Upbeats 2: Crime After Crime

  Chapter Three

  "Thanks for coming along, Robyn," I said as we clambered along the narrow passage, struggling to move fast while not bumping or side-swiping unsuspecting heads, as we tried to claim the seats at the rear of the bus as eager kids piled on.

  I was the captain of the girls' basketball team at Rockwell High and on this particularly frosty Sunday afternoon, we had been forced to endure a long, two, possibly three, hour ride to another town for a game we ended up losing.

  I would have been going alone if Robyn had not offered to come along for moral support and to keep me company.

  We had lost the game and it was my fault. Sure, coach said that when one person loses, the whole team loses, but this time it really was my fault. I had been terribly distracted ever since we met System. My head was always racing, thinking about Gemini and hoping he wasn't lurking around the next corner I turned. My concentration was not at its best and I lost every easy catch, scored only two baskets and managed to drop the ball, clumsily, into the opposing team's hands a number of times.

  I was just glad Robyn had tagged along.

  I was actually quite popular, for a freshman, and I had a ton of friends on the girls' basketball team.

  But I was not exactly being "Friend of the Year" towards any of them.

  Ever since we met System, discovered our powers and Gemini came along (and escaped), I had been ridiculously busy with superhero stuff.

  On top of all that, I have a history of blurting things out. I have what they call a "big mouth." I can keep a secret to the point of extreme torture (or death) but I don't always think before I talk. I didn't trust myself to keep my mouth shut about the whole Upbeats thing when I was around normal people. I had to be on the guard.

  It felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders when I was around Robyn, Luke or Ned because we had all gone through the same thing, each of us had powers and we had the same mission. I didn't have to watch what I said or what I did when I was around the other members of the Upbeats because they understood.

  "Well, it was either come with you on this packed bus full of sweaty girls and then watch a game, which I don't entirely follow, or tag along with my mom to the hospital on her shift," Robyn said, plainly.

  I shrugged. "They're fumigating your house: what else can you do?"

  Robyn was about to agree with me when a girl sat down, heavily, in the row of seats directly in front of her. The girl, who was panting as if she had run a mile carrying an elephant on her shoulders and sweating like a pig, began to remove her old, scuffed shoes and discoloured socks.

  I swear, a fine, green mist drifted up, emanating from deep within the festering shoes and floated up to greet us.

  I smelt the odour nearly every school day so I was used to the nose-crinkling, eye-watering, milk-curdling aroma. It was still mightily unpleasant but I had come to the point where I could at least pretend I had not smelt a thing.

  But Robyn's nose wrinkled the instant the green mist wafted near her, as if it were trying to hide inside her face. "Termite poison sounds pretty good right about now," she mumbled. "I suppose I could hold my breath."

  "For twelve hours?" I asked, trying, but soon to fail, to hold back the laughter that threatened to erupt.

  I was uncertain if Robyn would be able to handle the bus ride home. Unsure how I would explain to her mother if Robyn came down with some kind of odour-induced illness, I offered to swap places with her.

  Robyn stood up, gratefully, and scooted over to the other side of the bench.

  It wasn't much, but maybe she would be able to handle the ride better if she was ever so slightly further away from the disgusting aroma.

  “Your dad would have to get out the house too. Couldn’t you spend the day with him?” I asked.

  Robyn shook her head. “Nah, he’s away on some business trip for the next two days.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “The part-time mechanic is away on a business trip?” I asked, disbelievingly.

  Robyn held her hands up in a, “it doesn’t make sense to me, either,” gesture. “It’s in Tokyo,” she said.

  I shook my head, utterly confused. Just as I was thinking of a good joke, I remembered something from the news last night. “Hey, did you hear on the news that story with the giant mutated duck in Tokyo? First it was lizards, now ducks. That city should consider relocating.”

  “The difference with this mutation is that it's real," Robyn said. "I just hope my dad’s okay."

  As I was unsure how to continue the conversation, I gazed out the window.

  It was winter, and the world outside the bus was colder than ever.

  As I said before, it didn't snow in Rockwell: even though we were near the mountains, we were also on the west coast, with a large percentage of our city bordering on the beach. The town we had just visited for the game, however, was over the mountains, further inland, and received some light snow in the middle of winter. Not enough snow that it caused a major disaster and grounded planes and began huge catastrophes, but enough that you had to be careful on the roads.

