121 Express (4 page)

Georgie wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. I guess he hadn't expected his aim to be so good. “It was just a little
apple,” he said, watching as a small crowd formed a circle around the lady.

“The size of the apple doesn't matter,” Sandeep said in a loud voice. “What matters is the velocity the apple achieved when it was flying in the air. Velocity is a function of—”

Sandeep must have realized he sounded like a loser, because he stopped himself in mid-sentence.

At least Jake and Kelly had quit making out. Kelly turned and gave Georgie a look that said he deserved to suffer.

A couple of people were helping the old lady up from the sidewalk. One woman took hold of her elbow; someone else picked up her purse. The apple rolled off the curb and landed at the side of the road.

“See, she's fine!” Georgie said. “I told you. It was just a little apple.”

The old lady pointed at the apple, and a man standing nearby picked it up and handed it to her. I watched as she slipped it into her purse. Evidence, I thought, but I didn't say it out loud. I didn't want to upset Georgie.

But Georgie was busy clicking his lighter. I started clicking mine too. I remembered how I'd felt when that guy whose car I'd splattered with yogurt got on the bus. I figured Georgie could use a little support.

“We should check to see that the woman is all right,” Sandeep said. His voice cracked a bit.

“What are you? A paramedic or something?” Pierre shouted.

“I told you she's fine. It was just a little apple,” said Georgie.

The way Georgie kept saying that made me think he was more upset than he was letting on.

A couple of the people who'd been milling around the old lady looked up at the bus. An old man stamped his cane on the sidewalk.

Pierre stuck his head out the window. “You senile or what?”

The bus driver muttered to himself. Though I couldn't hear what he was saying, I was pretty sure he was cursing us out. But today he didn't seem to have the energy to
yell or make us walk home. He just kept driving and muttering away like a madman.

Sometimes I wondered what the guy had done to get assigned to the 121 Express. It wasn't like he was young and just starting out. Maybe his supervisor wanted to punish him. If that was the case, the plan seemed to be working.

When we reached the metro station, Georgie made sure to let Jake and Kelly get off the bus before him.

“You okay, man?” I asked him.

“Course I am. It was just a little apple.”

Later, when it was almost my stop, I bumped into Valerie. “Oh, it's you,” she said, drawing away from me as if I was contagious. “Your friends are total jerks.”

Sandeep looked up from his book. “Yeah,” he said. “Total jerks.”

I looked at both of them. “At least I've got friends.”

Valerie glared. Sandeep sucked in his breath.

But I didn't care. I didn't want anything to do with those two losers.

We were pretty surprised when Old Quack Quack—that's what everyone at Lorne Crest calls the principal, Mr. Mallard—got on the bus.

Kelly, who was drawing a heart on the side of Jake's neck, dropped her pen. Pierre, who was fiddling with the emergency window on the ceiling, dropped back into his seat.

Old Quack Quack was going bald, but he had a tuft of gray hair that grew up like
a bushy island on the top of his forehead. His pop eyes bulged behind his thick glasses.

He cleared his throat. Old Quack Quack generally didn't have much to do with us students. He spent most of his time on the phone in his office.

Old Quack Quack's eyes traveled down the bus, starting at the front and working their way steadily to the back. “In August, each of you received a copy of a letter sent to me by the Montreal Transit Corporation. In that letter, the mtc threatened to stop service on the 121 Express because of complaints about bad behavior on the bus. But this time, you people have gone even further,” he said, wagging a pudgy finger in the air. “Even further.”

None of us said a thing. We all just sat there, trying to look innocent.

“I think you know exactly what I'm getting at,” he added.

There was still no reaction. Old Quack Quack's eyes got even bulgier.

“Yesterday,” he said, pausing as if he
wanted to emphasize the word, “one of you threw an apple at a woman on Côte-Vertu Boulevard.” Now he reached into his pocket and took out an apple—a small red MacIntosh with green speckles.

Georgie slouched in his seat as if he wished he could disappear.

“Well,” Old Quack Quack went on, “it turns out that woman was seriously hurt. She sustained an injury to her eye, and the damage may be”—he lowered his voice— “permanent.”

