Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous by J. B. Cheaney Read Free Book Online Page A

catches Jay nudging Spencer with a little grin. Bender frowns: What are you smilin’ at, punk?
    With both hands in his lap, he rerolls the strip of paper, breaks off another piece of graphite, and loads up his blowgun. It’s intended for Jay, but at the last minute, he changes his target and swings over to Matthew.
    Plink! Matthew puts a hand on his neck, on the hairline that Bender had contemplated lowering—but he doesn’t turn around. What’s with that kid?
    Suddenly he notices the new girl, one row up on the opposite side. For the first week or so she was telling everybody her name—what was it, Alison? Or Alice?—and that she lived with her Grandma Mary Ellen Truman in the old stone house at the top of the hill, blah blah blah. That might have been interesting, because the Truman house was said to be haunted at one time. Old Mr. Truman’s first wife had died there, and so had he—making one wonder about foul play from the second wife. But the second Mrs. Truman is so ordinary, with her bridge tournaments and golf dates and volunteer work, she gives haunted houses a bad name. Kids didn’t even bother to make up stories about it anymore.
    Her granddaughter Alison-or-Alice has a way of disappearing, like some wizard master gave her a cloak of invisibility. Her cloak is a book—she disappears into books. But right now, she’s looking at Bender.
    He backs up against the window and points his blowgun at her threateningly. Mrs. B picks that exact moment to glance up in the mirror and catch him taking aim. The gun isn’t loaded but may as well be.
    â€œI see that, Bender!”
    Shelly spins around. “Aha! I knew that was you!”
    Mrs. B makes him move to the front of the bus and surrender the weapon, which is stupid because it’s just a rolled-up piece of paper. Mrs. B realizes that, of course, and knows he can make another one just by tearing off a strip from his notebook but takes it from him anyway. “Sit right there.” She nods at the first seat while signaling for a right turn.
    He considers reminding her of all the time they’re wasting because she insists on making this stop—two minutes and forty-five seconds of his life every day that he’ll never get back—but nothing he can say will discourage Mrs. B because he’s already said it. He settles down to a bumpy ride on the gravel road. Soon the shelter will appear to which they pull even, pause, back up, head out—
    Wait a minute! He sits up straighter. He sees something: a flash of red disappearing over the rise beyond the shelter. It was a person, he’s sure of it: some kid or grown-up wearing something red, like a jacket. Or more likely a cap. Lifting his eyes, he notices, for the first time, a house. It was hidden by trees before, but now that the leaves are falling he can make out a roof, a corner, faded siding, peeling paint. He turns to Mrs. B, noticing her eyes twitching from the house to the road as her jaw sets like a trap. She saw the flash of red, just like he did. “Is that who we’re supposed to pick up?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe person wearing the red cap or whatever it was.”
    â€œProbably just a cardinal.” Mrs. B keeps her eyes resolutely on the gravel road as the bus snarls into low gear for climbing the hill.
    Bender glances behind him. Matthew is gazing out the opposite window, Shelly is singing to herself, and Miranda is trying to ignore Kaitlynn. Igor is in the middle of a game of keep-away with his Yankees cap, tossed by Jay and Spencer during that dead space while Mrs. B is scanning the highway before making a turn. Then Bender notices the new girl watching him again. Immediately, her eyes flicker away. The bus lumbers onto the highway. “Turn around, Bender,” Mrs. B commands.
    He turns around, facing forward again. What was that red thing? As bright as a cardinal, but bigger. He knows it was a person, and