Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous

by J. B. Cheaney

  Shelly is already thinking about next summer: “There’s this two-week program in Glendale, California—right next to Hollywood. It’s called Shooting Star camp. This really cute guy who plays bass in a band called Schrödinger’s Reptile—he caught my act at the fair and he said I should definitely try to get in. So I sent for the application.”

  “You’re bound to get in,” Miranda says. “Just send them a DVD of your fair show.”

  “Oh, that was amateur,” Shelly says. “For a real demo, I’ve got to rent a studio—”

  “Hey!” Igor breaks into the conversation. “We went to Disney World. In Florida. The whole family.” He jumps up and begins singing “It’s A Small World After All.”

  “Sit down, Igor!” Mrs. B calls from the front.

  The bus is slowing down, signaling a turn.

  Kaitlynn sits up so quickly her glasses bounce. She stretches her neck and twitches her nose like a rabbit. “We’ve never stopped here before!”

  Mrs. B has made a right turn, and a green sign flashes by: Farm Road 152. For about a quarter of a mile, the bus shudders down a gravel lane pitted with washouts, coming to a crossroads. Three mailboxes are lined up on a board at the southwest corner of the intersection, the names on them so faded they can’t be read. No houses in sight, but at the opposite corner sits a neat little three-sided shed, with a peaked shingled roof and a bench inside where one can wait for the bus on a windy or rainy day.

  But no one is waiting there.

  Mrs. B pulls even with the shed. Then, with her signal beeping, she backs into the crossroads. After a short pause, she heads out the way they came, up the bumpy gravel road toward the highway.

  “What’s up with that?” Bender yells from the back seat. “Is there a new kid on the route?”

  “Supposed to be,” Mrs. B replies. And that’s all she’ll say, even though Kaitlynn wants to know who the new kid is, or at least what’s its name, and is it a girl or a boy and what grade is it in? Mrs. B doesn’t say, only gooses the accelerator after reaching the highway. Before long, everybody forgets about the new stop, and the robbery and the police car, because it’s the first day of school and other thoughts crowd their minds. Such as:

  I need to set my own goals this year—but how?

  Does Penelope Gage still hate me?

  Did Mr. Kennedy ever figure out I’m the one who let the gerbil out of its cage and it died under his desk and stunk up the whole science room?

  Am I going to do something great this year?

  Can I sneak into school without catching the eye of Jeremy Castle, who promised to beat me up the next time I cross his path?

  How can I get somebody important to notice me?

  How can I get Coach Baker to not notice me?

  Why doesn’t everybody just leave me alone?

  It’s only eight miles to school, but with all the curves and hills and stops along the route, the trip will take twenty-five minutes on average. So the riders who got on at Hidden Acres are stuck with each other for nearly an hour each day, round- trip, and everyone thinks they know all they need to know about everyone else. But they’re wrong.

  Because somebody on this bus is going to be famous.

  September

  Shelly Alvarez is sure she’s going to be famous someday. “Oh baby baby, I need your looove!” she belts out, standing in the aisle at the center of the bus as she swings her long black hair.

  It’s the third week of school. Last night, fall rode in on the back of a strong west wind, and everybody is wearing jackets this morning. The air snaps, putting an extra decibel in Shelly’s voice. “I need your love toniiiiiight!”

  “I need you to shut up right naowwwwww!” Bender howls from the rear of the bus, the last syllable sounding like a wolf with its tail caught in the emergency door.

  Shelly laughs as she drops into her seat. “Just wait till I get back from Shooting Star Camp. I’ll probably add a whole octave to my vocal range.”

  She doesn’t hear his reply, because Miranda just asked if she’s met the new girl yet.

  “Nope.” Shelly bounces up again and stretches over the empty seat in front of her so she can tap the new girl on the shoulder. “Hi. I’m Shelly Alvarez, but I go by Shell. That’s my stage name. I don’t plan to use the Alvarez. Just Shell, as in, ‘Did you guys go to the Shell concert Saturday night?’ ‘Yes! Omigosh, it was awesome. I love the way she sings “Destiny Street”—“Oh I’m motoring down—ninety miles an hour!” And what they did for a finale was—’”

  “Everybody sit down!” Mrs. B yells over her shoulder.

