Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous

  Copyright © 2014 by J.B. Cheaney

  Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover illustration © Greg Call

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  www.jabberwockykids.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

  Source of Production: Worzalla-USA, Stevens Point, WI

  Date of Production: June 2014

  Run Number: 5001937

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  Winter Break

  January

  February

  March

  April

  Early Dismissal

  May

  The Beyond

  Next August

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To Vicki and Leslie

  in memory of long Saturday afternoons

  on the porch

  with a cup of coffee,

  a slice of pie,

  and a manuscript.

  Prologue

  Storm of the Decade

  Last night’s weather forecast predicted rain.

  This isn’t rain. This is like somebody upstairs furiously hurling buckets of water at the vehicles creeping along the highway below. Minutes before, Patrol Car 38 was one of them. Then a gust of wind slapped it like a huge hand, the rear end shimmied, and the car swung around in a one-eighty that landed it on the yellow line. Front tires spun on an angry stream of water that hadn’t been there a moment before.

  The patrolman notices his hand shaking a little as he adjusts the radio knob. “Gonna be a busy morning,” he mutters to himself—meaning, Get a grip. The wind is still tugging at his car like it might want to flip it over just for fun. He thought it was a tornado at first. But no funnel cloud twirls up, just a mighty gale, like you’d read about in the Bible or see on a Weather Channel special called History’s Worst Wind Disasters. Shingles and branches dance in the current, and up ahead he sees a squarish piece of debris, maybe ten feet across, cartwheeling over the open field. Somebody’s roof?

  The radio fizzes and sputters: “Szzppppt!”

  Broken phrases and bitten-off words start popping up in the static.

  “Dispatch…Seven oh…fficers on 81 East…(Squawk!) Calling…Vehicle off a bridge on…(Scriiiiiiitch!) All available…47 West, report of…(Crackle!)…rd County, 215 south…school bus…Repeat…all officers…(Pip! Pip! Pip! Scriiiitch!)”

  The officer sits up straighter and leans closer to the radio: a school bus on Highway 215? That’s his territory. For the next few seconds, the radio tells him nothing but noise, then, “—way 67 eastbound, semitrailer sideways—”

  He grabs the transmitter and jabs the button: “Dispatcher 7. Dispatcher 7. This is Car 38. What’s the location of school bus on 215? Over.”

  It takes a few tries, but he finally gets an answer: “Car 38. Area of Drybed Creek. That’s all we know. Over.”

  “I’m on my way. Over.” He clicks off, replaces the transmitter, and puts the patrol car in gear. Pulling forward, he circles the convenience store and heads out the way he came in. School bus off the road—every parent’s nightmare. He’s a father—he tries not to imagine any details as he turns south, flips the siren, and speeds down the highway as fast as he dares, fans of water spraying up from the wheels and LED lights sizzling through the rain.

  • • •

  The rain has slacked off to a steady downpour—not buckets but hard fat drops, driven like nails. “Holy cow!” gasps the patrolman, gazing down at so-called Drybed Creek, now a gray, spiky torrent, studded with tree limbs and shingles and pieces of pipe. Where’s the bridge? And where’s the school bus? As he slows down, a hand pokes from the window of the pickup parked beside a bluff on the other side of the road. It’s pointing to the right.

  The hand belongs to an old fellow in overalls. His mouth is stretched wide in a shout, but the patrolman can barely hear him over the roaring water. “It went off over there!”

  Car 38 pulls over on the narrow shoulder. The patrolman grabs a poncho from the backseat and jerks it crookedly over his head while opening the door.

  A movement from uphill catches his attention. A kid—a boy—limping down the road. Down the road? Where did he come from? Then a shout makes the officer turn around: another kid, trudging up. All the patrolman can make out is a white face, but its terrified expression strikes like lightning.

  He steps back from the patrol car, waving his arms so they can see him. Are they both from the bus? How did they get so far away from it? Where are the rest of the passengers?

  The red-white-and-blue lights scream through the water: Danger! Danger! Danger!

  August

  (Nine months earlier)

  The light on top of the patrol car blinks sternly, like it’s seeking out perpetrators of a crime. Spencer Haggerty, on his way to catch the school bus, pauses for a second—like the way his mother always jerks her foot off the accelerator when she sees a patrol car. What is it about the police that makes you feel guilty, even if you’re not?

  Jay is running toward him over the common, bounding across the street as the patrol car rolls toward the end of the loop and signals a right turn. “You missed all the excitement!”

  “Huh?”

  “There’s been a robbery, dude! A crime!”

  “Really?” Their boring subdivision, a crime scene?

  “Spencer!” shouts his mom from the doorway. “Did you remember your physics camp report? And your scientific calculator?”

  “Yes! Bye, Mom!” She can’t see his eyes roll.

  “How about your socks?” Jay asks, grinning. “And your underwear? Did you remember your tighty-whities?”

  “Shut up.” Spencer, a redhead, blushes easily.

