Driver's Ed

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Praise for Driver’s Ed

  An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

  An ALA Quick Pick for Young Adults

  A Booklist Editors’ Choice

  “A wrenching, breathlessly paced plot and an adrenaline-charged romance make Cooney’s latest novel nearly impossible to put down.… This modern-day morality tale is as convincing as it is irresistible.”

  —Publishers Weekly, Starred

  “A poignant, realistic novel, with nicely drawn characters.”

  —Booklist, Starred

  “Difficult to put down for its intensity.… Wonderfully written, and very realistic.”

  —Voice of Youth Advocates

  Driver’s Ed

  Novels by Caroline B. Cooney

  The Lost Songs

  Three Black Swans

  They Never Came Back

  If the Witness Lied

  Diamonds in the Shadow

  A Friend at Midnight

  Hit the Road

  Code Orange

  The Girl Who Invented Romance

  Family Reunion

  Goddess of Yesterday

  The Ransom of Mercy Carter

  Tune In Anytime

  Burning Up

  What Child Is This?

  Driver’s Ed

  Twenty Pageants Later

  Among Friends

  The Time Travelers, Volumes I and II

  The Janie Books

  The Face on the Milk Carton

  Whatever Happened to Janie?

  The Voice on the Radio

  What Janie Found

  What Janie Saw (an ebook original short story)

  Janie Face to Face

  The Time Travel Quartet

  Both Sides of Time

  Out of Time

  Prisoner of Time

  For All Time

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1994 by Caroline B. Cooney

  Cover illustration copyright © by Jackie Parsons

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover by Delacorte Press in 1994.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:

  Cooney, Caroline B.

  Driver’s Ed / Caroline B. Cooney.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Three teenagers’ lives are changed forever when they thoughtlessly steal a stop sign from a dangerous intersection and a young mother is killed in an automobile accident there.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81888-1

  [1. Automobile driving—Fiction. 2. High schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Death—Fiction. 5. Vandalism—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C7834 Dr 1994

  94000445

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  for friends

  especially Lynne and Harold

  and music teachers

  especially Tahme

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Remy Marland crossed her fingers and prayed to the God of Driver’s Education that she would get to drive today. Remy’s fingers were splayed on the denim of her torn, pale blue jeans, inches from the second most desirable piece of laminated paper on earth. (The first, of course, was her future driver’s license.)

  Next to her, Christine prayed not to drive today or ever. Poor Christine held her shiny name tag in her lap, ready for Remy to snatch up.

  “All right, class,” said Mr. Fielding. He didn’t look at them, because he never looked at them. He looked only at his enrollment book. “Remy, Christine, and Morgan will drive with me today.”

  “Yes!” yelled Remy. She didn’t have to exchange a name tag after all. She jumped up so fast, she knocked her books on the floor, tried to grab them, and tripped over Taft’s extended legs.

  This was not clumsiness. It was calculated. Remy was the Distraction Princess, because even Mr. Fielding might one day catch on to what was happening.

  “I love driii-ving,” sang Remy. She had a beautiful voice, and enough poise to sing her way through all her classes. The class smiled indulgently at her, the way you smile at a favorite pet.

  Christine lay low. Many hands stretched out to grab Christine’s name tag so they could go driving in her place, but Lark, of course, got there first. Lark was small, almost a shadow of the other girls in the class, but her shadow was invariably at the front of the line.

  “Taft,” said Mr. Fielding, “you and Chase show the class this film on drug and alcohol abuse. Everybody behave. Mrs. Bee will be watching.”

  With a huge melodramatic gesture Mrs. Bee, their elegant librarian, threw sunglasses on the bridge of her nose to let Mr. Fielding see that no, she would not be watching.

  Driver’s Ed was assigned to a glass-walled cubicle off the library, making the unfortunate librarian responsible for supervising the kids not going driving. Mrs. Bee pointed out that if this were a sport, the coach would get extra money for handling an extra group. Librarians never got extra money for anything, so Mrs. Bee wore her sunglasses and supervised nothing.

  The class had given her earplugs as well, which Mrs. Bee was perfectly willing to wave in Mr. Fielding’s face (or the principal’s, should he come by), but she said they felt icky, and just to close the glass door for auditory privacy. Auditory privacy was almost always needed.

  Remy bundled Mr. Fielding through the library. She had to set the pace or half the period would be wasted just approaching the Driver’s Ed car.

  Remy gave a circular wave to the left-behinds. “Now, children,” she called back. “No gossip. No sick cartoons drawn on the blackboard. No carving of four-letter words into somebody’s crew cut.”

  Jealous would-be drivers snarled and then laughed. Remy got more turns at driving than anybody, and most of the time it was okay. The boys—since they were boys and therefore thick—did not know why Remy was always getting other people’s turns. The girls—since they were girls and grade-A schemers—understood perfectly.

