When I step on the bus, a lightbulb appears in my head. A soft glow leaks from my ears, and it’s probably a lot like how it feels to have a crazy idea for an invention that will change the world—but in this case, the world is not changing for the better. This lightbulb in my head is a warning: Something is very wrong with this scene.

What’s wrong, you ask? Good question, imaginary Thomas Edison! I like when you don’t completely ignore me.

The answer is: It’s too calm. Way too calm—and if you hadn’t dropped out of school you’d know exactly how dangerous it is when all the other kids get quiet. There are things you learn in class that aren’t math and US history, you know. Wisdom passed down from those who came before us … those ancients who grow hair in weird places and get super moody for no apparent reason.

One of the most important new-kid rules? If there are bullies around—and there are almost always bullies around—the first thing to do is identify their Target. Because if you can’t figure out who the Target is, you can be pretty sure they’re looking for one.

And I promise, Tom: You do not want it to be you.

That’s why I really have to find a seat on this bus right now. But I’d like to keep talking to you, inside my head, if that’s okay? I hope it’s okay. It sorta helps me not get so nervous, having someone to distract me while I’m going down the aisle here.

As I put one foot in front of the other, I see a girl scoop up a little puff of orange fuzz and stuff it into the pocket of her sweatshirt—it’s a tiny guinea pig, and I smile in the girl’s direction. But she doesn’t look back. Just when I’m about to ask to sit by her anyway, this other, cooler girl plops down into the seat. Crap.

I continue down the aisle under the watchful gaze of a bunch of scary-looking kids. Any second they could fix on me as their Target, but I make it past and find a couple empty rows in the middle of the bus.

I’m right across the aisle from a boy in bifocals now. Score. With his old-man glasses, this kid’s sure to become the Target. But after I get a closer look at him, I realize I’m completely wrong.

This is no victim. This is a boy who has hardened under the taunting. Who has learned that the best defense is to strike first. His eyes are dead now. Fiery, cruel mirrors. Cross him at your own risk. I don’t want to sit anywhere near this kid—but it’s too late to change course: He’s already watching me.

So I slide into the window seat across from Deadeyes.

And outside I see my parents’ car. Mom and Dad are standing next to it, like they’re gonna wait here until this bus leaves their sight.

Last chance to make a run for it, Hart, the Freak tells me.

I feel a hollow thing in my chest as I think about all the stuff I’m gonna miss out on this summer: My dog. My room. The way things were a week ago, when I was so excited to be finished with elementary school. When my friends and I were dizzy with summer dreams, and the possibilities went on forever—

Before the peanut butter and jelly jam.

How could I have been so gullible, Tom? Did I know on some level the real reason Devon wanted to trade lunches with me? Was I so much of a pushover that I would look the other way and let something terrible happen to Max?

Did I want so badly to belong?

Well, now I do belong. Right here with the rest of these jerks.

Listen, Tom: Forget about that stuff I was saying before, all right? You should just go away while you can.

If I want to survive this, I need to stop having imaginary ghost friends and conversations with myself all the time. I need to keep my head down and be normal. Fade into the background, like a chameleon.

And in the likely event that I don’t survive? If that happens, we can totally be ghost friends and haunt cool stuff together. I promise I’ll tell you the whole story of how I died in reform school. And it’ll be funny. We can haunt my killer!

“Ian Hart!” A familiar voice startles me from my thoughts and I look up at Devon’s smiling face bobbing toward me. “Long time no see.”

He gives me a high five and thuds down into the seat next to me. “Whatcha been up to?”

My mind races for something to tell him.

“Stuff. Video games.” I don’t tell him anything specific about the levels I can’t seem to beat—and luckily, Mark and Ash are right behind him to distract us from these questions. Everyone plops down around me.

“Hey, Ian!” says Ash as he cranes over the seat in front of me, looking really excited. Excited to see me, I realize, with a little burst of happiness. “Have you been saving the good riddles?”

“Ohh … I completely forgot to bring them.”

“Seriously?” he moans. He makes this exaggerated show of throwing up his hands. “Well at least I brought you something to read.”

He opens his hoodie and pulls out a slim book.

“Oooh,” I say. “What is it?”

“This,” says Ash, “is a book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You need to know about it. It tells you how to survive if the planet blows up, and it’s also funny.”

“Where’d you get this? In that spooky used bookstore we found?”

“Nope! It’s my dad’s!” says Ash. “He says it’s way too advanced for me, but I think he may have been trying to reverse-psychology me.”

“And it worked, didn’t it?” I say with a raised eyebrow.

“Who cares? It’s probably the best thing ever!” says Ash. “Wait until you read it.”

With an enormous grin, I try to take it from him, but Ash pulls it back and gives me a warning. “It’s my dad’s favorite book, but he told me I could keep it with me this summer as long as I took special care of it. Guard it with your life.”

“Promise,” I say.

“No bending the spine like you always do.”

I glare at him. “You have any other rules?”

“Only one. You gotta finish it fast. I need to talk about it with someone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve already been waiting all week, ’cause you weren’t around. Where’d you disappear to?”

One of the best things about Ash Franklin is that Ash Franklin talks to me like the voices in my head don’t. He’s clear and straightforward and he never loses focus, and I would not be shocked at all to learn that Ash is some sort of superhero in disguise, and that I’m his sidekick, and the whole audience feels bad for me because of how sad it is that I hang around with a superhero all the time and I never even know it.

Just then the back of the bus erupts in oohs. That girl who gave a fake name at the registration table glares daggers at this human beanstalk with a straggly mustache under his nose. I can tell she’s about to punch him—but then she thinks again.

She mutters something that makes him blink in confusion.

I watch like I’m hypnotized as the girl covers her head with her hoodie and stomps up the aisle toward the front of the bus. And the boy looks after her, like he kinda wants her to come back—but when she doesn’t turn around, he just sinks into his seat again in silence.

“What’re you staring at, kid?” the girl barks at me.

“I’m not staring …”

I want to turn away but it’s like those eyes of hers are magnets. Or lasers, burning a hole straight through me. There’s definitely something weird going on. Maybe this girl was recruited to be an international spy in the third grade, and had secret lasers implanted in her retinas or something?

Then I realize what’s off: This girl is a lot older than me.

I turn to Ash. “Is that girl—?”

“Like fourteen?” says Ash.

“Yeah.”

“It’s not just her, either,” he whispers. “Everyone on this bus is older than we are …”

He gestures around in a secretive way. And I follow with my eyes, trying to be sneaky about it. He’s right: We’re the youngest kids on the bus.

“Actually,” says Mark quietly, “we’re the youngest kids in the whole school.”

We both turn to Mark slowly.

“You guys didn’t know?” he adds. “There aren’t any elementary school kids allowed in this place.”

“You mean except for us?” I say.

“We’re not in elementary school anymore, Ian,” says Ash.

“Nope,” says Mark. “We’re middle schoolers now.”