  “Oh, and your brain. Did you remember your outstanding brain?”

  “Who was robbed?”

  “Poppy—he came over while we were having breakfast, majorly ticked off. He’d already called the cops and everything, but it probably won’t help. Wait’ll you hear what was robbed.”

  “You mean stolen. Your grandparents were robbed. What was stolen?”

  “Good boy—you remembered your brain.” Jay taps his friend’s skull. When his hand gets smacked aside, he laughs. “A wheelchair. That’s all—a stupid wheelchair!”

  “Who uses a wheelchair?”

  “Remember last winter when my grandma slipped on the ice and broke her tailbone? They bought it so she coul
d get around easier when they went to Florida. It’s been folded up on the sunporch for months. So this morning, Poppy went to let Panzer out through the back door, and somebody’d broken in! The window screen was cut and everything. They looked around, but all they could find missing was the wheelchair.”

  Spencer frowns at something that doesn’t sound right. “That’s an oxymoron,” he says.

  “A what?”

  “Two words that don’t go together, like to find something missing. How do you find it if it’s still missing?”

  Jay punches him good-naturedly on the shoulder. Since he’s grown bigger and stronger over the summer, it actually hurts. “C’mon, Mr. High-school-reading-level. You know what I mean.”

  They’ve almost reached the gazebo at the entrance to Hidden Acres Subdivision where the school bus stops. All around the loop of asphalt that ties the neighborhood together, kids are emerging from their houses or drifting across the common. The dusty late-summer light falls pale and sad, as though sorry to be going.

  Igor Sanderson catches up to them, dragging his brother. Or that’s what it looks like at first, but really he’s trying to shake off Little Al, who’s clinging to him. “Thanks a lot,” Igor growls at Jay.

  “You’re welcome. What for?”

  “Calling the cops. They totally freaked out my mom.”

  “That wasn’t me who called—it was my grandfather.”

  “Whatever.” Igor pauses at the steps of the gazebo.

  “So how’d they freak out your mom?”

  “They came over to ask questions. She looked out the window and lost it.” Igor tosses his backpack to the ground, throws up his hands, and runs around in a circle. “It’s the cops! Go see what they want! I’m not here!”

  The little kids on the other side of the gazebo laugh. They always laugh at Igor.

  “No offense,” Spencer asks politely, “but does your mother have a criminal record?”

  Igor stops. Then he shrugs. “She’s just nervous. She’s always nervous around strangers, ’specially when my stepdad’s away on a job. Buzz off, Ally.” He bats at his brother’s clinging arm, explaining, “It’s his first day of kindergarten.”

  “It’ll be fun,” Jay tells the little boy.

  “It’s the start of your academic odyssey,” Spencer adds as he climbs the three steps to the gazebo—and nearly hits the floor after stumbling over a foreign object.

  It’s a foot, in a size 11 Adidas.

  The foot belongs to Bender Thompson. “Watch it, freak!” is all Spencer can think to say.

  “Looks like you’re the one who ought to be watching,” Bender remarks. Then he points a finger at Little Al with narrowed eyes. “You too. You could be the one they pick for the first-day-of-school human sacrifice. Just before lunch.”

  Little Al’s jaw drops and he grabs his brother’s arm again. “Leave him alone!” Igor yells at Bender, puffing out his chest a little.

  Bender is almost thirteen and starting seventh grade, with a body mass that could make almost two of Igor, but he’s not in a fighting mood. He merely takes a roll of paper from behind his ear and blows imaginary smoke.

  “So, Igor,” prompts Jay. “What happened with the cops?”

  “Mom finally came out and talked to them.” Igor rises on his toes and dances a couple of steps back. “But we don’t know anything.” He clutches his hands together as though pleading. “Honest, officer! We don’t know anything! Please let us—Hey, what got stole, anyway?”

  Jay opens his mouth, but before he can get a word out, Shelly Alvarez arrives in a rush as though blown by an excitable wind. “Omigosh! The police just came to our house! Did you know there was a robbery? Who called the cops?”

  Bender speaks up. “Somebody who heard this screeching sound from your house—a sound like a cat getting skinned alive?”

  Shelly tosses her long black hair. “Just wait. Wait until I do my breakout concert at AllStar Arena. No free tickets for you.”

  “I’m so not devastated,” says Bender.

  “That’s because you didn’t see my breakout performance at the county fair last July.”

  “What—you mean during the cow competition?” The other boys can’t help but laugh, because Bender is pretty funny sometimes.

  “Dweebs,” comments Shelly with a big fake smile.

  Miranda Scott joins them from the east side of the subdivision. “Did anybody see that police car that just went by?”

  “Tell them about the county fair show, Mir,” Shelly commands.

  It sounds like a command, but Miranda treats it like an honor. “You mean on the main stage? It was awesome. She did this one song with sparklers—”

  “It’s called ‘Razzle-Dazzle,’” Shelly explains, but before she can go on, Kaitlynn and Simon Killebrew arrive—Kaitlynn mouth first, as usual.

