Tim the Motor Coach Operator was fast asleep in the front seat with a huge cup of coffee balanced between his knees. We had to stand in the rain banging on the door for about a minute before we could wake him, by which time we were soaking wet. Tim opened the door and closed it after us, took a slurpy sip of his coffee, and immediately went back to sleep. He seemed completely unconcerned with what we were doing there, and that was fine with me.
“Come back here,” I told Ben, leading the way down the aisle. “To where your seat is.”
When I got to Ben’s row, Britches stared up at me expectantly.
“Hochelaga?” he asked.
Beige Girl gave me a brief glance, then resumed staring out the window.
“Okay,” I said, stepping to the side to make room for Ben and gesturing toward the spirit seats. “Do you see anything there?”
Ben looked carefully.
“No,” he said. “Is there something there?”
“Two people,” I said. “Spirits. The first one, I call her Beige Girl because, well, her skin and her sweater and her hair are all kind of that color. She got on the bus at Notre-Dame. Hasn’t said a word. There’s a big guy sitting next to her, who looks about eighteen or nineteen and is wearing sort of old-fashioned beat-up clothes. He started tagging along at Mont-Royal and then followed us down to the bus from there. I call him Britches.”
Britches looked up when I said that.
“Hochelaga?” he asked. Britches looked like even he was getting tired of hearing that word come out of his mouth.
“He keeps saying the same word, and I don’t know what the word means,” I said. “Sometimes he says other stuff, but it’s in French, I think. I can’t really make it out.”
“I didn’t hear it,” Ben said. He looked genuinely disappointed.
“I guess it’s because these two are purely spectral,” I said. “There’s nothing physical from that time period that you could touch now to connect with them.”
“So you can see them, and they can see you. Can they see each other?” Ben asked.
“From what I can tell, no,” I said. “Either they don’t see each other at all, or they register each other sort of lumped in with the rest of the people on this bus, the ones who can’t see them. They seem to divide the world into two types: regular people, and mediums. Well, not just mediums. People with abilities. Like you. They’re aware of you too—they seem to know you are picking them up somehow.
“Britches showed up at Mont Royal when you were touching a rock up on the overlook. I heard other voices there too, also speaking in French. But these two are apparitions—they don’t have anything physical with them. But they seem drawn to you, Ben. I mean both of them have come and sat near you. How long have you known you were clairaudient?”
“All my life,” Ben told me. “My mother called the voices my ‘imaginary friends’ when I was little. I thought all kids heard the same voices. Then my mother went from being amused by my imaginary friends to scared. When I got older I learned to keep what I heard to myself. I didn’t learn there was a name for what I was, or that there were other people like me, until I was twelve.”
We stood together, dripping in the aisle.
“There must be some way…,” Ben began.
I heard voices outside the bus, saw Tim sit up and lean forward, and heard the hiss of the bus door opening. I made a guilty jump away from Ben, but my wet sneakers connecting with the slick aisle while I was off balance caused me to lose my footing and slip forward, toward Ben. He reached out and grabbed my hands with his, stopping me mid-fall. I yelped with surprise.
Britches drew back from the commotion.
“Hochelaga,” Britches muttered, sounding irritated.
Ben did not let go of my hands right away. The sensation of his palms on mine was electric. For a moment I forgot that the bus door had opened. I wanted to tell Ben I was okay, that he could let go now.
But I didn’t want him to let go.
“Hochelaga,” Ben whispered.
“What? You heard it?”
“Is that what Britches has been saying?”
I nodded. My face was hot, and I didn’t need a mirror to know it was bright red.
“I heard it!” Ben exclaimed. “Just now—”
“What in the world is going on?”
Ben and I let go of each other’s hands and spun to face the front of the bus.
Mrs. Gray was standing there with her hands on her hips, and she looked, in a word, scandalized.
“What are the two of you doing here? You’re breaking the rules! Is Jacqueline with you?”
“No, it’s just the two of us,” I said.
