While Mrs. Park did one last head count, Owen took out his sketchbook and a pencil. He whistled a little as he flipped it open to a sketch of a bunch of different superheroes.
“You’re in a good mood,” I said, watching him draw.
Owen nodded without looking up. “Five days with no baseball!”
I smiled. “Yeah.” After a few seconds, I cleared my throat. “So are you going to enter that art contest?”
His pencil kept moving, but I saw him blink a few times. “Actually, um . . . I kind of already did. A few weeks ago, right after we talked about it in science class. I figured I’d better do it before the first baseball—” He jumped when I clapped once, loudly.
“You entered!” I cried. “That’s awesome! When will you find out the results?”
“They said four to six weeks.”
“Let’s see, I remember us talking about it the week before all-region . . .” Quickly, I counted the weeks on my fingers. “So there’s a chance you could hear something this week, then?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Owen tapped his pencil on the pad. “There were a ton of entries, though. Like, hundreds. So chances are—”
“Chances are, you’ll destroy them all,” I said firmly. He laughed, blushing.
“Thanks.”
Mrs. Park passed us and stopped in front of Mr. Dante’s seat. “Only one student hasn’t shown up yet,” she said. “Trevor Wells.”
I saw Mr. Dante glance at his watch. “Well, he’s got three minutes.”
“Oh my God, are we actually going to leave him if he doesn’t show up in three minutes?” I blurted out, and they both looked up, startled. Mr. Dante pushed his glasses up his nose, giving me a serious look.
“Absolutely,” he said. “In fact, we might leave in two minutes. My instructions were to get here early, after all.”
I gaped at him for a few seconds before realizing Mrs. Park was laughing. “You’re just messing with me, aren’t you.””
Mr. Dante shook his head solemnly, but Mrs. Park winked at me.
“Some kids just can’t do mornings,” she said, sighing. “I practically have to turn the garden hose on Liam to get him out of bed.”
“That’s how Trevor is,” Owen told her. “His mom puts an alarm clock outside his door so he actually has to get up and walk across the room to turn it off.”
Mrs. Park arched an eyebrow. “I’m surprised he even hears it. Liam could sleep through an earthquake.”
“It’s not a normal alarm,” Owen said with a grin. “He showed me once—it sounds like a police siren or an air horn or something.”
“Interesting,” Mrs. Park mused. “I should look into that.”
Someone rapped on the bus doors, and the driver leaned over to open them. Trevor stumbled up the stairs, dragging his backpack. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair stuck out all over the place, and his eyes looked all squinty and watery.
“I’m here,” he mumbled. Owen and I laughed, and Mrs. Park shook her head.
“Barely made it,” she said, checking him off the list. “Okay, we’re ready to go!”
Trevor collapsed into the seats behind me and Owen. The snoring started before the bus even pulled out of the parking lot.
For the first half hour, the bus ride was loud. Everyone (well, except Trevor, obviously) was talking and joking around, and the good mood was contagious—I even started to feel better about Julia. Natasha and I would just have to talk to her when we checked into our room. By the time we went to dinner tonight, we’d be friends again.
While Owen sketched, I tried playing the handheld game he’d brought. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as Prophets, though. The chatter started to die down once we got on the highway, and before long, Trevor wasn’t the only one snoring. My eyelids started to droop, too, and when my character died on the same level for the fifth time, I set the game in my lap to rest my eyes.
An hour later, I woke up with my head on Owen’s shoulder.
Wait. What?
I stayed perfectly still, opening my eyes just a little bit. He was still sketching, his right hand flying over the paper. His left arm was sort of pinned in. By me. Apparently, I’d slumped over on him from my seat while I slept. Well, this was awkward.
Awkward, but also kind of nice.
Not that I’d ever tell anyone that—Julia and Natasha would totally take it the wrong way. Besides, Owen was probably really uncomfortable. And if anyone saw the two of us right now, we’d never hear the end of it. I said a silent prayer of thanks that Trevor was still snoring away behind us. But any second, someone could come to the front to talk to Mr. Dante.
