Page 6 (1/1)
She’d left the note tucked beneath the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table Danny liked salt, but not pepper, which one by-Danny knew this fro-and the note was still there He didn’t knohat to do with it The whole place s awful, the way a raccoon or possuain for days
The one sour, warm and unpleasant in his mouth He tried the Lucky Charms ater fro was the sa was different because Moht he sat in the dark in his room with the door closed He knehere Momma kept the candles, they were in the cupboard over the sink where she kept her bottle of Popov for when her nerves got to her, butfor him They were on the list It wasn’t an actual list, it was just the things he couldn’t do or touch The toaster, because he kept pushing the button back down and burning the toast The pistol in Mohtstand, because it wasn’t a toy, it could shoot you The girls on his bus, because they wouldn’t like it, and he wouldn’t get to drive the No 12 any in the world to Danny Chayes
No electricity meant no TV, so he couldn’t watch Thomas, either Thomas was for little boys, Momma had told him so a million times, but the therapist, Dr Francis, said it was okay to watch it as long as Danny tried other things, too His favorite was Ja tender, and the sound of his voice the way the narrator did it, so soothing it made his throat tickle at the top Faces were hard for Danny, but the expressions on the Thomas trains were always precise and easy to follow, and it was funny, the things they did to each other, the pranks they liked to play Switching the tracks so Percy would run into a coal loader Pouring chocolate all over Gordon, who pulled the express, because he was such a haughty engine The kids on his bus so the song with not-nice words in place of the real ones, but for the h His name was Billy Nice, and nice was not what he was He was a sixth grader, but Danny thought he’d probably been held back a few tirownwithout soat Danny as hethe other boys as he sauntered down the alley between the seats, dragging a s on the Island of Sodor today? Is it true that Lady Hatt likes to take it in the caboose?
Har-har-har, Billy laughed Har-har-har Danny never said anything back, because it would only , because he knehat the man would say Goddamnit, Danny, whatcha let the little shit treat you like that for? Lord knows you’re one weird duck, but you’ve got to stand up for yourself You’re the captain of that ship You allow a oes in the dumper
Danny liked Mr Purvis, the dispatcher Mr Purvis had always been a friend to Danny, and Momma, too Momma was one of the cafeteria ladies, so that was how they knew each other, and Mr Purvis was always cos, like the disposal or a loose board on the porch, even though he had a wife of his own, Mrs Purvis He was a big bald h his teeth and was always hitching up his pants Soht, after Danny was in bed; Danny would hear the TV going in the living roo Danny liked those nights They gave hi in his mind, like the happy-click When anybody asked, Momma always said that Danny’s father "wasn’t in the picture," which was precisely true There were pictures of Momma in the house, and pictures of Danny, and pictures of the two of theether But he’d never seen one with his father in it Danny didn’t even know the man’s naht Danny to drive in the parking lot at the depot, and ith hiet his Class B license, and helped him fill out the application Mom Danny to help around the house, being a useful engine, and the Social Security, which was overnment But Danny knew the real reason, which was the different and special way he was The thing with a job, Mo her careful voice, was that a person needed to be "adaptable" Things would happen, different things Take the cafeteria Sona, and other days chicken cutlets The , but it turned out to be another; you couldn’t always know Wouldn’t that upset him?
But a bus wasn’t a cafeteria A bus was a bus, and it ran on a schedule, precisely When Danny got behind the wheel, he felt the happy-click bigger and deeper than he’d ever felt in his life Driving a bus! A big yellow one, all the seats in their orderly rows, the gearshift with its six speeds and reverse, everything laid out nice and neat before hi as he pulled away froined he was Gordon or Henry or Percy or even Thomas himself
He was always on time Forty-two minutes from depot to drop-off, 82 ers, precisely Robert-Shelly-Brittany-Maybeth-Joey-Darla/Denise (the twins)-Pedro-Damien-Jordan-Charlie-Oliver (O-Man)-Sasha-Billy-Molly-Lyle-Dick (Dickhead)-Richard-Lisa-Mckenna-Anna-Lily-Matthew-Charlie-Emily-JohnJohn-Kayla-Sean-Timothy Sometimes a parent would ith them on the corner, aa ht say, wearing a good- smile on their faces You know, a person could set their watch by you
Be ine, Momma always said, and that’s what Danny was
But now the children were gone Not just the children: everyone Momma and Mr Purvis and hts were dark and still, no lights burning anywhere For a while there had been a lot of noise-people yelling, sirens wailing, Aruns Pop! went the guns Pop-pop-pop-pop! What are they shooting at, Danny wanted to know, but Mo her strong voice, and not to watch TV, and to keep away from the s What about the bus, Danny asked, and Momma only said, Damnit, Danny, don’t worry about the bus now School’s out today What about tomorrow, Danny asked And Momma said, It’s out tomorrow, too
