I woke up knowing I had to survive only one day of Troy Pilkers tracking me down and Kandi Kain spreading stories about me at school before having five days off for Thanksgiving break.

Just one day of duckin’ and dodgin’ and five days of ahhhh.

Then Ma went and monkey-wrenched me.

“You’re going to have to come with me tomorrow and Thursday. And Friday,” she said, bustling around the kitchen.

“What?”

She tased me with a look. “Got wax in your ears, child?”

“Ma! You can’t be serious!”

“Where else you gonna go?”

“I’ll just stay here!”

“No, you won’t.”

“But, Ma!”

“Get movin’. I can’t have you missin’ the bus.”

The bus was about to leave when I got to my stop, but the driver saw me coming and flapped the doors back open. And when I ran up the steps, she gave me a wink and a grin. “Good morning, Lincoln,” she said. “We should be smooth sailing for the rest of the year.”

“Ma’am?”

She leaned over a little and lowered her voice. “Our problem is definitely not returning.” She gave me another wink and wagged her head to the back of the bus. “Go on.”

I moved along but my mind was a jumble. Had the bus driver known all year that food was flingin’ in the back of her bus? And if she had, why hadn’t she kicked Troy off the bus a long time ago?

Or maybe she knew something was going on but couldn’t peg what. Maybe she found food splats all over at the end of the day and cursed whoever was doing it. Maybe Kandi tattling was the break she’d been waiting for all year.

As I walked along looking for a seat, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Not like the one I got every day, knowing I was moving toward the fling zone. This one was from feeling like a coward. I hadn’t stuck up for myself—I’d just taken it. Instead of swattin’ at the bee, I’d let it sting me, over and over and over. Things hadn’t gotten any better with me ignoring Troy—they’d gotten worse.

Until Kandi had come along and stuck her nose in things.

I was smashed between the gears of wanting to throttle Kandi and knowing I should thank her for real. Like I meant it.

It was a terrible place to be caught.

Hilly was waving from the back of the bus. “Hey!” she called. “Back here!”

I moved along, acting like a snake might jump out and bite me, but I did end up sitting next to her.

“So?” she said, twiddlin’ her bracelets.

“So?” I said back.

“How are things with you and Kandi?”

I slid her a look. “Painful.”

“Ooooh,” she said, reading way too much into one word. Then she slid me a look back and said, “Well, you should be nicer to her.”

Her telling me that sent me in the opposite direction. “I’m plenty nice to her!”

She crossed her arms and full-on looked at me. And after she got done sizing me up with a frown, she said, “If that’s your idea of nice, then no wonder you don’t have any friends.”

“What? How would you know about my friends? How would you know anything?”

She just shrugged and went back to messin’ with her bracelets, and I turned away from her, feeling hot and mighty angry.

And then Ma’s voice started running through my head.

On our long bus ride escaping Cliff, Ma told me that in fights, nothing makes a person madder than the truth. “Anger won’t change the truth. It just works like a drug that makes you feel better for a while. But no matter how much you yell or blame or how many fists you throw, the truth’ll be there waiting for you when you sober up. The only way out is to face the truth and try and fix things.”

It had started off with her talking about Cliff but had turned into something that felt bigger than him. Her eyes were drilling into me as she spoke, and her voice was powerful in how quiet it was. Even as tired as I was, I could tell she wasn’t just explaining things.

She was warning me.

I didn’t really understand why on that bus, but as I got off this one, it hit home.

I was mad.

I was plenty mad!

But the sick feeling in my stomach was coming from the truth.

A truth that had nothin’ to do with anyone but me.