Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous (10 page)

Kaitlynn frowns, wondering if this should be allowed. Maybe they need some rules.

But that afternoon, the picture is gone. She secretly sighs with relief because now she won't have to make a decision.

Except next morning, Bender does the exact same thing, with another copy of the same picture. And in the afternoon, it's gone.

Wednesday: picture up in the morning, down again in the afternoon. Total contributions for three days: four dollars and seventy-two cents, meaning one more brick filled. Everybody wondering what's up with Bender and Mrs. B (the only one who could be taking the picture down). Kaitlynn so excited she can hardly stand it. She cuts the last needy family out of the paper that night: Claudio and Virginia Esterbrook, whose baby was born with a hole in his heart and needs all kinds of surgery. She brings her double-sided tape so she can stick them on the poster while the others are boarding.

She's just finished when Mrs. B stops Bender in the aisle. “If you have another picture, don't bother. We already decided who gets voted on, and if everybody wants to add to the list, this project gets out of hand.”

“Who decided?” Bender asks. “I didn't.” He lifts his head and raises his voice. “Anybody here decide who to vote on?”

As everyone shakes their heads, Kaitlynn finally breaks her silence. “It was my idea! We wouldn't be taking money at all if I hadn't thought of it!”

“Yeah, but nobody would be giving if they didn't want to. And what's going to get out of hand if I add one more family?”

“They don't need this kind of help,” Mrs. B says. “And how do you even know it's a family?”

“How do you know they don't need help?” Bender demands, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

It's a good question, but Kaitlynn sees that Mrs. B is getting angry—not the quick toaster-pop kind of anger, like when she is telling them to pipe down or she'll stop this bus, but the slow kind that takes a while to build and almost as long to die. “Don't use that tone of voice with me, young man! Take your seat right now or I'll be having a talk with your parents this afternoon.”

“Good luck with that,” Bender mutters, starting down the aisle as Mrs. B bangs the door lever. Then he stops and raises his voice. “Who wants to add one more family to vote on?”

After a very short pause, Alice's hand shoots up. “Alice, you—” Mrs. B begins, but then she shuts herself up as though she'd almost said something ugly. Slowly, Miranda's hand goes up. Then Igor, Spencer, Jay, Shelly, and finally Matthew. In the front section, Simon is the first to raise his hand, which Kaitlynn thinks is kind of disloyal.

Bender turns around, grinning. “I love democracy.”

Mrs. B's expression hasn't changed. “
Sit
down
, Bender.”

But that afternoon, when Kaitlynn takes her seat at the front of the bus, the picture is still there! All Mrs. B says is, “No speeches about these people. You know nothing about them.”

For a half-second, Bender looks honestly grateful. “Thanks,” he says.

Kaitlynn herself feels a little tippy, as if her project has come to a point and could either slide back or forward and she isn't sure which.

“Bender!” she hollers that afternoon, leaping off the bus so dramatically heads are turning as she catches up with him. “What's going on? Did you write another letter? Did you hear back?”

“Shhh!” He glances around as though hidden surveillance cameras might be monitoring his every move. “No, I didn't write another letter. I couldn't figure out what to write.”

“But did you get something from them?”

He pauses before making a very brief, slight nod.

Kaitlynn gulps. It's like her stories have started coming true outside her head! “
Awesome!
What did they say?”

Again, he hesitates. Then he pulls an envelope out of the inside pocket of his jacket and hands it over.

The envelope has Bender's correct address but no name, just
To
A
Friend
. Inside is a Christmas card that's been cut to fit the envelope: a picture of a star with wise men on camels looking up at it. Inside is something about Wise Men Still Seeking Him, and she notices that the signature has been erased and written over. The writing says,
I
know
where
you
live
.

“Wow! How'd they figure out it was you? You didn't give them a return address, did you?”

He shakes his head irritably. “I'm not that stupid.”

“So,” she says eagerly, “it looks like somebody's stalking you, and you'd better watch your back.”

He snatches the envelope. “A stalking message in a
Christmas
card
? And besides, it's obviously written by a kid, who's playing…some kind of game. And I don't want to play anymore.”

“You don't know that! It might be a grown-up who's had a head injury like Troy Lawrence Pasternak so he writes big letters like that and now he's mad at the world and he thinks you're out to get him so he's going to get you first.” She can't stop the giddy grin that stretches across her face.

“Shut
up
.” Bender stuffs the envelope in his pocket. “And don't tell anybody, okay? The whole idea was really stupid.”

“Then why are you trying to raise money for them? Is it to buy them off, so they'll leave you alone?”

He doesn't answer, just stalks across the common toward his house. Another mystery—Kaitlynn hugs herself and jumps up and down with excitement.

The next day, contributions total over five dollars, the most ever in a single afternoon. And on Monday morning, the grand total is ninety-three dollars—just seven short of their goal! As Hidden Acres kids pile on the bus, every one of them gazes in wonder at the almost-totally-red chimney. Spencer and Jay slap high fives, and Shelly says, “We did it!”

