“Just tell her,” said Jake. “She’s going to find out soon enough anyway.”
“That’s right,” said a new voice, butting into our conversation. It was Danny from the seat behind us. His grinning face was the last thing I wanted to see hovering over my shoulder like a bad moon, but there he was.
“Danny”, I said, “people tell you to shut up all the time for good reasons.”
“Make me.”
“Danny, she’s new. There’s no need to be rude.”
“She’s a mundane. I can’t believe anyone rented her family a place.”
“I’m staying with my Aunt Suzy,” said Beth, talking quickly again. “It’s just for the rest of the year, I guess. My parents split up and somehow I ended up with my Aunt. What the heck is a mundane, anyway?”
“It just means you’re normal,” I said.
“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Not around here,” said Danny. “It means you don’t belong.”
“Danny, just back off,” I said.
“Make me,” he said again, resting his chin on the seat between us. His face was inches away, and I thought of all sorts of mean things to do to him. Then I got one of my ideas. I dug into Jake’s lunch with one hand.
“Hey, get out of there!” Jake complained.
It only took a second to find one of those little ketchup packets. Jake always had a few in his lunch, those little white ones that have about enough ketchup to dip three fries. I held it in my hand so Danny didn’t see it.
“What’d you take?” asked Jake, digging in his lunch in outrage.
Danny had his tongue out now, making “Mmmm,” sounds like a little kid. Boy, was he asking for it.
Beth saw the packet in my hand, and she saw me pop it open with my thumbnail. Our eyes met, and she gave me a little smile. I could tell right away that she was like me, that she got ideas… If she had frowned, I might not have done anything. But with her encouragement, I squirted it into Danny’s face.
He had his eyes closed at the moment of impact and that made the surprise complete and all the sweeter. We roared with laughter. He had ketchup on his cheeks and around the rims of his nostrils and in his eyebrows and gluing his bangs down to his forehead.
Everyone around us laughed too, and soon everyone on the bus was gawking and laughing. Even Thomas had a grin on his face.
But not Danny. His face was as red as the ketchup. He glared at me and rubbed the stuff off with his shirt, which was green. It made dark stains in his shirt that he would wearing all day.
“Hey!” said Mrs. Terry. I could see her eyeing us in that big long mirror she had up there above the windshield.
“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked. “Why are there three of you in that seat again?”
We sank down, trying not to be noticed.
Then I heard a voice in my ear. A quiet, angry voice. It was Danny.
“After school, you’re dead,” he said.
Chapter Six
While Danny sulked behind us and made dark plans for my future, Jake, Beth and I held our own meeting in our seat.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Beth. “And you never answered any of my questions. What’s with you two and toads? What is a mundane? Sounds like a breed of dog, or something.”
Jake nudged me.
I eyed him and sighed. “I suppose, I might as well tell you. But you probably won’t believe me. Not at first, anyway.”
“Just do it,” said Jake, “she’s already gotten you in enough trouble.
“I’m sorry if I did, but I surely don’t see how,” said Beth. “All I did was walk onto this crazy bus with you crazy kids. Everyone’s been acting strangely since I got here. It’s like you all have a big secret. No one will tell me anything.”
I nodded. “Well, the thing is, we aren’t normal people in this town. It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“I can tell that!” she agreed heartily. “You all seem a bit nutty.”
“Come on, get to it,” said Jake.
“Can I just tell her my way?” I asked.
“First you make me squat down in a hole and now-”
“Toad-in-a-hole!” shouted Thomas from behind us. He laughed uproariously. He had a very strange sense of humor and it was probably best for everyone that he never said much.
“See?” said Beth. “Like that! Why don’t you just tell me about the toad thing?”
“Okay,” I sighed. “Jake here is a toad. At least, he can turn himself into a toad if he wants to. And when the moon is full, sometimes he turns into a toad whether he wants to or not.”
There it was. It was out, and now she could stare at me as if I was completely nuts, just as I knew she would.
Thomas shouted, “Toad-in-a-hole!” again from behind us, laughing like a mad man.
Beth opened her mouth, but for once, she didn’t know what to say.
Then, there was a whooshing sound outside. A big shadow came over the bus, as if a small plane or a huge bird were up there cruising by.
“What’s going on now?” said Beth.
We all craned our necks to see out the windows above the bus. There was something up there, above the snow-crusted pine trees. Or someone.
“Who is it?” asked Jake.
“I can’t see,” I said.
“It looks like a pterodactyl up there!” said Beth excitedly.
There was a thumping, slamming sound on the roof of the bus. Some of the kids squealed. Everyone started yelling at once.
Mrs. Terry pulled the bus over to the side of the road. We lurched to a stop. Everyone fell forward and some people were left rubbing their heads.
“No one lands on my bus,” muttered Mrs. Terry. She climbed out of her chair and pulled the lever to open the door. A cold gust of freezing air swept in.
We were on Berger Street, right near the park. Snow covered everything in the park, of course. The statue of a soldier standing at attention was a mass of icicles. We were only a few blocks away from the school now.
“What the heck is going on?” asked Beth.
“A flyer just landed on the roof,” Jake explained as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Obviously, they wanted us to stop the bus.”
“Hey!” said Mrs. Terry, craning her head out the open door. “A flyer? Who’s up there? There had better be a bridge out or something!”
A figured climbed down from the roof onto the hood of the bus, and then dropped lightly onto the sidewalk. It was Miss Urdo, the school Principal.
“How can she fly?” asked Beth, staring. “She must have been on a hang-glider or something.”
“She’s a hawk. She must have changed back,” I told her.
Beth stared at me for a moment, and then shook her head and smiled in disbelief.
“Oh, hello Miss Urdo,” said Mrs. Terry. Her anger melted a bit, seeing as it was someone from the school. “I thought a high-schooler was playing a joke.”
“It’s not a joke, I’m afraid, Mrs. Terry,” said our Principal. “School is cancelled today. You have to take all the children up to the Estate.”
“The Estate?” asked Mrs. Terry. “You don’t mean…?”
