Chapter Eighteen

Bart

Thursday, October 12

As soon as Bart saw Matt Collins get on the bus, he went into lockdown. Remember the rules, he told himself: no eye contact, no sudden movements. Don’t pretend to be enjoying the view through the window; for some reason that seemed to be a red flag for Matt, a sign that Bart might be experiencing some happiness at the moment and needed to be brought back down to earth. Ditto for reading. However, looking depressed was also inadvisable, as it brought out Matt’s I’ll give you something to cry about side.

The trick was to look straight ahead without appearing to actually be looking at anything in particular. Unfocus the eyes, relax the facial muscles. You can’t appear to be thinking about anything, processing information, or showing interest in your surroundings in any way. You must be a blank page.

With any luck, someone will sit next to you before Matt gets a chance. Do not acknowledge this person in any way unless you have to. More likely than not, the person taking the seat will not acknowledge you, either, so this is typically not a problem. Think of this person as a cushion or a kind of life preserver. Pray that you get off the bus before he or she does.

If Bart followed every rule to perfection, he might—just might—have a nice ride home. He’d stayed after school today to work with Stefan and Ben on the computer game they were developing, the one that was going to make them all rich. Bart was in charge of the game narrative, and he liked looking out the bus window and thinking up new twists and turns that the plot could take, creating new quests, coming up with new monsters. He wished he could spend all day in the computer lab working on this stuff.

It wasn’t that he hated school—he liked his teachers a lot, and he really liked history this year—he just hated being at school, at least when he wasn’t in the lab. School was where he got teased and pushed and laughed at. Home was where he could be himself and nobody thought he was strange or goofy. At home, he was incredibly popular, even if he did bite his nails and had early-onset acne. He was liked not only by his parents, Jim and Reesa, but also by his brother, Carl, a ninth grader with the same social skills set as Bart, meaning zero. But at home the lack of social skills didn’t matter. Actually, at home Bart and Carl were both socially gifted. They were funny and entertaining and great conversationalists. But when Bart brought these gifts to school, they didn’t have the same effect on people. Well, Ben and Stefan mostly got his jokes and they didn’t seem to mind him hanging around, but everyone else treated Bart like a disease they were afraid of catching.

Except for Matt Collins on the bus ride home.

Before anyone else could join him, Matt plopped down next to Bart. A sharp elbow landed in Bart’s side. “You think I’m going to ask you for the history homework, don’t you?” Matt asked gleefully. “You think I’m going to say, ‘About that project that’s due on Monday, I’ll need you to do it for me,’ am I right?”

Actually, Bart hadn’t been thinking that. Matt often asked to copy his homework, but a project was a different thing. You couldn’t just copy somebody’s project and expect to get away with it, he wanted to tell Matt. But of course he didn’t tell Matt anything, because he was hoping to make it home alive.

“Well, you’re wrong, Mr. Nubby Nails,” Matt went on. “I’ve got sources and an outline. What do you think about that?”

This was where things got dangerous. To reply or not to reply? Bart decided to risk it. “That’s, uh, good?”

“Yeah, bro! Did you think it was bad? Quit being such a wuss-wad. And get this—Becca is coming over to my house on Sunday to help me with the finished product. I’m going to write a first draft tomorrow.”

Bart couldn’t help it. Breaking one of his most basic rules, he looked directly at Matt. “You’ve already started your project? And Becca is helping you? Why?”

“She likes me, dweeb-mush. Besides, I’m helping her out with something. It’s kind of a trade.”

Better not reply, you’ve said too much already, Bart told himself. He faced front again.

Matt elbowed him, this time with the potential for bruising. “Come on, bro. I expect to see a little more excitement from you!”

Bart sighed. He could see he had no choice but to engage. “That’s great about the project. And I’m glad you and Becca are friends. She could use a friend right now.”

“Now, don’t get carried away, Bart the Fart,” Matt said. “I didn’t say we were friends. We’re more like—I don’t know, colleagues.”

“That’s good,” Bart said before he could stop himself. “I mean, Becca’s been so strange lately. I’ve been worried about her.”

Bart, you idiot! What are you thinking? He braced himself for some rib crushing in the guise of a playful punch, but after a second he realized that Matt didn’t seem to be angry. Still, Bart didn’t relax. Relaxing was dangerous.

“Yeah, she’s been acting pretty strange,” Matt agreed. “Like that stuff with Petra. It’s pretty bizzaro, bro. I mean, you know Becca. She’s the last person in the world to break bad.”

Bart nodded. He did know Becca. He’d known her since preschool. Not only had Becca never been a rule breaker, she’d actually been a lot like the secret police, tattling on people for the most minor infractions. This new side of Becca had been upsetting to Bart. How did you become a totally different person overnight? It was as if aliens had taken over Becca’s body.