“Oh no!” Jewel Chu said, covering her mouth.

Old Quack Quack smiled approvingly at Jewel. “Oh yes,” he said. “And now, I've got someone I'd like you people to meet. Someone you may recognize.”

There was one loud gasp on the bus— the sound of all of us gasping at the same time—when the old woman stepped onto the bus. We'd been so focused on Old Quack Quack's speech we hadn't noticed her standing outside with Mr. Adams.

She was wearing the same cloth coat
she'd worn the day before, only now she had a black patch on one eye.

Old Quack Quack reached for the woman's hand and helped her up the stairs.

“Boys and girls,” he said. “I'd like you to meet Annabelle Miller. Mrs. Miller— welcome to the 121 Express.”

Annabelle Miller peered at us with her good eye.

I noticed Valerie scoot over in her seat so she could get a closer look at Mrs. Miller.

“Shouldn't you be lying down, Mrs. Miller? Resting your eye?” Jewel Chu asked.

Mrs. Miller shook her head. “My eye isn't very good,” she said. Her voice was low, and we all leaned forward to hear her. “The doctor thinks there is a chance I'll get my vision back. But that isn't why I came here today.”

She had grabbed onto one of the poles for support.

“I came here to ask you young people to stop your shenanigans. And I came here
to ask you—all of you—to tell this nice young fellow,” she smiled up at Old Quack Quack, “who threw the apple that hit me. Justice,” she said, peering at us with her good eye, “must be served.”

Old Quack Quack—imagine someone calling him young—shifted from one foot to the other. “If no one comes forward, you'll all be punished,” he said. “All of you.”

But no one said a thing.

Not Georgie. Not even Sandeep—or Jewel Chu.

The screaming started almost as soon as Old Quack Quack and Mrs. Miller got off the bus. “We're all gonna die!” Pierre yelled.

Kelly was bouncing up and down on Jake's lap.

“Quack! Quack!” Jake shouted.

“Did you see that hairy spot on his forehead? It looks like a toilet seat cover!” Pierre called out.

Only Georgie wasn't saying anything.

Suddenly, he sprang up from his seat and walked into the aisle. “Gimmee some
room,” he said, stretching his arms out in front and then behind him. The kids in the aisle pressed closer to the windows.

Georgie was only a couple of inches away from me. I didn't know what he was up to when he leaned forward and dropped his head between his knees. Then he started breathing really fast, like he was hyperventilating. He kept his head down for a minute, but then he lifted it up really quickly.

“Choke me,” he whispered.

“No way, man,” I told him.

“Go for it! Choke him!” voices called out—I didn't know whose.

“Uh, I don't think so,” I said.

“Choke me!” Georgie insisted.

So I put my hands around Georgie's throat and choked him, just like he'd told me to. Only I didn't choke him very hard.

When he fell to the floor, his face was white as a sheet.

“Ohmygod,” Jewel Chu shrieked. “You killed him! You killed Georgie!”

I felt this lump—it felt as big as that
MacIntosh apple Georgie had thrown at the old lady—form in my throat.

I couldn't take my eyes off Georgie's face. His pupils had slid over to the corners of his eyes. I felt my heart sinking in my chest. What had I done?

Please be okay, Georgie, I thought, please. And that's when I made a promise to myself: I was through with troublemaking.

Georgie was breathing, but only lightly.

Then all of a sudden, his lips twisted a little, and then he smirked. “I had you there, didn't I, Lucas?” he said.

I was so relieved, I could have cried. But what would my friends think if I started bawling like a baby? So I took a deep breath and laughed instead.

I was so afraid I'd killed Georgie I didn't even notice when the bus squealed to a halt. This time, the driver didn't bother pulling over to the side of the road—he stopped plunk in the middle of Côte-Vertu Boulevard, across from the McDonald's. He stopped so suddenly that a couple of kids standing in the aisle toppled into each other, and a backpack went flying and hit someone in the head. Whoever got hit yelled, “Ow!” and some of the girls at the front screamed.

