I heard the vice principal’s high heels clicking down the hallway before I saw her. “Good luck on curbside duty today, Andrew,” she told Mr. Adams when she passed him. Then she lowered her voice and added, “The monsters are always at their worst on the Friday before a long weekend.”
Mr. Adams groaned. “Thanks for the heads up.” But the vice principal didn’t hear him. Her heels were already clicking out the side door. I guess she was as happy to leave school as the rest of us.
Monday was a day off—which meant we had three free days in a row. We had a bit of homework, but nothing that couldn’t get done on Monday night. And though it was only week three of school, I’d made some friends. Guys like Jake and Pierre from the back of the bus.
I’d had to cause a bit of trouble to get in with them, but it was worth it. The first thing I did was stick a wad of pink chewing gum on the bus driver’s seat. When he got up to stretch his legs, it looked like he had a long pink tail. The guys thought that was pretty funny.
Then last week, I brought along a water pistol I’d filled with 7-Up and squirted a couple of the nerdy girls. You should have heard them shriek. This one Asian girl, Jewel Chu, was jumping up and down she was so angry. “I’m going to send you my dry cleaning bill!” she said. But I just laughed.
And yesterday, I insulted an old lady’s car when she pulled up next to the bus. “Your clunker’s got more rust than metal on it!” I yelled out the window. When the old lady turned her head, I realized it was Mrs. Gibbs, my old kindergarten teacher. I ducked so she wouldn’t notice me.
Today, when the bell rang at three, the mood at the bus lineup was extra crazy. Kelly and her friends were dancing, and Pierre punched one of the nerds in the stomach. The kid was lying on the ground moaning, but he stopped when Mr. Adams walked by.
“Everything okay?” Mr. Adams asked as he helped the kid up from the sidewalk. “You look a little winded.”
“Yup, everything’s fine.”
When the bus doors opened, we stampeded past Mr. Adams, who was standing at the curb, shaking his head. This time Pierre couldn’t find his bus pass, so the two of us pushed our way in through the back doors.
I saw the bus driver eyeing us in his rearview mirror. It was a cool September day, but his forehead was sweaty. “Hey, hey,” he called out, but nobody paid any attention.
When Jake raised his lighter in the air, I took mine out too. We all had lighters, even if we didn’t smoke. We liked snapping them. The driver couldn’t take the sound—and he was probably afraid we were going to set fire to his precious bus.
“Look!” someone called out from the front of the bus. “The driver’s cheek is twitching double-time!”
Soon all of us at the back were snapping our lighters. Then Kelly and her friends started pulling on the yellow cord that makes the bell ring. Between the snapping and the ringing, it was like a bad concert. Everyone was laughing. Even old Sandeep Singh.
Everyone, that is, except the bus driver. When he swerved around this Subaru wagon, so close he nearly took off the sideview mirror, I thought he was losing it.
“Hey, man, I think it’s time for some driving lessons!” Jake called out.
“Yeah, what are you trying to do—kill us?” Kelly shrieked.
The driver’s back was straight as a stick. I could tell he was trying to focus on the road. Then, with no warning at all, he pulled over to the side of Côte-Vertu Boulevard and turned on the emergency lights. Their steady tick-tick echoed like a clock inside the bus.
Other drivers honked for us to get out of their way. But instead the driver put the engine into neutral and rose from his seat.
Except for the ticking, the bus was dead quiet.
The driver ran his fingers through his gray hair. “You kids are in a big hurry to start your weekend, right?”
“We sure are,” Jake called out. “So you driving us to the metro, or what?”
The driver just stood there, staring at us. His belly hung over his pants like a spare tire, and he was breathing hard. “I’m not driving you nowhere unless you cut out your nonsense. No lighters, no bells. No nothing. Got that?” He practically spit out the words.
The nerds all nodded. But the driver knew their word wasn’t good enough. “What about you guys at the back?”
Jake stood up and walked to the center of the bus so he was facing the driver. Everyone’s eyes were on Jake. A couple of girls at the front of the bus twittered.
“Sure thing,” Jake said.
The driver waddled back to his seat. When Jake turned around, he gave us a wink. We all knew that meant Trouble. With a capital T.