  “Guess what!? There was a robbery last night! My dad told the police he saw a black pickup early this morning when he was loading the van to go to work, but it was still dark then so it might not have been black, maybe dark green or blue. He just called my mom and said a cop came by his shop! It must have been serious—does anybody know who got robbed?”

  “Me,” says Bender. “Somebody stole my reputation.”

  The other boys roll their eyes, and Spencer says, “Who’d want it?”

  Bender glares as Kaitlynn squeals, “Panzer!” She runs over to a russet-colored dachshund being walked by Jay’s grandfather. The old man pauses, puffing angrily behind his cigar, to let Kaitlynn scratch his dog’s ears. She chatters on: “It’s the first day of school, Panz! Don’t you love the fall? Hot chocolate and leaf piles and Halloween?”

  Panzer yaps in reply as Mr. Pasternak tugs on his leash. “I’d like it better if I wasn’t being robbed in the dead of night,” the old man growls.

  “Robbed!?” squeaks Kaitlynn. “So it was you? My dad said—”

  “Is that the bus?” says Mr. Pasternak as a downshifting engine can be heard over the rise. He doesn’t seem to be in the mood for Kaitlynn’s conversation.

  “Here’s the bus!” Kaitlynn leaps to her feet and runs to the gazebo to join the others. There’s one more by now: Matthew Tupper, the other seventh-grader. He waited until the last minute to show up, lurking by the rose of Sharon bushes like somebody’s lost shadow. The Tuppers have lived in the neighborhood for over a year and still don’t act like they belong. Maybe being the only African American family makes them a little standoffish, though nobody will admit that.

  The yellow school bus curls over the top of the rise like a caterpillar, coughs tiredly, and rolls toward the crowded gazebo. Meanwhile, across the common, Bender’s mom screeches out of the Thompsons’ driveway in her Suburban, a coffee mug in one hand and a hairbrush in the other. She’s late for an appointment, as usual, but hates getting behind the school bus because it goes so slow and makes so many stops and there are not many good places to pass it on the twisty highway. Every school year begins a nine-month game of chicken between her and the driver.

  The bus stops with a squeal of brakes. A split second before the STOP sign flips out on its metal arm, Mrs. Thompson’s Suburban roars by. The driver frowns and shakes her head before she smiles and opens the door. “Hi, squirts! Welcome aboard!”

  Her name is Teresa (Terry) Birch, but she’s known as Mrs. B. And she always says “Welcome aboard!” like her bus is a cruise ship. Every year she wears a different hat that indicates where she went during the summer. This year, it’s a yellow bucket hat from Dripping Springs State Park, Oklahoma.

  Hidden Acres Subdivision is her first stop, so the bus is empty when the littles get on and take the front rows. The fourth-through-seventh-graders can sit where they want in the back seven rows. On the afternoon ride home, when the bus is packed, everybody has assigned seats. Mrs. B allows this one perk for big kids in the morning only.

/>   Bender boards first, after the littles. “How were the drips?”

  She frowns, then realizes he’s talking about her hat. “I’ll never tell,” she answers. “Move on back, Bender. Hi, Kaitlynn—keep moving, dear, you can tell me later—Hi, Jay, hi, Spencer, hi, Igor (not even grown-ups can remember Igor’s real name), hi, Shelly, hi, Miranda—Stop shoving, boys! Matthew, are you riding today?”

  Matthew is always last. “Thanks for joining us,” Mrs. B remarks while looking over her glasses at the rearview mirror. “Boys! Settle down and let’s get this show on the road!”

  Bender heads for the very back seat and flops, noticing the same crack in the vinyl, the one with the curled edges that annoyed him last year. He wrinkles his nose: the 409 smell doesn’t quite cover the aroma of old potato chips lingering in the creases. Matthew, two seats ahead of him, stares out the window. Spencer and Jay grab a seat together. Igor slips a whoopee cushion under Miranda as she sits down: thwpppp! She springs up and angrily throws it back at him. Igor nearly chokes himself laughing, even while pretending to be knocked out with birdies circling over his head. Mrs. B would normally be yelling at him by now, but this being the first day, she’s giving everybody a pass. Miranda’s frown turns to a smile when Shelly asks, “Can I sit with you?”

  The door snaps shut and the motor lumbers up to speed, leaving Hidden Acres behind in a haze of road dust. The bus climbs back over the rise and down the little valley and rolls to the stop sign where Mrs. B carefully looks both ways before turning south on the highway.

  Kaitlynn wants to know what everybody did for summer vacation, because her family just returned from a fabulous two weeks at Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. Matthew shrugs when she asks him, and Bender claims he had to change his name and go into the witness protection program for two months.

  Jay took a road trip to North Carolina with his grandparents, followed by a week at Pop Warner football camp. Spencer can top that: a physics camp in St. Louis that you had to have straight A’s and three teacher recommendations to get into. Spencer plays down that part, but everybody knows he’s brilliant.