121 Express

by Monique Polak

  121 Express

  Monique Polak

  orca currents

  Copyright © Monique Polak 2008

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Polak, Monique

  121 express / Monique Polak.

  (Orca currents)

  ISBN 978-1-55143-978-5 (bound)--ISBN 978-1-55143-976-1 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Title: One hundred twenty-one express. III. Series.

  PS8631.O43O54 2008 jC813’.6 C2007-906844-8

  Summary: Lucas enjoys his status as a troublemaker on the school bus until

  the consequences become serious.

  First published in the United States, 2008

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2007940721

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Station BPO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  11 10 09 08 • 4 3 2 1

  For Nicholas Lighter, sunshine itself

  Acknowledgments

  The idea for this book grew out of Quebec roots: the Place where I Live, an educational program run by Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Literary Foundation. In 2005-2006, photographer Monique Dykstra and I worked with groups of students in three Quebec schools. Together, we helped them tell their stories in photographs and words. One class chose to explore their zany adventures on an after-school bus designated specially for them. The minute their teacher andrew adams told me about life on the bus, I knew my next book project had landed.

  Of course, I owe a huge debt to andrew adams and his 2005-2006 English class for their inspiration and openheartedness. Thanks also to several of Mr. adams’s other students, who came in over lunch to share more bus stories.

  Special thanks to Linda Leith, artistic director of Blue Met, Blue Met educational program coordinator Maïté de Hemptinne, as well as the rest of the Blue Met team.

  As always, my friend Viva Singer was there to listen when I needed to talk out my story. My editor Melanie Jeffs also deserves special thanks for her encouragement, input and tremendous sense of fun.

  A final thank-you goes to my husband Michael Shenker and my daughter alicia Melamed—I love you both too much.

  Montreal Transit corporation

  800 de la Gauchetière

  Montreal, Quebec

  August 4, 2006

  Lorne Crest Academy

  4243 Decelles Ave.,

  Ville St. Laurent, Quebec

  Att.: John Mallard, Principal

  Dear Mr. Mallard,

  As you are well aware Lorne crest students who ride the 121 Express bus have a history of misbehavior. Our drivers have had to contend with swearing, shouting, fights and vandalism. Your students, ordinary youngsters when they are not on the bus, turn into—if I may permit myself to use the term—monsters when they ride the 121 Express.

  In cooperation with the local school boards, the Montreal Transit corporation provides express bus service at over twenty-five schools. Nowhere else have we experienced the problems our drivers report having with your monst...I should say, students.

  I write to you with the hope that there will be no such further problems in the coming school year. I implore you to distribute this letter to all Lorne crest academy students as well as their parents. we at the Montreal Transit corporation pride ourselves on the fine service we provide Montrealers. we believe riding our buses is a privilege. Please make your students understand that if their behavior this year is not acceptable, we will have no choice but to put an end to service on the 121 Express bus.

  May I take this opportunity to wish you a successful academic year.

  Sincerely,

  Jacques Lebrun,

  President,

  Montreal Transit corporation

  chapter one

  I tried not to act nervous. I took a deep breath, straightened my back and stepped onto the 121 Express. Everyone says it’s hell on wheels. The principal even sent around this letter from the Transit Corporation warning that if kids on the bus don’t behave, they’ll pull the service. Then we’ll all have to walk home, which would be really bad for me since our new house is all the way in Ahuntsic. It would take me over an hour to walk home.

  The first thing I noticed when I got on the bus was the stench of sweat—and rotten eggs. I ducked when a sandwich came flying like a Frisbee and landed on the floor near my feet. When the kid behind me stepped on the sandwich, mashed-up egg salad splattered in every direction.

  I knew I didn’t have much time to pick a seat. The main thing when you’re a new kid is not to draw attention to yourself.

  It only took me a few seconds to figure out how the seating worked. The cool guys— the soccer jocks and the troublemakers—sat at the back. There were a few girls there too. One had changed out of her school kilt into skintight jeans.

  The nerds sat up front. They were easy to spot, because they stared at the floor, hoping nobody would pick on them. There was also a higher percentage of kids with glasses in the nerd section. One had a textbook propped open on his lap, but I knew he was just pretending to read. Who could read with all that noise—and sandwiches flying through the air?

  “You big loser!” some guy at the back hollered out the window. “What? You didn’t hear me? I said you’re a big loser!”

  The girl in the jeans slapped the guy sitting next to her. “Don’t you touch me!” she said, but then she started laughing.

  I shook my backpack off my shoulders and grabbed a spot near the middle of the bus, next to a redheaded girl. For now, I figured, the middle of the bus was about where I belonged.

  But I was planning to change that. I hadn’t exactly been popular at my old school.

  This was my new beginning—my second chance. I was going to get in with the cool guys—no matter what. It was just a matter of making my personal life my top priority.

  The redheaded girl’s Mp3 player had a peace sticker on it. She moved closer to the window when I sat down.

