Jake waved at me before he disappeared into the metro station with Pierre. “See ya tomorrow,” he said, mouthing the words.
Tomorrow, Pierre and I were both invited over to Jake’s to play some b-ball and have pizza. Life was definitely looking up. In a way, I owed it all to the 121 Express. It was where I’d first made friends with Jake and Pierre.
So what if my marks weren’t what they’d been at Lasalle Regional? The main thing was I had friends. Cool friends.
I leaned back into my seat. Kelly Legault had carved her initials into the window.
It was much quieter now that the bus was nearly empty. For the first time since I got on, I could hear noises coming from outside: birds chirping, cars honking, and somewhere in the distance, the whine of an ambulance siren.
The emergency window was hanging open. I could have shut it, but I didn’t. Something about seeing it like that made me feel good. It reminded me of the fun Jake and I had had prying it open and then screaming our heads off. I could still hear the laughing when I’d made that joke about Kelly needing to give Jake mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Sometimes, I thought, as I gazed out the window, I could be pretty funny.
When the driver drove through a yellow light, I moved closer to the front. I didn’t want to miss my stop.
I could have taken one of the empty seats up front but I didn’t. I’d worked too hard to earn my place at the back, and I felt like it would be bad luck to sit with the nerds. So I just stood there, clutching a pole. If the driver took a sharp turn now, I wouldn’t lose my balance.
Valerie and Sandeep were still riding the bus too. I knew Valerie got off at the stop before mine. From where I was standing, I could see the way her red hair frizzed up at the ends. It was a nice color of red. For once she wasn’t listening to her Mp3 player. She was writing in a fat spiral notebook. She must have felt me watching because she closed the notebook and stuffed it inside her backpack.
“What are you doing—writing a book?” I asked.
I knew she’d heard me, but she just turned toward the window and sighed. I figured she wanted to steer clear of troublemakers—and I liked that she thought I was one of them. Even if it meant she was ignoring me.
Sandeep was sitting on one of the long seats behind the driver, watching us. “Hey, Valerie,” he said.
It kind of bothered me when Valerie turned around for Sandeep. “What’s up?” she asked him.
“Not much. I’m excited about that project Mr. Adams wants us to do—the one about modern-day heroes. Did you pick your hero yet?”
Jeez, I thought, Sandeep really needed lessons in how to be cool. Imagine telling a girl you’re excited about an English project.
But Valerie actually seemed interested. “I’m thinking about doing Mahatma Gandhi,” she said. “He believed in non-violence.” She raised her voice when she said that, which made me think she was trying to tell me something.
“I’m all for nonviolence,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say anything.
Valerie sighed again. “Messing with the emergency window is violence—kind of, anyway.”
“No, it’s not,” I said quickly. “We didn’t hurt anyone.”
“What about him?” Sandeep raised his dark eyebrows toward the bus driver.
“I can’t help it if he can’t drive.” I said it loud enough for the driver to hear me. His cheek twitched.
When Valerie started discussing Mahatma Gandhi again—how a lot of people think he was related to Indira Gandhi, who was prime minister of India, only they weren’t related at all—I knew it meant my part in the conversation was over.
I was sorry I’d said anything at all. I was better off ignoring those two—the way they were ignoring me.
The driver slowed down before Valerie’s stop. Valerie said good-bye to Sandeep, but she ignored me altogether. I tapped on the pole and pretended not to notice.
I had to crane my neck to watch Valerie walk down Côte-Vertu Boulevard, her head held high. She wasn’t very friendly. But I still liked the color of her hair.
Sandeep took a book from his backpack. I figured it was a physics or math textbook, but it wasn’t. It was a new thriller by Michael Connelly, and from the looks of it, Sandeep was into it. I liked Michael Connelly too. He was the kind of writer who made you feel you were there with him—inside his story.
About a block before my stop, I reached up to tug on the bell cord. I had a feeling the driver wouldn’t slow down the way he had for Valerie. Sandeep usually got off at my stop too, but for now, he was still sitting, lost in his book.
I went to the very front of the bus and waited behind the tinted glass that separated the driver from his passengers. That little space, I thought, that didn’t measure more than a few square feet, was the guy’s office.
The driver’s hands had brown spots and his bony fingers shook when he gripped the wheel.
Sandeep was busy reading. “Hey,” I called out, “it’s our stop!”
Sandeep stood up, but he didn’t shut his book.
The driver pulled up to our stop. I could have thanked him, but I didn’t. What stopped me was the idea of what the guys would say if they knew.
As I got off, I felt Sandeep’s weight on the step behind me. When I stopped to toss my empty water bottle into the garbage can by the bus stop, I half expected Sandeep to stop too. He wasn’t cool, but I didn’t see any harm in walking a couple of blocks with the guy.
Only Sandeep didn’t stop. He just kept reading his book, which he had balanced in one hand.
What a loser, I thought, as he walked right past me.