  “I’m…Alice?” the new girl says. She has pale hair and pale eyelashes that give her green eyes a startled look. She takes a deep breath and rattles off, as though she’s said this many times before, “I’m staying with my grandma, Mary Ellen Truman, in the stone house on top of—”

  “Gotta sit down. Catch you later.” Shelly wiggles her fingers and drops back in her seat beside Miranda. “Okay, I met her.”

  Miranda is giggling. “Shelly, you’re insane!”

  “It’s Shell, remember. I’ll probably change that, though. Shell is over too quick, you know? You miss it if somebody’s talking fast. Like, ‘You guys gototheShellconcertlastnight?’ Did you hear the name? No!”

  “What about using your middle name?”

  “Are you serious?”

  Miranda smiles and raises her shoulders, like an apology. “I think it’s pretty.”

  “Guadalupe? First, it’s too long. Second, it’ll be shortened to Lupe, which comes out Loopy. No way.” Miranda smiles and shrugs again. “Maybe I need three syllables, like yours. Only your name is a little—no offense, but kind of old-fashioned? I’m thinking something sweet, like Caramel.”

  “Or…spicy, like Cinnamon?”

  “Or spiky, like Porcupine?” That voice comes from behind them. Their two heads turn to Matthew, who’s sitting in the middle of the seat and looks surprised he said anything—especially the kind of remark that usually comes from Bender.

  “Who asked you?” the girls say, almost together, then burst out in giggles as they turn back around.

  “That was perfect,” says Miranda. “Like we’re thinking together.”

  Shelly nods, but she’s already miles away from this seat in the middle of the bus—years away, really, under the hot lights of some big arena where they have championship basketball games and figure skating. But tonight: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome:

  CARAMEL!

  Screams, cheers—a beam of light spikes the electric figure with the long swingy hair and silver miniskirt, sweeping up the crowd in a big hug before snatching the mic and—

  Wait a minute. Caramel wasn’t the kind of word you could shout over and over. Car-a-mel! Car-a-mel! Besides, there were two different ways to say it. Maybe two syllables were better, and stick with something that everybody said the same way. Like Brandi. Bran-DEE! Bran-DEE! Bran—

  “Pipe down back there!” Mrs. B yells from the front. Shelly blinks, as though her fans were raising a ruckus outside her own head. But the driver is yelling at Igor, who has thrown up his hands and screams like he’s on a roller coaster as the bus starts down the long steep hill toward Drybed Creek. He’s done that for three days in a row.

  “Do you think Igor’s too young for fifth grade?” asks Miranda.

  Shelly glances across the aisle where Igor is leaning forward, resting his chin on the seat ahead of him, his tongue flopped out and eyes crossed for the littles. His dark glossy hair comes to a widow’s peak in the middle of his forehead, and his snappy gray eyes are fringed with long dark lashes. “He’s too young for second grade,” she says. “But he’s kinda cute.”

  “Cute?!” Miranda sputters. “I wouldn’t think he was cute even if…if I found him on a Hello Kitty lunchbox.”

  Shelly laughs, but soon
she’s time-traveling again, this time to the past—to the magic moment last May when she pulled triumph from tragedy at the Spring Talent Fling.

  The Fling is always held on the last day of school, when everybody has their minds on swimming and summer camp and hanging out for days on end. Shelly was scheduled for last on the program, after the audience had fidgeted through a few hundred (not really, but it sure seemed like it) lip-sync acts and piano pieces and even Davy Blair playing “Twinkle, Twinkle” on his violin. She had to admit, that took some guts—to keep playing even after kids had started throwing pencil erasers at him.

  By Shelly’s turn, the natives were really restless. She asked Mr. Manchuso, who was manning the sound system, to bump it up. The thump-thump-thump of the intro got everyone’s attention. Then she electrified them by cartwheeling out in her silver-sequined leotard (ordered from Footlight Magic Dancewear). She grabbed the mic and busted out with “What’s Got Into You?” (No lip sync for Shelly—her dad said she could raise the roof on a barn without the aid of electronics.) But she was only seven bars into the song when the sound cut out.