  Remy Marland was in love with Morgan.

  Morgan, however, didn’t know she existed. Since true love is a beautiful thing that requires two participants, the girls didn’t mind switching so Remy could have extra turns in the backseat with Morgan.

  Remy admired Morgan from the rear. From all angles Morgan Campbell was worthy of adoration.

  “You drive, Remy,” said Mr. Fielding, checking her off on his clipboard.

  Remy exulted. It would have been wonderful to sit in back with Morgan, but it was more wonderful to drive. She slid behind the wheel, surveying her instrument panel like a bomber pilot heading to the battlefiel
d.

  Remy did not know where she was going, but one thing for sure.

  She was going to get there fast.

  Driver’s Ed was like so many things about school.

  If the parents only knew …

  Mr. Fielding would take three kids: two in the backseat observing while one drove; he himself the front passenger.

  Off they’d go, straight onto the turnpike, at that terrifying cloverleaf where both interstates merge. Mr. Fielding explained that since fear was a problem for new drivers, the first thing student drivers must do on the road was conquer fear.

  He himself didn’t even have interest, let alone fear. Mr. Fielding would listen to his Walkman. His favorite talk station specialized in money discussions. Now and then Mr. Fielding would tell everybody how to invest their pensions.

  A fifteen- or sixteen-year-old who’d never before held a steering wheel in his two shaking hands had one hundred yards in which to accelerate to sixty-five miles per hour. Then, either there was a space between the trucks and cars whipping past on their way to distant states … or there wasn’t.

  Either the student merged … or he plowed along the shoulder, metal barriers sickeningly close to the right fenders and unforgiving traffic sickeningly close to the left fenders.

  The two backseat drivers, sweaty with panic, would be sticking their fingers down the filthy seat cracks, trying to buckle their seat belts prior to collision. Once they realized Mr. Fielding was not going to get involved, they would scream hints of their own.

  “Get in! Get in!”

  “There’s a space!”

  “Quick! You’re gonna kill us!”

  The student driver would jerk the poor old battered Driver’s Ed car into the correct lane.

  Mr. Fielding would continue gazing out the right window instead of the left, watching the landscape and not the traffic.

  Nobody had died yet, or even had an accident, mainly because oncoming traffic didn’t want to die or have an accident either.

  Few people conquered fear on the first day of Driver’s Ed. In fact, several members of the class developed so much more fear that they refused to go driving again.

  “Have your parents taken you out in your new car yet?” Lark asked Remy.

  Remy hated trying to talk while driving. There was far too much to think about. Traffic behind and ahead. Traffic to the left and traffic to the right. Curbs and signs and red lights and turns. Foot on brake and hands on wheel. Eyes on mirrors and ears on sirens.

  And the Driver’s Ed car was an automatic. She’d never be able to drive standard. What if she also had clutches and shifting and gears? “Uh. No,” she said.

  Remy Marland was the only person in the eleven A.M. Driver’s Ed class who already owned a car. Her parents had assigned her the wonderful role of family chauffeur and errand runner. On the day she turned sixteen, she would become the taker of baby brother to day care and middle brother to orthodontist and karate.

  “Actually,” said Lark, “you will be the family slave. An unpaid, unappreciated beast of burden. Trapped around the clock in the very same car with Henry and Mac. A lifetime occupation of strapping the baby in and out of the car seat. Sentenced to hard labor, breathing the same air as Mac, the state Fart Master.”

  It was true that Remy did not even like to have her clothes washed in the same cycle as Mac’s, lest she be contaminated.

  Here he was in eighth grade—almost fourteen years old—and Mac had yet to do any growing. He was the same size, height, and weight he’d been in sixth grade. Being eye level with girls’ elbows made him hostile. His life’s goal was to be a little more disgusting today than he had been yesterday.

  Just last night he’d wrapped his used dental floss around Remy’s toothbrush in case she’d forgotten they shared a bathroom.

  However, as driver, Remy would have the upper hand. If Mac tried anything with her, she’d stop the car two miles from his karate lesson and see what he did then.

  Of course, it was Mac. He’d probably hijack her.

  But Remy visualized her license life as one of dropping Mac off—emptying the car of Mac, as opposed to being locked in with him. Mac’s karate, tennis, swimming, and weight lifting were at different places, reached by different roads at different times of day. Remy would triumph, easily making tough turns against traffic, whipping into teeny little parallel parking spaces, brilliantly passing slow cars on narrow roads.

  “You’re just jealous,” said Remy.

  “Better believe it,” said Lark. “Your own car? Of course you’ll have to chauffeur me, too, you know, because I’m your friend.”

  Mr. Fielding heard nothing.

  Not traffic.

  Not blowing horns.

  Not sirens.

  And most of all, not student conversation.

