanks. I gagged until I was nearly hoarse and then gave up. I sat back on my haunches, waiting for the world to stop spinning. I groped in the dark cubicle for a paper towel to wipe up the drool, the only thing I’d been able to come up with.
    The door opened behind me. “Here, kid,” a voice said, and a hand stuffed a paper towel into my hand. Mortified, I turned. Switch grinned down at me. “You’ve got some pipes there. You sounded like a rhino trying to chuck up a wild boar or something.”
    My face burned as I glared at him. I turned on the tiny faucet and splashed myself with the miniature stream of water. It smelled like it came from a swamp.
    â€œHey, don’t get bent. I was kidding. Here,” he said, handing me a piece of gum already out of the wrapper. “This will help.”
    I hesitated just a moment and then crammed it