121 Express Read online

  “Hey, Kelly,” I shouted, “I think Jake needs some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!”

  That made everyone laugh even harder.

  “Let me put on my lip-gloss first!” Kelly shouted.

  When the window finally popped open, it made a noise like a burp. “Yes!” Jake hollered. He pushed the window open as wide as it could go.

  A burst of cool air came jetting through the bus. We must have passed some big trees because a few bright red maple leaves came flying down too.

  We stuck our heads through the opening and screamed like madmen. “We’re gonna die!” we yelled. “we’re gonna die!”

  The bus driver picked up even more speed. Wasn’t he worried about the cops pulling him over?

  Someone was rushing down the aisle. I slid down from the window to see what was going on. Jewel Chu was clutching the soccer ball against her chest.

  “You show him!” one of her friends called out.

  “I wanted to return this to you.” Jewel threw the ball at Jake’s stomach. Hard.

  Jake fell down from the window, moaning when he hit the floor.

  The soccer ball rolled to the floor too. “At least you didn’t break a nail,” Jewel muttered.

  Pierre wanted his ball back.

  “I’ll give it back to you all right!” Then Jewel bent down and unfastened the safety pin from her kilt.

  Jewel raised the pin in the air like a spear; then she stabbed Pierre’s soccer ball. Pierre’s mouth fell open and his silver braces gleamed in the afternoon sun.

  “Here you go,” Jewel said in this syrupy-sweet voice. She handed Pierre what was left of his soccer ball.

  “Why’d you have to go and do that?” Pierre asked.

  “Why’d you have to go and break my nail?”

  “I didn’t break your nail.”

  Someone laughed. It was a laugh we didn’t recognize at first. There was something haunted about the sound of it. It took us a few seconds to realize it was the driver. He’d been watching the action in the rearview mirror.

  The brakes squealed when the driver pulled up in front of the metro. The doors opened and almost everyone piled out, except for me and a few other kids who lived farther along Côte-Vertu Boulevard.

  “That was the worst ride we ever had,” I heard Jewel Chu say as she stood up to leave.

  Jake, who was standing behind her, patted the top of Jewel’s head. “Funny, I thought it was pretty cool.”

  Jewel stopped when she reached the driver. “Thank you, sir,” she said, flashing him a bright smile. “Have a wonderful weekend.”

  The bus driver didn’t say a thing. He just stared into space like a zombie.

  chapter four

  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.

  chapter five

  Mr. Adams was on curb patrol. That meant we could pretty much do whatever we wanted as long as no one got thrown into the street and run over by a car. Mr. Adams was one of the youngest teachers at Lorne Crest. I guess he still remembered what being a kid felt like.

  Mr. Adams gave me a high five when he saw me waiting with Jake and Pierre. “Hey, Lucas,” he said, “I was talking to my cousin, Jeanette, over the weekend. She teaches at Lasalle Regional.”

  Uh-oh. Jeanette Adams had been my grade six English teacher. Now that I thought about it, she and Mr. Adams looked alike. They were both short, with dark skin and dark almond-shaped eyes.

  “She told me your nickname, and to be honest, Lucas, it took me by surprise.”

  My body stiffened. Uh-oh, I thought. Now the guys are going to know the truth: Before I came to Lorne Crest, I was as nerdy as Sandeep Singh. I tried staring at Mr. Adams, hoping that would make him stop, but he didn’t get the message. My face felt hot.

  Jake rocked on the balls of his feet. “So what was Lucas’s nickname?”

  I remembered the fun I’d had at Jake’s on Saturday and wondered if I’d ever get invited over there again.

  Mr. Adams slapped me on the back. “Brainiac,” he said.

  I gulped. Maybe I could talk my way out of this. “I—uh—don’t think so. Your cousin must’ve mixed me up with someone else.”

  “I don’t think so either,” Pierre piped in. “Not with the mark he just got on our science quiz.”

  Mr. Adams’s eyes narrowed. “I get it,” he said, nodding. “Jeanette must have you mixed up with someone else. Someone with a brain.”

  That made the other guys laugh. “Luke’s got a brain,” Jake said, elbowing me, “only he hardly ever uses it.”

  Pierre was pulling out an ad from one of the Plexiglas holders over the windows. The ad had a blue and white peace sign on it.

  Georgie laughed as he read the wording: “Paix sur l’autobus. Paix sur la terre.” That was French for “Peace on the bus. Peace on Earth.”

  “What a joke!” Georgie said.

  Valerie shot Georgie a dirty look. Judging by the sticker on her Mp3 player, she was pretty serious about the subject of peace.

  Once Pierre fished the whole ad out, he tore it into ribbons and passed the ribbons around. The rest of us scrunched the paper into balls and hurled them toward the front of the bus. Some of the kids at the front tried ignoring us; others threw the paper balls back at us. It was almost as good as a snowball fight.

  Jewel chu’s eyes widened, and when she covered her mouth with her hand, I started to wonder what was freaking her out. As I turned around, I heard a chorus of “oohs” and then Jewel saying, “That’s so gross! How could she?”

  Kelly Legault, who was sitting two rows behind me, had climbed onto Georgie Papadopoulos’s lap and was checking out his tonsils. At least that’s what it looked like.

  That Kelly Legault was hot all right. I couldn’t help wondering what kissing a girl that way would feel like. Pretty good, I guessed.

  “Free show!” Jake called out.

  Then everyone at the back started clapping. Jewel Chu looked like she was about to throw up.