“Almost,” Miranda corrects her, then adds, “Nice job, Kaitlynn.”

Kaitlynn feels her smile glowing like a sixty-watt bulb. “Thanks.”

Bender is one exception to the Good-Will-Toward-Men. He barely glances at the poster, stomping on—and later off—the bus without a word to anybody.

On the afternoon ride, Kaitlynn collects five dollars and seventeen cents. Less than two dollars to go! She's the last off the bus at Hidden Acres, and as she leaps the two steps onto the ground, she's so pumped with success Bender has to yell twice to get her attention. He's standing at the entrance to the gazebo and not alone. Three of the littles have already started for home, but everybody else (except Shelly who stayed in town for a guitar lesson) lingers in a rough circle around Bender. He's speaking as she joins them.

“…vote on Wednesday. But we all know the family I put up won't win.”

“You didn't put up a family,” Spencer says. “You put up a
house
. Or technically, a shed.”

“And we're the only ones who even know about it,” Jay adds. “The guys who get on after us don't have a clue.”

“I know who does have a clue,” Bender says. “Mrs. B.”

All eyes shift to the back of the school bus, just disappearing over the rise. “What do you mean?” asks Igor.

“She knows who lives there. The school superintendent doesn't make her stop every day at a place where nobody gets on. If there was some kind of screwup at the beginning of the year, they would've worked it out a long time before now.”

Igor frowns, like this had never occurred to him. “So why does Mrs. B keep stopping there?”

Jay asks, “Is that any of our business?”

“Number one,” Bender says, “I don't know. And number two…maybe.”

“Could we cut this short?” Spencer complains. “It's cold out here.”

“Okay.” Bender takes a deep breath. “I was wondering if we—just us in the neighborhood—could raise a little more money for those people at the, uh, mystery stop.”

Everybody is stunned. Is this Bender the bully speaking?

He stares back with a bullying expression. “Well, could we?”

Kaitlynn's feelings are mixed. So much that she's speechless, which is pretty unusual.

Miranda says, “I have about five dollars left over from Christmas shopping.”

“I do too,” Bender says. “Five dollars, I mean. Anybody else?”

He looks around expectantly. But the spirit of generosity isn't working overtime.
Unlike
for
her
idea
, Kaitlynn can't help but think. It might have helped if Bender wore a Santa hat and rang jingle bells.

Matthew, on the edge of the group, drifts away and starts toward home. “I don't know,” Jay says. “I'm maxed out right now, and we did just raise a hundred bucks.”

“Besides,” Spencer says, “how do we know the money will get to them?”

Bender's face goes a little redder than the weather can account for. “Because I say so.”

“Don't get mad at me. You're the one with the history.”

Spencer, who is smaller than Bender, might not have said such a thing if he hadn't been standing close to Jay, who's bigger. But what he said is true, as Kaitlynn knows from her Mother's-Day-card extortion incident last year.

Simon pipes up, “You can have my milk money for this week—two-fifty.”

Simon hoards his milk money and has saved up almost forty dollars since school started. So it's not as generous as it sounds. And nobody makes a similar offer.

Jay shifts his backpack to one shoulder. “Nice thought and all, but not this time. See ya.” He starts across the common with Spencer.

Miranda hesitates. “Well…let me know,” she says at last. Bender just nods without looking at her, and she turns away, taking the opposite direction from Spencer and Jay. Evan tugs at Simon's jacket and they start toward the Killebrew house.

That leaves Kaitlynn, who finally finds her voice. “If you're going to do a community project, it should be different from the one that other people have already thought of.”

“It's not a ‘community project,'” he snaps. “Unlike some people, I don't do stuff just to get gold stars on a Sunday school chart.”

As it happens, Kaitlynn does have a lot of gold stars on her Sunday school chart—except for the one about keeping quiet and paying attention—but so what? “I'm doing this because I feel sorry for families that won't have a good Christmas this year because—”

“Well, I don't feel sorry for people,” he interrupts her, “and I don't want anybody feeling sorry for me.”

Who
does?
she wonders. “Then why do you want to collect more money? So you'll have an excuse to take it to them and find out who they are?”

“No!” he says so fiercely she has to wonder if maybe the answer is really yes.

“Then why?”

“Do you want to cough up some cash?”

“No, because—”

“Then I'm not telling.” He turns around, takes two running steps across the gazebo, and vaults over the opposite rail, which kids are always being told not to do because the gazebo is getting a little rickety. Mr. and Mrs. Pasternak Senior gave it to the community, but so far the community hasn't picked up a hammer to make the repairs everybody agrees need making.

Kaitlynn realizes she should still be glowing with success, but her bulb must have been hooked up to a dimmer switch because Bender sure turned it down. What's wrong with him? Can't he be happy with one Christmas good deed, instead of feeling he has to go one better? Even while wondering this, Kaitlynn somehow knows that Bender is not just playing a game of one-upmanship. And he's probably not buying off a stalker either, as cool as that would be. It may be a sneaky way to solve the mystery of the empty bus shed—but she doubts that too.