Without the bus, he didn’t knohat to do with himself His brain felt as jumpy as corn in a hot pan He wished Mr Purvis could come over and watch TV with Mos, but the man never did The world went quiet, the way it was now There were ured that out As a for instance, there was the woht the violin, kids co over to her house for their lessons, and on summer days when the ere open Danny could hear the, twinkle-twinkle and Mary-had-a-little-las he didn’t know the na over the porch railing
And then one night Danny heard Mo in the bedroom Once in a while she cried like this, all alone, it was nor for Danny to worry about, but this felt different For a long ti what thatso sad iton a shelf he couldn’t reach Someti his hair and he opened his eyes to see her sitting there Danny didn’t like to be touched, it gave hi awful, but it was okay when Momma did it, mostly, on account of he was used to it What is it, Mo? But all she said was Hush now, hush now, Danny So in her lap, folded in a towel I love you, Danny Do you kno much I love you? I love you, too, Moht anshen so hi her bedroom door was closed and never opened and Danny knew He didn’t even have to look
He decided to drive the bus after all
Because ave hi the bus Because he didn’t knohat else to do with himself, with Moone by
He’d laid out his clothes the night before the way Momma always did, a pair of khakis and a white collared shirt and brown tie shoes, and packed a lunch There wasn’t raha of stale marshmallows, but he’d saved a bottle of Mountain Dew, and he put it all in his backpack with his pocket knife and his lucky penny, then went to his closet to get his hat, the blue-striped engineer’s cap that Moht him at Traintown Traintoas a park where kids could ride the trains, just like Thoone there since he was little, it was his favorite place in the world, but the cars were too tight for Danny to fit in with his big legs and long aro round and round with their little puffs of s from their stacks Except for trips to Traintown, Momma didn’t let him wear the hat outside the house, on account of she said people would ured it would be okay to wear it now
He set out at dawn The bus’s keys were in his pocket, flat against his thigh The depot was 32 miles away, precisely He hadn’t walked a block before he saw the first bodies So on their lawns or draped over garbage cans or even hanging in the trees Their skin had turned the sa stretched tight over limbs that had swollen in the sue and also interesting; if he’d had et a closer look There was a lot of litter, bits of paper and plastic cups and fluttering grocery sacks, which Danny didn’t like People shouldn’t litter
By the tiot to the depot, the sun arm on his shoulders Most of the buses were there but not all They were parked in roith e teeth But Danny’s bus, the No 12, aiting in its usual spot There were many different kinds of buses in the world, shuttle buses and charter buses and city buses and coaches, and Danny knew about the there was to know about one thing His bus was a Redbird 450, the Foresightstandards, with all-permanent frame fixtures, Easy Hood Assist™, an advanced driver’s infore to both the operator and service technicians, and the purpose-built, single-scope Redbird Comfortride™ chassis, the 450 was the number one choice for safety, quality, and extended life-cycle value in the industry today
Danny cli Caterpillar diesel roared to life, a ware filled his belly He checked his watch: 6:52 When the big hand hit the twelve, he put the bus in gear and pulled away
It seeh empty streets with no one around, but by the ti his first stop-the May-fields’, Robert and Shelly-he’d settled into the rhythine that today was just an ordinary day He brought the bus to a halt Well, Robert and Shelly were someti out the door, theirtheer than the one Danny lived in with Mo behind a wide front porch with a swing In spring there were always baskets of flowers hanging off the rails The baskets were still there, but the flowers had all wilted The lawn needed h the windshield Aon the second floor looked like it had been ripped fro in the space where theused to be, lolling out of it like a tongue He honked the horn and waited a ht He had other stops to uided the bus around a Prius lying on its side He cas in the road An overturned police car, smashed flat An ambulance A dead cat A lot of the houses had X’s spray-painted on their doors, with numbers and letters in the spaces By the time he arrived at his second stop, a townhouse co twelve ave the horn a long honk, then another But there wasn’t any point Danny was just going through theruin The entire coround
More stops: all were the sauided the bus west into Cherry Creek The houses were bigger here, set back fro leafy trees draped curtains of dappled shade over the street There was a quiet feeling here, more peaceful The houses looked like they always did, and there were no bodies that Danny could see But still there were no children
By now his bus would have had twenty-five kids in it The silence was unnerving The noise in the bus always built along the route, each stop adding a little ot on, the waythe final scene The final scene was the bump A speed bump on Lindler Avenue Do the buh he wasn’t supposed to, he’d give the bus a little extra gas, jolting them from their seats, and for that one moment he’d feel himself to be a part of the to school But when the bus went over the bump, he was