Like Gabby.
I squinted at the giant mirror over the driver’s head, watching Gabby make her way down the aisle. She stopped next to Natasha and Aaron for a few seconds, and I noticed something in her hand—a DVD.
Okay, time to move. I just had to figure out the least awkward way to do it. The last thing I needed was for things to get all weird with Owen, like the whole winter dance catastrophe last semester.
But that was my fault for acting like a total spaz. This time, I’d do the opposite—play it cool. This was no big deal, sleeping on Owen’s shoulder. I hadn’t been lying here for the last five minutes freaking out about it. I’d just woken up, and everything was totally fine.
Yawning, I stretched and sat up. “Sorry,” I said in the most casual voice possible, as if I’d only realized right this second that we’d practically been cuddling. “Oh, is that for our science project?”
Owen nodded, tilting the sketchbook so I could get a better look at the roller coaster whipping a carful of aliens around a loop-the-loop. It was like the one I’d found online and printed for our proposal, only a million times cooler. His sketches were getting better, I realized. From awesome to mega-awesome.
“It’s not very scientific, though.” His voice sounded normal. So far, so good. “But it could just be part of the visual aids or something.”
“Nice!” I chanced a peek at his face as he went back to drawing. Were his cheeks a little pink? No, it was probably my imagination. I breathed a little sigh of relief. Crisis averted.
Then it dawned on me that maybe Owen really hadn’t minded the almost-cuddling. Maybe he even thought it was kind of nice, like I did. I glanced at him again, but he was focused on his sketchbook. Overthinking things, I told myself, leaning back in my chair. Owen was just being polite, letting me sleep on his shoulder. What else was he going to do, shove me in the aisle?
“Hey, guys!” Gabby appeared next to us, hopping up and down. I grinned up at her.
“How much sugar have you had?”
“Two bags of M&M’s and a package of Twizzlers,” Gabby said. “I’ve got a giant Ziploc full of carrot and celery sticks, if anyone wants it,” she added, and I laughed. Across the aisle, Mrs. Park glanced up from her book to give Gabby a look of mixed disapproval and amusement.
“What movie did you bring?” Owen asked, and Gabby held it up.
“Push Your Luck,” I read. “Never heard of it.”
“It’s hilarious,” Gabby said fervently, then spun around and held the case out to Mr. Dante. He glanced up from his laptop, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Looks okay,” he said. “Although that robot movie—”
“Cyborgs,” Owen and I corrected him at the same time.
“Cyborg movie,” Mr. Dante went on, “is up first. But I don’t want to start it while everyone’s sleeping.”
“Gotcha.” Turning to face the back of the bus, Gabby sucked in a huge breath and hollered: “Y’all wake up so we can watch a movie!”
Owen and I laughed as a grungy tennis shoe flew over our heads, smacking Gabby in the arm. Behind us, Trevor mumbled something incoherent, shifting into a more comfortable position. His feet stuck out in the aisle—one shoe, one sock with a g
iant hole in the big toe. Gabby pulled off the sock and used it to swat him on the legs, which turned into a sock tug-of-war.
Mr. Dante massaged his temples. “It’s going to be a long week,” he told Mrs. Park, who nodded wearily.
He sent Gabby back to her seat and put Cyborgs in the DVD player. As soon as the opening credits started, Owen put his sketchbook away and pulled out a box of crackers. Trevor went back to snoring, even through the loudest explosions.
“I mean, seriously,” I said about halfway through the movie. “The aliens built the cyborgs, so they’re the actual bad guys. It should be called Aliens versus Ninjas.”
“That would kind of spoil the twist, though.” Owen sounded amused. “And apparently it’s a pretty good twist, considering even you couldn’t figure it out.”
I flicked a cracker at him. He deflected it with the box, grinning.
After stopping for lunch at a taco place, Mr. Dante put in Gabby’s movie. It was pretty funny (although totally predictable). But I was too distracted to pay much attention. Natasha and I had tried to find Julia in the restaurant, but we didn’t see her until everyone started boarding the bus again. She was obviously determined to avoid us.