  Mr. Fielding was looking at the scenery his student driver passed—too fast—wishing he had a different life.

  A life without kids with these ridiculous names.

  What had happened to the solid names of old? Karen and Susan and Janet? Peter and Robert and Jim? Mr. Fielding’s Driver’s Education classes had boys with last names for first names: Taft, Chase, and Morgan. Girls with names from nowhere: Lark and Joss and Remy.

  It seemed to Mr. Fielding that these were interchangeable names. These kids had no personalities and could have been anyone at all. Their names never stuck to them the way real names would, but were just sounds. Syllables. Signifying nothing.

  These kids, like their names, were fluff.

  Empty headed and personality free.

  When he scanned a room, he couldn’t tell one from another. Often, depending on the fashions of the year, he could not tell boys from girls either.

  Certain names spelled death for telling kids apart. This year, in the eleven A.M. class alone, he had a Cristin, a Kierstin, and a Christine. His eight-thirty A.M. class actually included a Khrystyn. What was it with these parents who had to have designer spelling along with designer names?

  Luckily, as Driver’s Ed instructor, he didn’t have to participate in Parents’ Night. Sessions were only eight weeks and nobody—especially Mr. Fielding—felt that Driver’s Ed was really a class.

  Besides, what would he say to the grown-ups who had spawned these brainless little clones? “Yes, Kierstin occupies her seat well.”

  And most of all, what would he say to grown-ups who had actually, legally, named their daughter Rembrandt?

  Rembrandt! At least the kid knew better than to use the name and called herself Remy. She had a shock coming when she got her driver’s license: no nicknames allowed. Her license would say Rembrandt Marland and there was no escape.

  Mr. Fielding had to refer to his class record book to have the slightest idea who was sitting in the car with him. Last year he’d had each kid wear a name tag, laminated and glued to a pin. Very successful. He was doing it again this year. That way, when he turned to the blond girl in torn, faded blue jeans who looked exactly like four other blond girls in torn, faded blue jeans, he would know which was Remy and which was Kierstin. And not confuse Kierstin with Christine or Cristin.

  Today he had a Post-it on his classbook, to remind himself the current driver was not part of the Cristin series. The Cristin series member was in back with a last-name-for-first-name boy and would rotate forward if and when Mr. Fielding remembered to change drivers. “Take River Road, Remy.”

  “River Road?” she squeaked. “It’s about an inch wide!”

  “It’s wide enough for two cars,” said Mr. Fielding. “You just have to pay attention.” He did not imply that he had to pay attention.

  He knew he was not teaching. He was merely there, and they were merely there. Time passed and then they left. Year after year he and they mindlessly drifted through an eight-week session. Then a new set of indistinguishable little clones filled the seats and wore the name tags. Sometimes he thought he should just pass out the same name tags. What would it matter if Chad wore Thad’s tag? Who could tell
if Darya responded to Darcy?

  * * *

  Of course, the class was way ahead of Mr. Fielding.

  They had been exchanging name tags for weeks. Christine, who had not successfully merged into the eight lanes on day one, but gave up, sobbing, and tried to abandon the car at the edge of the turnpike, never took another turn. Lark usually got her name tag.

  Kierstin would drive only if there were no boys along. She was palm-sweaty, migraine-headachy, and jelly-kneed behind the wheel. She was afraid of every driving decision and it showed. She didn’t mind girls laughing at her, but boys—forget it. The class hours were required in order to register for the state driving test, but Kierstin figured practice with her mother would be enough. She usually gave her name tag to Remy.

  This was one reason why Mr. Fielding could not tell his Cristin/Kierstin/Christine group apart—they were generally Remy or Lark.

  Lark had unfastened her seat belt and was leaning way forward, resting her tiny chin next to Remy’s shoulder. She was a committed backseat driver, monitoring RPMs, speed, following distance, and especially Mr. Fielding’s instructions. “Go right,” he’d say.

  “No, not here,” Lark would argue. “That road looks dull.” Lark had high scenery standards.

  “You won’t even be able to enjoy the radio, Remy,” said Lark relentlessly. “Your two brothers never stop yelling.”

  Lark was correct. Henry, who was thirteen months old, yelled without words. He offered constant shrieking opinions when he couldn’t even talk yet. He had a howl that meant, “No! Never! Get a life!” and another that meant “Yes! Now! Get with the program!” Henry had a full-speed personality. He’d gone straight from crawling to running, and like a new ice skater at an indoor rink, he had difficulty stopping. Taking care of Henry was like being a hockey goalie.

  Mac, on the other hand, had a vocabulary, though limited. Mac’s idea of a good thing to do when he grew up was sue people. It was his favorite sentence. “Let’s sue ’em!” he loved to yell. Mac wanted to sue his teachers, the bus driver, the neighbors, the opposite team’s coach, and everybody else on earth who ever got in his way.