I HESITATED WHEN I reached the ground floor.
The motel’s parking lot was a beehive of activity. Highway traffic was flowing again and guests were anxious to get back on the road. Trunks slammed shut, motors turned over, and cars nosed into the slow-moving line of vehicles.
My mind catalogued the scene, zeroing in on the two tour buses I’d noticed earlier. The silver buses were adorned with purple racing stripes that swept along the sides and up around the backs, inset with a Headway Tours logo. They were still empty, but there was a group of kids mingling near the front door of one. It swung open and a heavyset woman with a blond bun and rosy cheeks stepped out.
She said something to the group, tapping her watch and motioning toward the coffee and gift shop. She pointed to the tallest of the boys, an African-American kid wearing a black Oakland Raiders T-shirt. He was the only one wearing jeans instead of shorts. He shook his head and waved at the other kids as if to suggest one of them should handle whatever she’d asked him to do. He began to turn his back on the woman, but she grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. She leaned in and said something that made the boy’s eyes go angry. They stared at each other and the moment stretched. The other kids inched backward. Finally, the tall boy shook his shoulder free and tromped toward the door leading to the gift shop, his fists balled.
It was imagining what my father would do in this circumstance that propelled me toward the shop—and the kids inside that, like me, weren’t long for this world. I made it to the entrance the same time as the tall boy. He looked twelve or thirteen, with a strong face and lanky build. I smiled and opened the door. He frowned and pushed past me. I followed him in.
As soon as we stepped inside, he shouted louder than an angry football coach, “It’s time to go!” Between the gift shop and the adjoining restaurant, there had to have been at least forty kids inside, not to mention a dozen or more adults. Every one of them turned his way.
The adults glared, the kids shrugged, and I felt suddenly exposed. I shrank to one side. As the boy began his circuit to deliver his message, my eyes were drawn to the end of the candy aisle, where two girls were trying on sunglasses in front of a mirror. They wore colorful Lake Tahoe T-shirts and antler caps, and were about eleven or twelve. I moved closer and pretended to study the candy selection.
“Dahhhling,” the shorter of the two said with a Southern drawl, turning her head left and right to admire her freckled reflection. She had a round face and a friendly expression, and wore an orange head scarf beneath the cap, its end flowing down her back like a mane. “Do they make me look radishing?”
Her friend sniffed but didn’t smile back. “The word is ravishing,” she said with a slight Latin accent. She had olive skin like my sister, bright blue eyes, and a figure that made me wonder if she was older than I’d originally thought.
She continued, “And it doesn’t matter which pair you try on, Strawberry, you’re still going to look silly with those antler ears.”
A chuckle crept out of me and both girls turned my way. I felt my face flush.
The first girl placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head so the antlers wiggled. “Somethin’ funny?” she asked, her mock stern voice unable to mask her smile.
I grinned. She giggled.
The other girl’s eyes went flat. She removed her own antler cap and placed it on a shelf of M&Ms, her gaze lingering on the candy. Unlike her friend, she had a full head of dark hair and her bright eyes were mesmerizing, but they did little to cover the crushing sadness that emanated from her. I could feel her deep pain. I’d inherited from my mom this empathic trait, one I’d long ago learned to trust.
I took a step forward and reached out to her with my mind, doing my best to wrap her in a blanket of peace.
Her lips parted in a quiet gasp.
Strawberry noticed. “Ellie, are you okay?” she asked, taking her friend’s hand.
Ellie hesitated, her eyes on me. “Uhhh, sure. I had the strangest—”
Our connection broke when the messenger kid stepped between us. “Time to wrap it up,” he said, ushering the girls toward the door. “Belle wants us on the bus.” He reached for Ellie’s arm to hurry her along, but Strawberry pushed it away.
“You’re not the boss of us, Deondre. Go bug somebody else.”
“Whatever,” he said, before moving on to the next group.
Ellie frowned at me. I knew she wanted to know more about what I’d done. Usually people couldn’t sense when I tried to help in that way, but she sure had. Fortunately, something stopped her from asking about it, and when Strawberry took her hand, she allowed herself to be pulled toward the door. But her gaze lingered on me.
I looked beyond them and saw several of the other kids had already exited. Lines were forming at the buses. I was running out of time, so when Ellie glanced over her shoulder right before walking outside, I had already disappeared around the aisle with my prize.
I waited until the chaperone checking names off a list was distracted before I slipped behind her and onto the bus. It was a plush touring coach with high-back seats. The air smelled of snacks and fast food and my foot crunched on a corn chip as I shuffled forward. The chatter was loud and lively, and as each of the kids ahead of me peeled left and right to sit with their friends, I wondered how I was ever going to get away with this. The sunglasses I’d grabbed helped, and the antler cap Ellie had discarded was a good fit, but these kids knew one another. I was a stranger. I lowered my gaze and made my way toward the rear. It seemed quieter there.