Not that she’d be able to for long. We’d just have to talk to her in our hotel room before dinner.
Victoria and Max came up to the front of the bus with their Warlock cards to join me, Owen, and Trevor. After about an hour, Leah and Gabe moved up a few seats. Pretty soon, we had a game going with almost a dozen players, all swapping cards over the chairs and across the aisle. I reached over Trevor’s head to take Leah’s charmed-goblet card.
“Hey, Holly?” Leah kept her voice low, even though Trevor was too busy arguing with Victoria to hear.
“Yeah?”
“Is everything okay with Julia?” she asked.
I tried to keep my face neutral. “Yeah, why?”
Leah shrugged. “Well, you looked kind of upset Saturday when she didn’t show up to the party. And . . .”
“And?” I prompted.
“Well . . . Sophie told me that Julia told her you and Natasha yelled at her for hanging out with her boyfriend too much.”
My mouth fell open. “What?” I hissed. “That’s not true—we didn’t yell at her!”
“Holly, it’s your turn.” Trevor was staring up at me impatiently. I looked down at my cards.
“Here.” I tossed one at him, then turned back to Leah.
“A red saber?” Trevor sputtered. “Are you serious? You should hang on to this.”
I waved him off. “Yeah, whatever, take it. Leah, that is so not what happened! We were just—”
“I need everyone back to their seats and facing the front, please.”
Mr. Dante stood next to the driver, his brow furrowed. And suddenly I realized that the bus had slowed down, even though we were still on the highway. Leah gave me an apologetic look before heading back to her seat. I put my cards away, my fingers still trembling a little. What was going on with Julia, seriously? It’s not like this was our first fight, but she’d never gossiped to someone else about me like that. Especially not Sophie.
“We’re pulling over,” Owen said, peering out the window. “But I saw a sign a few minutes ago—New Orleans is still over a hundred miles away.”
“There’s nothing here but cornfields.” I leaned past Owen to look up and down the street. We stopped on the edge of the road, close to the long fence that ran along the fields. The driver hopped off the bus and pulled out a cell phone, while Mrs. Park joined Mr. Dante at the front. Straining to hear them over all the other chatter, I caught the words engine and mechanic.
“Is the bus broken?” I blurted out. “Are we stranded in the middle of nowhere?”
Mr. Dante smiled reassuringly. “There’s a small problem with the bus, but don’t worry, Holly—we aren’t stranded.”
“I’m not worried!” I exclaimed, my anger and hurt over Julia temporarily forgotten. “This is awesome! It’s just like in House of the Wicked, how there’s this graveyard close to the house and anytime a car drives by at night it gets a flat tire and—”
I stopped talking when the driver stepped back on the bus, and Mr. Dante and Mrs. Park looked relieved. The three of them spoke quietly for a few seconds, then Mr. Dante turned around and cleared his throat.
“Okay, guys,” he said, and the chatter died down. “We’re having a minor problem with the engine. The mechanic’s on his way, so just sit tight. You can get up and move around if you like, but I need everyone to stay on the bus.”
“Can we put another movie in?” asked Trevor.
“Mrs. Park’s in charge of that now,” Mr. Dante said. “But it’s fine with me.” He handed Mrs. Park a stack of movie cases, then followed the driver off the bus.
“Wish we had House of the Wicked,” I told Owen, sighing. “It’d be perfect right now.”
“Probably better than what we’re about to watch.” Owen pointed to the case Mrs. Park was opening.
I groaned. “Seven Dates? Ugh.”
While Owen pulled out his video game, I turned around in my seat and scanned the seats. In the very back, I spotted black, curly hair. Julia’s head was tilted to the side, headphones on, eyes closed. Several rows in front of her, Aaron leaned out in the aisle to talk to Liam. Natasha sat next to him, slumped against the window.
“I’m going to go talk to Natasha for a while,” I told Owen. “Maybe more Warlock later?”
“Okay!”
A few seconds later, I slid into the empty seat in front of Natasha, shifting so that I could see her between the window and my chair. “Hi!”