Plus these two dead people.
“We weren’t doing anything. I mean, we weren’t doing anything wrong. Bad. We were just…”
“Just what?” Mrs. Gray gestured with her head as she asked the question, sending her velvet headband slightly askew.
“There was something on this bus I really needed Ben to see,” I said.
“And that was what?”
Ben and I exchanged a quick look.
“I can’t tell you,” I said.
“And you expect me to—”
“Mrs. Gray, please,” I said quickly. “You and I spent a whole week together at the Mountain House. Which I really, really appreciated. You said I was a good friend for Jac. I think you even started to like me. I’m not a troublemaker, or a liar, and neither is Ben. I just can’t be more specific about what we were looking for on the bus. There’s sort of, other people involved. Who can’t speak for themselves.”
Someone else had gotten onto the bus behind Mrs. Gray. It was my mother. I wasn’t sure whether to feel elated or mortified.
She looked back and forth between Ben and me and Mrs. Gray. Tim the Motor Coach Operator was sitting in the front row unabashedly watching what unfolded, his gaze bouncing back and forth between us and the chaperones like he was at a tennis match.
“What’s going on?” my mother asked.
“This boy was in the back of the bus with your daughter,” Mrs. Gray said. “Kat says she is unable to give an explanation for what they were doing here. This violates school policy.” She turned back to Ben and me. “You could both be suspended if your teacher finds out about this.”
What? First of all we weren’t in the back of the bus, we were just beyond the middle of the bus. And Mrs. Gray was going to snitch on us? It was pretty clear we weren’t doing anything. The Motor Coach Operator was right there the whole time.
“Let me find out exactly what’s going on first,” my mother said. “Give me a moment.”
She walked toward me, clearly confused. When she got to the place where I was standing, she glanced over to the seat where Britches and Beige Girl were sitting. Her eyes widened just a tiny bit, then she took my elbow.
“Come sit in the back with me for a sec. Will you excuse us?” she asked Ben. He nodded, his face flushed scarlet. We moved past him to the very last row—the heart of Shoshanna-land. She made a gesture, and I sat down next to her.
“Kit Kat. I think I understand, sweetie. I think I know exactly what’s happening.”
I felt an odd surge of relief. My mother knew me better than any person in the world other than Jac, and Jac had known from the outset that I really liked Ben. Why wouldn’t my mother have noticed, too? We could have normal mother-daughter stuff after all, about boys for once instead of ghosts.
She would understand. I liked a boy and I had gone somewhere with him I technically wasn’t supposed to go for totally innocent reasons. We’d talk it out. Just like a normal mother and daughter. Normal.
“You’ve attracted several apparitions that seem to be drawn to you and are currently haunting this bus,” she said very quietly.
Welp. Forget normal.
“True,” I said, looking at my shoes. Please don’t let Ben be able to overhear this conversation, I thought. I’d like to be the only clairvoyant he knows, even if it’s just for the day.
“And Ben, he’s picking up something, too, isn’t he? They both seem to gravitate to him,” she said, running a hand through her damp hair. Her hands were thin, I noticed. All of her was very thin. Another way in which we were not alike.
Fine. The conversation would be about the supernatural side of the situation, not the way I felt about Ben. Phantoms before feelings and all that.
“Yes,” I replied. “We were trying to figure out if there were any conditions under which he could see them, too. We had just walked out here. Then Mrs. Gray showed up.”
Like the Secret Police, I added as a silent afterthought.
My mother nodded thoughtfully.
“I think I can smooth this out,” she said. “Let me talk to Jac’s mom.”
“What were you guys doing, anyway?” I asked.
“Getting coffee.”
“You. And Jac’s mom. Just shooting the breeze?” I asked. It came out more sarcastic than I meant it to. My mom was wearing faded jeans and an ancient oversized cashmere sweater with a hole in the elbow that I think once belonged to my grandfather. Jac’s mom was wearing pleated khaki pants, a white and pink pinstriped oxford shirt, and a belt with a gold shell as a buckle.