  I wasn’t going to stare at the floor like one of the nerds. So I stuffed my backpack under my seat and looked around—as discreetly as possible. One of the nerds, Sandeep Singh—I knew his name because he was in my English class—took a break from staring at the floor to adjust his black turban. When he saw me looking at him, he nodded.

  I looked away. The last thing a new guy needs is a nerdy friend.

  I turned around when I heard this loud peal of laughter coming from the back of the bus. It was Miss Tight Jeans. “How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me, Georgie?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me?” the troublemakers called out, in high-pitched imitations of her voice.

  “I don’t sound like that!” she shrieked.

  “Oh, yes you do, Kelly! That’s exactly what you sound like. ‘How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me?’” Georgie said. He had dark eyes and dark hair. I spotted a small Greek flag on the arm of his jean jac
ket.

  Up front, more kids shuffled onto the bus. Soon there’d be only standing room.

  Two nerdy girls elbowed each other when this guy I recognized from math got on. “Look, it’s Jake,” I heard one of the girls whisper. “Doesn’t he look just like Zac Efron?”

  “I forgot my pass,” Jake muttered to the driver.

  The driver ran his fingers through his thin silver hair. “I can’t let you on. Rules are rules.” He sounded like he’d had a rough day.

  “Not even this once?”

  When the driver shook his head, Jake shrugged. But before he got off the bus, he turned back to the driver. “What a jerk!” he called out.

  The driver didn’t say anything, but even from where I was sitting, I noticed how his cheek twitched.

  Someone slid open a window at the back of the bus. “Hey, Jake!” a voice called, and then whoever it was threw Jake their bus pass.

  Three seconds later, Jake was back. “I found it,” he said, grinning as he flashed the pass at the driver.

  “Let me have a look at that picture,” the driver said.

  But Jake was already lost in the crowd. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him high-fiving the guy who’d lent him his bus pass. “You’re my man, Pierre,” Jake said.

  Maybe it was the heat from so many bodies, but the egg smell was getting worse. Some kids at the back were hurling pieces of scrunched-up paper. One hit the girl next to me. The name Valerie was engraved on her bracelet. “Oww!!” she said, extra loud because she was talking over her Mp3 player.

  “Cut it out!” the driver shouted. He might have said it again, but I couldn’t tell for sure over all the noise.

  In a weird way, I was having fun. When some of the kids around me started laughing, I laughed too. I reached for the ball of paper that had landed on the floor and threw it as hard as I could toward the back of the bus.

  “Hey, new guy!” a voice called. “You pitch like a girl!”

  I bristled. It was my own fault; I’d called attention to myself.

  I knew whatever I did next was important. This was what my mom would call a defining moment. She says life is all about defining moments, only most people miss them. They’re too busy doing other stuff.

  I knew if I acted embarrassed or afraid, the kids at the back would peg me as a loser. If I could come up with a smart comeback, I’d be saved. But there was too much pressure. I couldn’t think of anything smart to say.

  I felt Sandeep Singh’s eyes on me, waiting to see what I’d do next.

  So I did the only thing I could to save myself.

  I turned to Sandeep. “What are you looking at, raghead?” I asked in a loud voice. Sandeep squirmed, but the kids at the back cracked up. At least the pressure was off me.

  As the bus turned onto Côte-Vertu Boulevard, I remembered our science teacher said we’d be studying Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection this year. She told us how Darwin believed only the fittest creatures survive.

  Darwin was onto something. A kid’s got to be fit to survive the 121 Express.

  chapter two

  I heard the vice principal’s high heels clicking down the hallway before I saw her. “Good luck on curbside duty today, Andrew,” she told Mr. Adams when she passed him. Then she lowered her voice and added, “The monsters are always at their worst on the Friday before a long weekend.”

  Mr. Adams groaned. “Thanks for the heads up.” But the vice principal didn’t hear him. Her heels were already clicking out the side door. I guess she was as happy to leave school as the rest of us.

  Monday was a day off—which meant we had three free days in a row. We had a bit of homework, but nothing that couldn’t get done on Monday night. And though it was only week three of school, I’d made some friends. Guys like Jake and Pierre from the back of the bus.

  I’d had to cause a bit of trouble to get in with them, but it was worth it. The first thing I did was stick a wad of pink chewing gum on the bus driver’s seat. When he got up to stretch his legs, it looked like he had a long pink tail. The guys thought that was pretty funny.

  Then last week, I brought along a water pistol I’d filled with 7-Up and squirted a couple of the nerdy girls. You should have heard them shriek. This one Asian girl, Jewel Chu, was jumping up and down she was so angry. “I’m going to send you my dry cleaning bill!” she said. But I just laughed.

  And yesterday, I insulted an old lady’s car when she pulled up next to the bus. “Your clunker’s got more rust than metal on it!” I yelled out the window. When the old lady turned her head, I realized it was Mrs. Gibbs, my old kindergarten teacher. I ducked so she wouldn’t notice me.