So what kind of game is it? She has no idea. And for an idea person, that feels about as comfortable as burrs under your socks.

On the Monday before New Year's, Mrs. B drives over to Hidden Acres for a newspaper interview and picture with Kaitlynn Killebrew. She doesn't drive the school bus, of course, just her trusty dark blue pickup. Maribeth Grand, the reporter/photographer, already has most of the story from Kaitlynn (probably more than she bargained for) by the time Mrs. B arrives to give a grown-up's perspective.

“I'm proud of what Kaitlynn and these kids accomplished,” Mrs. B tells Maribeth. “It's an inspiration to everyone in the community.”

Kaitlynn beams and is still beaming when Maribeth snaps the picture of her with the bus driver's arm across her shoulders and the chimney poster propped up between them with all its bricks colored in. They had exceeded their goal, raising $107.53 for Mr. Pressley with the runaway wife and three little kids.

Kaitlynn's little brother Simon speaks up from the floor, where he's sulking because they didn't let him in the picture. “It would have been more. Bender wanted to raise extra for the mystery stop but—”

“What do you mean, Bender wanted to give money to them?” Mrs. B asks Simon in a tone that comes out rather sharp.

“Well, you know he
wanted
to,” Kaitlynn reminds her, “or he wouldn't have put that picture up.”

Simon pipes up again. “Bender said—”

“Why don't you get lost?” Kaitlynn interrupts. “Go play with your Cobra Force Space Station you've been begging for since Halloween.”

“It's an
underground
bunker
, not a space station.” Sighing, Simon pushes himself off the floor and stomps out of the room. Maribeth Grand leaves shortly after, promising that the article will appear in Wednesday's paper.

Mrs. B leaves also. After climbing into the pickup, she decides to go the long way around Hidden Acres, which will take her past the Thompson house.

It's a dreary day with clouds hanging low as hammocks. Mrs. B drives slowly past the long driveway going up to the Truman house, where Alice lives. Even though she knows Mary Ellen Truman well—too well—Mrs. B doesn't even think of dropping in for a visit. Mainly because they haven't spoken to each other since August.

The next house on the loop is Pasternak Junior's, then someone she doesn't know because they don't have kids, then the Thompsons'. Mrs. B is wondering if she should try to get to the bottom of Bender's involvement with the mystery house. Does he know more than he should?

The first thing she notices is a for sale sign in the yard.

The pickup skids a little as she stomps the brake pedal. When did that happen? And why?

Job transfer? Downsizing? Or maybe a divorce?

A banging on her tailgate jerks her out of her reverie:
Clang! Clang! Clang!

It's Pasternak Senior, one hand holding a leash and the other holding a cane, which must be made of steel for all the noise it's making. He's yelling too, but the noise of the cane is so loud she can't make out any words.

She rolls down the window: “Hey!”

The banging stops for a moment. “You've got a lotta nerve coming back here!” Then it starts again:
Clang! Clang!

“Hey!” she yells, jumping out of the cab. “Stop that!”

He stops with the cane but not with the glare. “I'd be ashamed, if I were you.”

Mrs. B glances around helplessly. She barely knows the old man, only enough to nod when he happens to be walking his dog past the gazebo while the kids are boarding. Fortunately Mrs. Pasternak Junior, Jay's mom, is hurrying out of their house nearby, tugging a jacket over her sweat suit, and calling, “Poppy! What's the matter?”

Pasternak Senior waves his cane and almost catches Mrs. B on the chin. “Back to the scene of the crime! Some nerve, I'd say.”

“What crime?” Mrs. B asks.

“My stolen wheelchair!” he yells.

“But Poppy,” Jay's mom says, “this is—you're the bus driver, aren't you?” she quickly asks Mrs. B. “Right. It's the bus driver, Poppy. She picks Jay up for school every morning.”

The old man wrinkles up his forehead, which is already pretty wrinkled. “But it's a black pickup, like I saw that morning.”

“You're not the one who saw it, Poppy, remember? Dave Killebrew saw it when he was loading his van, and he wasn't sure about the color—just dark, is all he said. And besides, this one's blue.”

After a moment, Mr. Pasternak Senior lowers the cane and extends his other hand. “Forgive me, young lady. A case of mistaken identity.”

Mrs. B shakes the hand. Anybody who calls her young lady obviously has some redeeming qualities. “Not a problem, sir. Happy New Year.”

“Same to you.” He tosses up the cane and touches it to his hat, like the hero of an old-fashioned movie musical in top hat and tails.

“Come on, Poppy,” says his daughter-in-law. “I just put a pot of coffee on. Come in and warm up.” They turn toward Pasternak Junior's house.

For the first time, Mrs. B notices that the leash Mr. Pasternak is holding has no dog on the other end of it.