“She just needed somebody to talk to,” my mother said.
I gave her a curious look. If the subject had been medium-related my mother would not have mentioned it at all. I actually suspected that Shoshanna Longbarrow herself had contacted my mother last year when her grandmother died. But Mom refused to talk about it, even to simply confirm that some kind of communication with the grandmother had taken place.
That was the main reason I thought it had. Well, that plus the fact that Shoshanna had been much… well, I’m not sure I’d use the word nicer. But she’d sort of seen to it ever since that the Satellite Girls not torment me.
“Let me have a word with Jac’s mom, okay? Why don’t you and Ben go back to the lobby? It’s just about time for the rendez-vous now.”
“Okay,” I mumbled. I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable and couldn’t get off the bus fast enough.
My mother walked up the aisle to where Mrs. Gray was standing.
“I think I understand what they were looking for,” my mother said quietly. “And I also understand why Kat feels uncomfortable about sharing the details. I can only say they weren’t breaking any school rules—other than simply being on the bus in the first place.”
Mrs. Gray glanced in my direction.
“I appreciate what you… our talk. I do. And I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. I just don’t want to give anyone special treatment,” Mrs. Gray said. She sounded hesitant—I think she was already off the warpath.
“You’re quite right,” my mother told her warmly. “But in this instance, it’s more that you know the student in question. I think Kat’s earned your trust. And I’m sure both these kids can honestly promise you this won’t happen again.”
“We promise,” Ben added, staring at his sneakers.
Mrs. Gray still looked uncertain.
“Thank you so much,” I said. Because sometimes it helps to thank somebody for something they haven’t done yet. It worked like a charm here.
“Well… you’re welcome,” she said. “But please let us not find ourselves in this situation again.”
“We won’t,” I assured her. “We’ll get back to the group now.”
“Come on,” I said to Ben, ignoring Beige Girl and Britches.
I glanced at my mother, who gave me a smile and a nod. What was going on between her and Jac’s mom?
We brushed past my mom, past Mrs. Gray, and then past Tim, who was watching all of us like we were an episode of his favorite television show, and got off the bus. Mrs. Gray followed us off the bus and stood with her hands on her hips, all Captain Authority. I realized she intended to stand there and personally watch Ben and me walk back to the Biodome, so we couldn’t make a mad dash for, oh, I don’t know, Quebec City maybe.
“Are they friends—your mom and Jac’s mom?” Ben asked.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “Jac and I are best friends, which sort of makes them friends-in-law whether they like it or not. And I don’t think they like it.” Or hadn’t until today, when they suddenly became coffee chums. What was up with that?
But there was no time to think about that now. As we approached the front entrance to the Biodome, I realized we had an audience of one. Brooklyn was standing under the awning, her cell phone flipped open, staring at us.
Great. She had obviously seen everything that went down—the parent chaperones getting on the bus, me and Ben being frog-marched off the bus, and Mrs. Gray standing there like the Enforcer, making sure we committed no additional crimes on her watch.
Brooklyn looked utterly enraged.
I kept my mouth shut as the two of us walked past her to the door. There is an old saying about the fury of a woman scorned, and Brooklyn Bigelow was definitely feeling scorned by Ben Greenblott. There was nothing that needed to be said—the girl looked like she was already going nuclear.
Jac was standing right inside the door and practically pounced on me.
“Perfect timing!” she whispered. “Sid just called out his first ‘Okay, guys,’ and he hasn’t even done a head count yet!”
“Not so perfect,” I whispered back. I drew her to one side and Ben wandered over to the water fountain to give us some space. “Our mothers happened to get onto the bus while we were there.”
Jac’s mouth dropped open.
“Did my mother go postal?” she whispered.
“She started to,” I said. “My mom talked to her—kind of explained without explaining that we weren’t breaking any of the rules she thought we might be breaking. Mom could see it was a ghost stuff we were dealing with, not boy-girl stuff.”