Cars were honking all around us. A man in a nearby car lowered his window. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted at the driver.

A woman crossing Côte-Vertu Boulevard whipped a sheet of paper from her purse. “I'm taking down your license number,” she yelled, “and reporting you to the transit authorities. You could have endangered the lives of those poor innocent children!”

That cracked us up. Us—poor and innocent?

The driver just sat, hunched in his seat, running his fingers through his wispy hair. After a few seconds like that, he slid open the window next to his seat. “Go ahead and report me!” he hollered at the woman, who was still standing there, scowling.

Then, just like that, he started to laugh. It was the same haunted laugh I remembered.

Some people's laughs make you want to laugh too, even if you don't know what's so funny. But not this guy's.

Kelly raised her eyebrows. Jake shrugged. Even Jewel Chu looked confused.

A few seconds later, the driver sprung up from his seat like a Jack-in-the-Box, and Jewel Chu shrieked, “You scared me!”

The driver's eyes darted from one point to another as if he couldn't decide where he wanted to look—up at the ceiling, out to the street, or down to the floor. He'd stopped laughing, but now his cheek was twitching like crazy.

“This...this is the last straw!” he shouted, sputtering as he spoke. “The very very last. In all my life—and I'm not a young man—I have never ever met such a miserable bunch of kids. The word monsters isn't bad enough to describe you. You're demons. Demons!”

His voice grew more shrill with every word, and his dark eyes flashed like the blade of a knife.

“Hey, don't freak out on us, man!” Jake called out.

“Just because you're having a bad day doesn't mean you should take it out on us!” Pierre added.

Kelly bounced up from Jake's lap.
“Yeah, maybe you're upset because your wife doesn't love you anymore!”

Now the driver's chest and arms were shaking. He lumbered down the aisle, stopping only when he got to where Kelly and Jake were sitting. “How dare you?” he said, looking straight at Kelly. “How dare you say something like that?”

Pierre made a snorting sound. “Maybe she's right about you and your old lady!”

The driver's knuckles were white. I don't think I'd ever seen anybody so angry. Kelly and Pierre shouldn't have said anything about his wife. Maybe it was a sensitive subject.

Somebody had to do something to calm this guy down. And it looked like that somebody was going to be me. Besides, hadn't I sworn that my troublemaking days were through?

“Look,” I said, getting up from my seat, “they were just kidding. They didn't mean anything by it. Isn't that true, you guys?”

“It's true,” Jake said. “We were just kidding.”

Kelly giggled.

But her giggles set the driver off all over again. I guess he felt like she was laughing at him. “You're monsters! You're demons!” he shouted, even louder than before. “You have no respect! No respect at all!”

Now Jewel Chu popped up from her seat. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, stopping to clear her throat, “but do you mind letting me off the bus? I'm feeling a little uncomfortable.”

A couple of other kids at the front stood up too.

But the driver ignored Jewel and her friends. Now he was yelling so hard that saliva was pooling in the corners of his mouth. “I suppose you learn a lot of things in that school of yours, but one thing you haven't learned is respect. You demons have no respect for anybody!”

Just as he said the word
anybody
, his voice cracked. It was probably from all the shouting. His mouth was still moving, but no sounds came out.

Georgie was the first to laugh. But then other kids started laughing too. Not because anything was so funny, but more
because they didn't know what else to do. It wasn't exactly your ordinary, everyday situation.

Our bus driver was having a meltdown— and it was our fault.

The laughter seemed to bother the driver even more than our bad behavior. The next thing he did took us all by surprise.

He crumpled on the floor, his hands wrapped around his shoulders, hugging himself. Then he sat on the floor like that and wept. His barrel chest heaved up and down, but still, he made no sound.

It was the most pathetic thing I'd ever seen.

Jewel must have figured out how to use the door mechanism, because suddenly the front and back doors popped opened.

“Let's get the hell outta this insane asylum!” Jake shouted.

Kids started stampeding out both sets of doors.

So you'll call me, right, Jakey?” Kelly shouted from the street.