  Like, totally. She learned later that the cord to the main speaker jack had disconnected somehow—maybe an accident, like somebody kicked it while running backstage. Shelly suspected sabotage, even though she couldn’t prove it. But that’s not the great thing.

  The great thing was, she didn’t miss a beat. She found the beat inside her—the drums, the keyboard, the bass, the reverb. She felt the pulse in her boot heels as they stomped the stage, her long hair swinging like a curtain. She kept on singing, and a few kids in the front row started clapping in rhythm, and then more and more, as a kind of fever swept through the room. When the speaker got reconnected and the sound blasted out, right on the beat, her audience went crazy. By the second refrain, they were on their feet, clapping, stomping, hollering “Whoo-ot!”

  She could have taken four or five bows and an encore if Mrs. Jasper hadn’t cut it short. “A star is born,” the teacher said, though she didn’t sound exactly thrilled. Like Shelly might let triumph go to her head.

  It went to her heart. She should have freaked out when the music stopped, but she didn’t. That’s because there was no stopping the music inside, pumping through her so strong she could sweep a cafeteria full of kids right along wherever she went.

  She was so there she never wants to be anywhere else.

  That’s what people don’t understand: they think she’s just a show-off. Uncle Mike, who surprised her once while she was practicing in the backyard, can’t stop calling her Shelly Vanilli, after some old one-hit-wonder rap duo. Eventually, even her dad said something about letting it go to her head. And Evan…ew. She’d prefer not to think about Evan. It’s a good thing Mrs. B makes the younger kids sit at the front of the bus, in case Shelly’s tempted to commit little-brother-slaughter on the route. Not that she wasn’t tempted other times, like a few weeks ago, when he stole one of her costumes and made a wig out of black yarn and put on a show after dinner with a broom handle for a microphone. And his friend Simon Killebrew pretended to be all the fans, screaming and throwing themselves at the stage. Dad thought it was pretty funny. Even Mom laughed, though she hasn’t been feeling well lately.

  Her parents are always telling her not to take herself so seriously. She’d like to know how she was ever going to go pro without taking herself seriously? Show business is hard work, and she’d better start right now, figuring out how to get auditions and—

  “What?”

  “Sorry.” Miranda shrinks back a little. “I just asked if you think Bender’s going to get in trouble this year.”

  “He’s always in trouble. Why should this year be any different?”

  “Do you think he’s cute?”

  Shelly makes a barfing noise. “If anybody’s cute on this bus, like real-guy cute, it’s Jay.” Jay’s grown two inches over the summer, and his face is squaring up, with a strong jawline and black eyebrows and a nose that’s getting beaky.

  “I agree!” Miranda agrees. “And he’s nice too. Mostly. It’s too bad about his eyes.”

  Shelly glances back at Jay. “What’s wrong with his eyes?” They’re blue, with a twinkle.

  “Didn’t you hear? He started copying down page numbers wrong from the whiteboard, so his parents made him get his eyes checked, and he’s going to have to wear glasses.”

  “So what’s wrong with that? He’d look good with glasses.”

  “But he wants to play junior varsity next year!”

  “I know. It’s all he talks about, being a running back. So how hard is it to see who he’s throwing the ball to?”

  Miranda pauses. “I think the quarterback throws the ball. The running back—”

  “—catches the ball. Riiiight. Okay, that’s too bad.” Shelly spares a moment of sympathy for Jay, who like herself, has ambitions. But her own plans need attention too.

  Because she finally talked her parents into letting her apply for (drumroll, please) Shooting Star Camp in Glendale, California, which is an extremely big deal. Two weeks of intensive training with industry professionals, according to the website. Ever since she heard about it, she’s been pestering her parents.

  Well, “pester” is the way they put it. But she’s just trying to make them see how important it is: “Meadow Ballinger went there! And Justin Riley said he got the training to launch his career from there! It’s a golden opportunity!” It also costs $1,700, which made her dad spit out a mouthful of coffee when she told him. Does she know how much a high school Spanish teacher makes? Even when added to what a Staples store manager makes? And how big a bite her dance and voice lessons take out of that?