Jac’s face fell.
“You told me it wasn’t ghost stuff.”
“I didn’t exactly say—”
“I asked you if it involved ghosts, and you said no. You lied to me, Kat!”
Had I?
“I didn’t… I didn’t mean… There was no time to argue, Jac, and I know how excited you get about ghosts and I didn’t want you to… I mean, Ben and I needed to… I needed to see if he—”
“No, forget it,” Jac said, glowering. She leaned close to me and whispered. “I’m the one who’s been trying to get the two of you together. I’m the one who made you talk to him in the first place. And now you’re just trying to get rid of me so the two of you can go ghost hunting alone.”
“That’s not true at all, Jac,” I said. Where was this coming from?
“It is true,” Jac said. “You’d rather hang out with him than me now. I should have known this would happen. Things never stay where you want them to. People never stay where you want them to.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Jac said nothing.
“Jac, what—”
Brooklyn swept through the lobby door and shot me a triumphant smile. I knew exactly what was going inside her lima bean of a brain. She had the one thing that might both get back at me and win her readmittance to the inner sanctum of Satellite Girls—a bit of juicy gossip.
I turned back to where Jac had been standing, only to find her gone. She had taken herself over near where Sid was standing, and was rooting around in her bag. She pulled out a pack of gum, glanced up and saw me watching her, and turned in the other direction. I didn’t know what to think. Was all this just because Ben and I had gone to the bus without her?
The lobby door opened again, and my mother and Mrs. Gray walked in. My mother caught my eye and gave me a little nod. I couldn’t get used to the sight of them together, like they were… friends or something.
And I was starting to feel self-conscious standing all by myself. Ben was still over by the water fountain, fiddling with his phone. Jac was reading the back of her pack of gum, apparently enthralled with the information. How long was she going to stay mad at me? And why didn’t Ben come over? Maybe he had never liked me in the first place, not like-liked. Or if he had, our brush with amateur law enforcement had scared him off.
My phone beeped, and I pulled it out. The screen informed me that I had a text message.
The sun exploded back into my world. Jac must have given Ben my number! I’d have to thank her—when she was speaking to me again.
Avoiding J’s mom. See u back at hotel? By soda machines?
OK, c u then, I texted back, trying not to grin at Ben like SpongeBob.
Ben snapped his phone shut and smiled at me for a moment, before walking over to the Story of Biodome display.
It is difficult to momentarily find yourself the happiest person on the planet at the same time that your best friend is mad at you. I couldn’t stand it. I made a beeline for Jac.
“Please don’t still be mad at me,” I said to her.
She looked like she was trying to ignore me, but she gave up quickly.
“Give me one good reason,” she said, pressing her lips together.
I gave it some thought. I could go for serious or glib. I decided on glib.
“Your feet are cuter than mine,” I said.
Jac was very vain about her feet. They were cuter than mine, and she liked to be reminded of it.
“True,” she said, “though I’m not sure it’s a good reason not to be mad at you.”
“You won’t take pity on a poor girl with ugly feet?” I asked.
“They’re not ugly,” Jac said. “Just a little bony.”
“My pinky toes are crooked.”
Jac gave me a sympathetic look.
“Only a little,” she said. “Not so much that anyone else would notice.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Anytime. What’s new?”
“Brooklyn saw me with Ben and gave me the Super Death Ray look. And Ben texted me to meet him by the soda machines when we get back.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have added the part about Ben. But Jac looked pleased. Whatever had caused her mood swing, she was over it.
“Serves Brooklyn right,” she said. “Bad karma. What are you going to wear to the soda machines?”
“I don’t know. What do people normally wear to the soda machines?”
“Let me think about it,” Jac said. Then she looked off into the distance, and I could tell she really was mulling over what clothing we had back in our room.
She was the most outstanding friend in the universe. Even if her mother had briefly considered having me suspended.