  Today, when the bell rang at three, the mood at the bus lineup was extra crazy. Kelly and her friends were dancing, and Pierre punched one of the nerds in the stomach. The kid was lying on the ground moaning, but he stopped when Mr. Adams walked by.

  “Everything okay?” Mr. Adams asked as he helped the kid up from the sidewalk. “You look a little winded.”

  “Yup, everything’s fine.”

  When the bus doors opened, we stampeded past Mr. Adams, who was standing at the curb, shaking his head. This time Pierre couldn’t find his bus pass, so the two of us pushed our way in through the back doors.

  I saw the bus driver eyeing us in his rearview mirror. It was a cool September day, but his forehead was sweaty. “Hey, hey,” he called out, but nobody paid any attention.

  When Jake raised his lighter in the air, I took mine out too. We all had lighters, even if we didn’t smoke. We liked snapping them. The driver couldn’t take the sound—and he was probably afraid we were going to set fire to his precious bus.

  “Look!” someone called out from the front of the bus. “The driver’s cheek is twitching double-time!”

  Soon all of us at the back were snapping our lighters. Then Kelly and her friends started pulling on the yellow cord that makes the bell ring. Between the snapping and the ringing, it was like a bad concert. Everyone was laughing. Even old Sandeep Singh.

  Everyone, that is, except the bus driver. When he swerved around this Subaru wagon, so close he nearly took off the sideview mirror, I thought he was losing it.

  “Hey, man, I think it’s time for some driving lessons!” Jake called out.

  “Yeah, what are you trying to do—kill us?” Kelly shrieked.

  The driver’s back was straight as a stick. I could tell he was trying to focus on the road. Then, with no warning at all, he pulled over to the side of Côte-Vertu Boulevard and turned on the emergency lights. Their steady tick-tick echoed like a clock inside the bus.

  Other drivers honked for us to get out of their way. But instead the driver put the engine into neutral and rose from his seat.

  Except for the ticking, the bus was dead quiet.

  The driver ran his fingers through his gray hair. “You kids are in a big hurry to start your weekend, right?”

  “We sure are,” Jake called out. “So you driving us to the metro, or what?”

  The driver just stood there, staring at us. His belly hung over his pants like a spare tire, and he was breathing hard. “I’m not driving you nowhere unless you cut out your nonsense. No lighters, no bells. No nothing. Got that?” He practically spit out the words.

  The nerds all nodded. But the driver knew their word wasn’t good enough. “What about you guys at the back?”

  Jake stood up and walked to the center of the bus so he was facing the driver. Everyone’s eyes were on Jake. A couple of girls at the front of the bus twittered.

  “Sure thing,” Jake said.

  The driver waddled back to his seat. When Jake turned around, he gave us a wink. We all knew that meant Trouble. With a capital T.

  chapter three

  If you’re looking for a soccer ball, chances are Pierre’s got one. Today the ball was between his knees. Pierre was using it to exercise his quads.

  All Jake had to do was point. Pierre released the ball. Then he tossed it up in the ai
r and used the top of his head to butt it over to Jake.

  Jake yelped as he head-butted the ball halfway down the bus.

  “Keep it going!” voices shouted.

  “You’d better watch it!” Jewel Chu said.

  Things could’ve gone worse. The ball could have hit the driver, and he could have lost control of the bus.

  Instead the ball hit Jewel Chu, breaking one of her pink fingernails—the ones she spent most of English class filing. Still it was just a nail, though from the sounds of it, you’d have thought we’d stolen one of her young.

  Jewel leapt up from her seat. When she turned around, I noticed how the vein that ran across the middle of her forehead was throbbing. “I can’t believe you broke my nail! You guys are total imbeciles!”

  Sandeep Singh watched the action from the corner of his eye.

  I grinned. For me, being called a total imbecile was a compliment.

  We expected the bus driver to pull over and give us another lecture, only he didn’t. Instead he picked up speed. For a few minutes, the 121 Express was flying! We held onto the bottoms of our seats—or the closest pole. The driver’s window was open, and his gray hair flapped in the breeze. I figured he was in a hurry to reach the Côte-Vertu metro station, where most of the kids who take the 121 Express get out.

  Jake was standing on one of the seats at the back. His sneakers had already left gray scuff marks on the vinyl. “Hey, Lucas,” he called, “I need some help.”

  I went over to see what he wanted. When the bus squealed to a stop at a red light, we nearly fell over. Luckily, Jake grabbed onto one of the gray rubber handgrips—and I hung on to Jake. The two of us must have looked like a couple of monkeys swinging from a banana tree.

  When the bus jerked forward, we got back to work. I was helping Jake pop open the emergency ceiling window. The trick was to undo the levers on either end.

  “What kind of useless emergency window is this?” Jake shouted when the window wouldn’t budge. “Lemme out of here! I can’t breathe!! This is an emergency!” Then he started making choking noises and pounding his chest, which cracked everyone up.