I was five rows from the back when Deondre rose from his seat and glared at me. “Where are my donuts?” he asked. It was more a command than a question.
My heart was halfway through its leap when a voice behind me said, “Right here.” There was a rustle of plastic wrap and a six-pack of mini powdered donuts sailed over my head. Deondre caught them and sat back down without a word.
“What a jerk,” a boy’s voice behind me whispered. “He made me buy those with my own money.” He leaned closer and added, “I wonder if he’ll notice the crushed Valium I sprinkled over them. Hah!”
I faked a cough to cover up my chuckle, looking away as Deondre stuffed one of the powdery pastries into his mouth. The seat behind him was empty but I didn’t want any part of it, so the kid behind me took it. When I glanced back at him, the pudgy boy winked from behind a pair of thick-framed glasses. The baseball cap he wore didn’t quite cover the bandage that wrapped around the back of his skull. I winked back.
The energy at this end of the bus was subdued, and that’s when I realized the kids sitting here were part of the group of ill children I’d noticed earlier. I didn’t need to reach out my senses to feel their sadness. I saw it in their vacant expressions.
No one paid much attention to me—until I reached the back row and Ellie and Strawberry looked up. Strawberry screwed her face into a question mark, and Ellie’s eyes narrowed. Five seats stretched across the rear of the bus. The girls occupied the two on the right while a pair of boys sat in the two on the left. The only empty space was in the center—in plain view of anyone looking from the front.
I glanced over my shoulder to see if I’d missed a free spot, but the high-back chairs made it impossible to tell. Besides, I knew I’d checked every seat on my way past. My mind wouldn’t allow me to miss that sort of thing. I stuck my backpack into the overhead rack. When I turned back around, the seating arrangements had changed. Strawberry was now in the center seat. Ellie scooched over beside her. Our eyes met and she patted the empty window seat next to her.
“Hurry up,” Strawberry said in a conspiratorial whisper. She motioned toward the front of the bus. “Here comes Belle.”
The stout chaperone was pulling her way up the steps. I slid past the girls and took the seat by the window.
Strawberry leaned around Ellie to get my attention. Of all the kids in the back section, she was the only one with a smile. “Welcome aboard,” she whispered. Her eyes narrowed. “Hey, aren’t those the sunglasses I tried on?”
I hesitated. It had always been hard for me to make friends because kids didn’t usually get me. At school they called me Brainiac, which hurt, even if it was true. After a while I’d stopped trying to fit in and had grown accustomed to keeping to myself.
But for my plan to succeed, I needed to make friends. The bus’s engine started. I craned my neck over the chairs to see Belle had taken her seat. That meant I didn’t need the glasses for now. I took them off, held them out to Strawberry, and spoke for the first time since my murderous rampage the week before. “I think they make you look radishing.”
Her face beamed. She put on the glasses and tilted her head this way and that. “Dahhhling.”
Ellie rolled her eyes. She still wouldn’t smile.
I removed the antler cap and handed it to her. “This was yours. You left it.”
“I left it on purpose. It’s silly.”
She was right, of course. But I thought about some of the tough spots my family and I had found ourselves in, and said, “Sometimes silly is all you’ve got.”
Her expression softened. She tucked the cap into the seat pocket in front of her. I pulled a pack of M&Ms out of my pocket, opened it up, and offered her one.
She stared at it. “I love those.”
“I know,” I said, popping the candy into my mouth. “That’s why I grabbed them.” I tilted the open bag over her hand as an offering.
Her lips parted as if she was about to question how I could know anything about her, like she was considering the brief connection I’d made with her in the coffee shop. After a moment, though, she simply opened her palm and accepted a few candies. Strawberry reached out and I poured her some, too. That’s when I noticed half of one of her pinky fingers was missing. Both girls sized me up while they munched.
“You’re strange,” Strawberry said between bites.
Ellie said, “But in a good way.”
They don’t know the half of it, I thought as I prepared myself for the barrage of questions I expected to follow. The questions didn’t come. Instead the girls exchanged a brief look and settled back in their seats.
The bus turned onto the road. I glanced out the rear window as we pulled away from the motel. My stomach tightened and my eyes got moist. Ellie must have noticed, because I felt a swell of emotion from her like what I’d feel from my mom when she sensed I was upset. I liked Ellie immediately because of that. She nudged me and motioned toward the bag of M&Ms. I emptied the last few into her palm.
“I’m Alex,” I said over the rumble of motorcycles rolling into the motel’s parking lot.