She perked up. “Hey! Glad you’re here, I’m bored.”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing pointedly up at the TV over our heads. “This could totally put you into a coma.”
Natasha laughed. “You know I love this movie, Holly! Even you said it wasn’t that bad when Julia and I finally got you to come see it with us last year.”
“I never said that,” I told her. “I said I didn’t have a bad time. Because I took such a nice nap in the theater.”
She rolled her eyes. “Weirdo. Hey, do you think now would be a good time to go talk to Julia?”
Leaning closer, I lowered my voice. “Probably not. Apparently, she’s been griping about us to Sophie.”
“What?”
I told Natasha everything Leah had said. When I finished, she was frowning.
“We didn’t yell at her!” she said. “She’s the one who yelled at us!”
“I know.” I picked at a small hole in the side of my chair. “I don’t want to fight with Julia, but . . . I can’t believe she’s so mad at us. Like we’re supposed to just be okay with her ditching us for Seth all the time, or not showing up to her own surprise party.”
“So what should we do?” Natasha asked. “If we try to talk to her, we’ll probably just end up fighting again.”
“Yeah. Maybe we should just leave her alone for a while.” I sighed. “Although that’s going to be hard to do once we’re all in the hotel room.”
“You mean the party room?” Gabby’s head popped up over the back of Natasha’s chair, a Twizzler sticking out of her mouth like a cigar.
“I don’t know about that,” Natasha told her. “Things are kind of weird between us and Julia right now.”
“But she can’t stay mad at us,” I added, even though I wasn’t so sure. “Not when we’re all sharing a room, right?”
“Ah, man.” Gabby bit off the end of the Twizzler. “So she hasn’t told you guys yet.”
“Told us what?” I sat up straight.
“Well . . .” Gabby leaned closer. “Julia swapped with Victoria, so Victoria’s in our room instead. I guess Julia asked Mrs. Park about it during lunch.”
“She switched rooms?” I cried, then clapped my han
d over my mouth and glanced around. Aaron was still talking to Liam, but I lowered my voice just in case. “I can’t believe she did that without even talking to us about it!”
“What’s the deal, anyway?” Gabby asked. “Is this about her not showing up to the party Saturday?”
Natasha and I filled her in on everything, from the nonstop Seth-talk to our conversation with Julia yesterday.
“So it wasn’t just the party, you know?” I accepted a Twizzler even though my stomach was all knotted up again. “That was just sort of the last straw. She’s been doing stuff like that ever since we got back from winter break, and it’s only getting worse.”
“And when we tried to explain that to her, she made it seem like we were just trying to make her feel guilty about the party,” Natasha said. “She got really defensive.”
Gabby nodded slowly. “Well, maybe she felt like you guys were ganging up on her.”
“We weren’t!” I exclaimed. “That’s not what you think, is it? It’s not like we just started yelling at her. We—”
“I know you didn’t,” Gabby interrupted. “I’m just saying . . .” She stopped, making a face. “I don’t know. I guess I’m saying Seth is her first boyfriend, so I bet she had no idea she was talking about him so much, or making you feel left out. She probably did feel bad, but I bet she was kind of embarrassed, too.”
I pictured Julia in the cubby room, her eyes all red and watery. “I guess so,” I said, and I could tell from Natasha’s expression that she felt as guilty as I did. “But that’s no reason to yell at us, is it?”
“What were we supposed to do?” Natasha added. “Just say nothing while she keeps ditching us for Seth?”
Shrugging, Gabby rested her chin on the back of Natasha’s seat. “No. But if you try to talk to her while she’s still mad, and you’re still mad, you’ll just end up fighting more.” She gave me a pointed look. “And unless you’ve got mad ninja skills like in that freaky cyborg movie you made us watch, I don’t want to see any fighting.” Stretching her arm over Natasha’s head, Gabby tried to stick her Twizzler up my nose. I swatted her hand away, laughing despite myself.
Sleepovers, Solos, and Sheet Music Page 7