  When the bus stopped at a red light, Jake nudged me. “Hey, Brainiac,” he said, handing me a tub of yogurt. “I dare you to dump this on that car’s windshield. Jake used his chin to point at a shiny black Nissan with tinted windows. It looked like it had come straight from the car wash.

  One of the things about hanging out with the cool guys is that sometimes you have to make split-second decisions. This, I realized, was one of those times. If I said no, Jake would think I was a wimp. And who knew what kind of trouble I could get into if I said yes?

  If only the light would turn green.

  But it stayed red.

  Pierre’s pale blue eyes were shining. “Go for it, man!” he said.

  I took a deep breath and grabbed the plastic tub from Jake. “Just don’t call me Brainiac!”

  Jake grinned. Then he leaned over and opened the window a little wider.

  Now other kids were watching me too. I guess they were bored of gawking at Kelly and Georgie.

  “Come on!” Pierre called out.

  There were other voices too, egging me on. “Yeah, Lucas, do it!”

  The last thing I noticed as I threw the tub of yogurt out the window was that it was field berry. It seemed like a weird thing to notice.

  I’d aimed for the middle of the Nissan’s windshield. I couldn’t help feeling proud when I saw the yogurt tub explode as it made contact with the glass. A second later, the entire windshield was splattered with pink goop.

  Jake clapped my back.

  “Look what he did!” someone at the front of the bus called out.

  The kids at the back were all laughing. They laughed even harder when the driver of the Nissan turned on his windshield wipers. Now there were goopy pink arcs on the windshield. “He’s only making it worse!” Pierre yelled.

  Even though throwing the yogurt was probably the worst thing I’d ever done, it felt good. Liberating, I guess you could say.

  But this other part of me was watching the traffic light. It was still red. Was it broken or what?

  What happened next seemed to take place in slow motion—the way bad things usually do. The door to the Nissan popped open. A man with a flushed face, wearing a shirt and tie, got out.

  I felt a pit at the bottom of my stomach.

  The light was still red.

  The man made a fist.

  The light turned green. Gun it, I thought, hoping somehow the driver would hear my wish. But he didn’t gun it.

  He yanked on the hand brake. The man with the tie marched over to the front of the bus. He raised his palm in the air like he was directing traffic.

  “Hey, this is great!” Jake shouted. “Better than the movies!”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  chapter six

  The bus driver sighed as he opened the front door. The rest of us watched in silence as the man climbed onto the bus, taking two steps at a time. He was breathing hard. So was I.

  Jake had slid the window shut. Was it my imagination or were there pinkish specks on my seat? Could it be field berry yogurt?

  I thought about switching seats, but of course, it was too late for that. If I stood up, I’d look suspicious. So I leaned as far back into my seat as I could.

  The man headed straight for the driver. “Who the hell threw that yogurt at my car?” His face was almost as red and shiny as the traffic light that hadn’t changed in time.

  The driver shrugged. “I wish I knew. They’re all monsters—especially the ones at the back.”

  Once he realized the driver couldn’t help him, the man turned to the rest of us. His voice boomed as if it was coming through a loudspeaker: “Do you understand how dangerous this could have been? I couldn’t see out my window! I could have caused an accident! People could have gotten hurt!” When he raised his arm in the air, I noticed a ring of sweat under his armpit.

  I tried not to squirm, even when Kelly uncrossed her long legs and winked at me.

  “I demand to know who did it! Who threw that yogurt?” The man looked toward the back of the bus, eyeing every single one of us. Somehow I managed to meet his gaze.

  I wondered who would turn me in. Sandeep? It would be a way for him to get even for me calling him raghead on the first day. Jewel? She was just the type to rat out another kid. Valerie? She thought I was a personal enemy of Mahatma Gandhi. Or maybe one of my friends from the back of the bus? Someone who’d tell on me just for the fun of it.

  But no one said a word.

  The man reached into
his pocket for his cell phone. “If you don’t tell me who’s responsible, I’m going to call the police!” he said, snapping the phone open.

  Uh-oh, I thought. Now I’m cooked. I imagined the police hauling me off the bus. Then I imagined my parents’ faces when they’d get the news. Their son—their only child, the one who, up to this year, had been a model student—arrested for public mischief.

  I tried not to move. But now, other kids were squirming. I looked over at the front of the bus. Jewel was chewing her lip. Sandeep was buried in a textbook.

  No one was going to turn me in.

  The driver got up from his seat and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “You’re not going to get anything out of these kids. The monsters have a code of silence. And phoning the police won’t get you anywhere, either.”

  The man made another fist and shook it in the air. “You might have gotten away with it this time, whoever you are. But take it from me—life’s gonna catch up with you. And it’ll make you pay.”

  “Hey, that’s pretty funny—life’s gonna make you pay!” Jake jabbed me in the ribs.

  Pierre’s shaggy head poked up from the seat behind us. “That guy’s a real nut,” he said. “I mean it’s not like anything happened. Maybe he just doesn’t like yogurt!”

  “Maybe he’s got a milk allergy!” Kelly added.

  The light was red again, but when it turned green, the bus driver didn’t move.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Jake called out.

  The driver was hunched over the wheel. But then he stood up and turned to face us. “Look,” he said in a quiet voice, “I’ve had it with you monsters. That guy was right— someone could have been hurt just now. So I’ve made a decision: I’m not driving you anywhere today. You’re on your own. Get the hell off my bus!”

  Jewel gasped. I couldn’t tell if it was because the driver was kicking us off the bus or because he’d used the word hell.

  There was grumbling everywhere—up front, in the middle and at the back where I was sitting. “I’m going to be late for my piano lesson,” I heard Sandeep say.