Matt slid down in the seat a little, like he was starting to get comfortable. “A lot of people think she stole Mrs. Herrera’s stuff, did you know that? And I get it, I guess. You wouldn’t have believed it two weeks ago, but now you’d believe anything about Becca. Except I know she’s not like that. Between you and me, she doesn’t like this new person she’s become. It’s a bad fit, am I right?”

Bart had to admit that Matt was right. Becca Hobbes was not a convincing bad girl. “It kind of makes me sad,” he said, which he knew sounded goofy, but it was true. “I never thought she wanted to be bad.”

“Exactly,” Matt said, nodding. “And I agree, bro, it is sad.”

They sat in a comfortable silence for a minute, until Bart asked, “What happened, do you know? Because it happened all of a sudden.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

Matt lowered his voice to a whisper. “Dude, Mrs. Herrera doesn’t like her. Or at least that’s what Becca thinks. So her feelings are hurt…”

“And she’s acting out,” Bart finished for him.

“Exactly.”

Bart leaned back and pondered his next move. Keep the conversation going? He could mention what he’d heard about Mrs. Herrera’s “thin ice” problem, which wasn’t that big of a deal. In fact, it was sort of disappointing. Henry had told Stefan (and Stefan had told Bart and Ben) that last year Mrs. Herrera had given some student permission to take a day off school so she could do some research at the zoo. The girl’s mom had gone too, so you think that it would have been okay, but apparently it wasn’t, not unless your teacher filled out two tons of paperwork explaining why you should be excused, which Mrs. Herrera hadn’t. Apparently a teacher couldn’t just give a kid a day off, even to work on a big project.

Matt elbowed Bart in the side again. “Dude, why so quiet?”

“Uh, I was just thinking about Becca,” Bart lied, deciding he didn’t want to tell Matt Henry’s story; Matt wouldn’t believe him anyway. “So if Becca didn’t steal Mrs. Herrera’s things, then who did?” he asked, deciding to stay on what seemed to be safe territory. “I know some people say it’s Petra, but I don’t know.”

“Maybe Petra,” Matt replied. “Or maybe that new girl. Ellie? Who knows what she’s capable of?”

Bart didn’t think it was Ellie, but why introduce conflict into what was turning into a pleasant conversation? “I guess it could be her. Or Henry.”

“Yeah, it’s probably Henry,” Matt agreed. “Only if it was Henry, don’t you think he would have blabbed it all over the place by now?”

“Probably. So maybe Ellie, or maybe…” Bart paused. Should he make a joke? They were pretty close to his stop, so why not? He was almost home free. “Maybe Aadita?”

Matt slapped Bart on the knee, which hurt but didn’t seem to be intended to injure. “Yeah, bro, Aadita! Hide your wallets, guys! Here comes Aadita!”

Bart laughed, but then he worried that Matt would start repeating the joke to everybody he knew and might start teasing Aadita while he was at it. “I guess we shouldn’t joke about it, though, right? I wouldn’t want it to get back to Aadita—she might not know we were kidding.”

Matt stopped laughing. He sat back up straight. “You were the one who made the joke, Bart the Fart.”

Bart held up his hands in surrender. “I know, I know. Totally my bad. I’m just saying—”

“For a second there, I thought you were halfway cool,” Matt said, shaking his head sadly. “Dude, you disappoint me.”

“Sorry,” Bart said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. “I just don’t… well, um, here’s my stop. Good luck with the project.”

Matt didn’t move, so Bart had to climb over him to get out of the seat. Just as he was stepping into the aisle, Matt leaned into him so that he went sprawling toward the front, falling the last few feet to the steps.

“You are off my bus until further notice!” Mr. Simms, the bus driver, yelled. “I can’t put up with these kinds of shenanigans.”

“But—but—” Bart started to protest as he rose to his feet.

“Why don’t you wipe your butt sometime, buttwad?” Matt called, and everyone on the bus cracked up. “Maybe then you wouldn’t stink so bad.”

Bart sighed. He turned to Mr. Simms. “You can’t kick me off the bus for tripping. I know my rights.”

“Get off now!” Mr. Simms commanded, waving dramatically toward the open door.

Bart got off. After the bus pulled away from the curb, he looked down at his knees. Only one of them was bleeding, so that was good. And it really didn’t hurt that bad. Probably tonight it would stiffen up a little, but his mom had this cool little pillow filled with rice that you could microwave and put on sore muscles to make them loosen up.

He began limping home, and by the time he reached his driveway, his limp was barely there and his knee had pretty much stopped bleeding. Good as new, he thought as reached his front door. Maybe even better.