  But finally—finally!—the ’rents agreed to let her apply, just to see if she gets in. The competition is so tough they think she won’t. But she’ll show them. An amazing demo, good recommendation letters, and performance credits would all be factors in getting in. That’s why she needs some gigs—

  Across the aisle, Igor pops up and twists around, holding a sign. It’s actually just a piece of notebook paper sloppily hand-lettered. Because of what Shelly has just been told, she knows it’s meant for Jay: IF U CANT C THIS UR GOING BLIND.

  From the back, Jay’s rolled-up jacket, sleeves fluttering, shoots directly at Igor, who ducks in time. “Igor, sit down!” yells Mrs. B.

  “But I didn’t—”

  “Sit down!”

  “It was Bender’s idea!”

  “Do you want me to stop this bus?”

  Shelly sighs. It’s hard getting famous while stuck on a school bus for an hour every day. But she doesn’t yet know how hard it can be.

  • • •

  Exactly one week later, she knows.

  Mrs. B is just about to pull the door shut on Tuesday morning when Shelly stomps down the street, her backpack bouncing fiercely with every step. She hears the driver mutter, “Take your time, dearie,” as she stalks down the aisle and drops beside Miranda.

  Bender sneaks up a couple of rows, grabs a granola bar that’s sticking out of Igor’s backpack, and uses it as a microphone to belt out, “Baby baby, I’m sooo mad!”

  “Hey!” yells Igor as Shelly swings her own backpack at Bender and the granola bar spins off into oblivion.

  “Everybody sit down!” hollers Mrs. B. “Or this bus ain’t goin’ nowhere!”

  “Promise?” says Bender.

  “But—” Igor, meeting the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror, sits.

  “What’s the matter?” Miranda murmurs to Shelly.

  Shelly is almost too mad to talk. But she has to or else explode. “So Jay thinks he’s got it bad? My career is over.”

  “What?”

  “Okay, so it might be. It’s the worst.”

  “What’s the worst?”

  “The worst thing that could happen.”

  “What
happened?”

  “The worst!”

  “But what is it?”

  Shelly pauses, biting her lip, then takes a deep breath and spits out, “My mom is having a baby.”

  “Oh!” Miranda says in surprise, adding in confusion, “Is that bad? I mean,” she hurries on, as Shelly glares at her, “I thought you were going to say your parents were getting divorced or you had to move to South America, but babies are…Igor has a baby sister who just started crawling and she’s so cute. I went over to watch the little ones last Saturday when Igor’s mom had a bad headache. I changed the baby’s diapers and everything. It’s not so bad. If you have to babysit sometimes, I could help, or…”

  Shelly moans. Miranda doesn’t understand, being an only child and not destined for stardom. “It’s like this. They tried to make it this rah-rah we’re-so-happy big deal, but I know they didn’t plan to have a baby now. Or ever, probably.”

  “But…why is it bad for you?”

  “Two things. Number one, they’re going to need my rehearsal room so they can put the crib and changing table and all that junk that goes along with a baby in there.”

  This hurts: her rehearsal room (which the ’rents insist on calling “the spare bedroom”) is the only place she can work out her routines in private, where not even Uncle Mike could barge in. There’s a mirror on the closet door and enough space to turn cartwheels and practice her signature slow-mo head-bang that makes her hair spray out like a fan. And now they were going to fill it up with stuffed animals and diapers. Ick.

  But that’s not even the worst thing. “The worst thing is, my mom’s going to quit her job in February so they’ll have time to train another manager before the baby comes. That means no money to spare, just when I need tuition for camp. Oh, and I also have to buy the camp workout suit and leotard and T-shirt…” Here, she has to stop and catch her breath. She cried her eyes out the night before, after a supersize blowup with her parents. It’s amazing she has any tears left. “So,” she chokes out, “there’s no way we can afford Shooting Star Camp.”

  “Oh, Shelly!” That finally gets Miranda’s sympathy. “Are you sure?”