  All the adrenaline from the game subsided, but I was still raging with frustration from not getting that last basket.

  I had always found it extremely difficult to kill the frustration after a bad game. It took me a whole day to put a halt to the redness in my cheeks.

  Some girls were spending forever, choosing their seats on the bus carefully as if their lives depended on getting the perfect seat. I was beginning to wonder if we would ever get a move on when Coach Brand blew her whistle at a high enough volume to shatter glass (and eardrums.)

  Automatically, I sat up straighter. My teammates abruptly ended their intense, engrossing conversations and swarmed into the bus at the last minute, dashing to their seats like scared rodents. Once everyone was in, the driver pulled out of the parking lot and began the long trip home.

  As soon as we were cruising, Robyn pulled out a thick paperback book from her backpack and started reading.

  Robyn loved books: known throughout Rockwell High for reading a book a day. Sometimes, a book an hour.

  I'm not much into reading: in my spare time, I'll be doing something. However, you'll always find Robyn scanning the endless aisles of books at the library, searching for an interesting book she hadn't read yet.

  Robyn doesn't just read, though. She's also champion of the swim team: fastest free-style swimmer in the ninth grade (and she can hold her breath for an insanely long time.)

  Nevertheless, Robyn was never happiest than when she had located a quiet, isolated spot somewhere far from any life (preferably somewhere in the woods,) and her head was stuck in a thick, well-written book.

  This particular book sported a cool, reflective cover that roused even my limited interest.

  The other girls in the bus continued their excited chatter, some flipped through magazines, some were on the phone to their other friends not on the basketball team but most were just staring out the window, listening to their music through their head-phones.

  I was tempted to join the latter group but my phone's charge was running low, and I reasoned that it might be wiser rather to save it for a time when I needed it.

  I resorted to watching the icy scenery flash past.

  We drove along a freeway lined either side of the road with forests of tall pine trees, capped with light snow falling like skirts on their layers of leaves and branches.

  Poetry is not my strong point, but driving in winter always made me feel somewhat poetic.

  (Of course, it's always a little unpoetic when you're breath fogs up the window and you can't see out so well.)

  In the lane next to us, driving in the same direction as us, was a pick-up truck carrying, not crates or barrels of hay, but alpacas. White, cream, beige, brown and black alpacas. They looked like they were having a whale of a time with their tongues hanging out like dogs enjoying the wind in their faces.

  For a moment, I wondered if it was too cold for them in t
he heart of winter to be uncovered, standing around in the back of an uncovered pick-up truck. Closer examination of their fur coats made me realize they were warm enough for the meantime.

  The alpacas seemed to be rather happy, (utterly delighted, was more like it,) as if they were a bunch of little kids, having begged their parents for months on end until they finally agreed to go to the amusement park.

  The pick-up truck sped up and disappeared out of my field of vision: he was overtaking our bus.

  I sat back and turned my attention to the other window, across the bench. On the other side of the road, forest gave way to cliffs. A long, waist-high metal railing lined the road, as if to stop any vehicles that were going to plummet to their doom.

  You never think about it, but when you see that railing, you instantly trust it, with all your heart, as if you know it's going to save your life.

  I trusted that railing. I honestly did.

  But it wasn't too long until that trust was shattered like glass.

  Suddenly, without any warning, the bus started to swerve, violently, across the road.

  Then the bus, teetering dangerously on only two wheels, began to skid.

  It was like a carnival ride thought up by a crazy, demented, completely insane lunatic.

  For a sickening moment, it felt like the entire bus would collapse on its side.

  I'm not the one to panic often but, right then, my mind was convincing me this was the end.

  The bus skidded as if without a driver. For a horrifying moment, I wondered if the driver had disappeared, abandoned ship, so to speak. The driver's seat was invisible to me: blocked by the rows and rows of screaming, frantic and horrified teenage girls. I knew he was still there when the bus seemed to somehow stop the ferocious skidding and get back on two wheels once again.

  For a microsecond, it felt as if the brutal skidding and tilting on one side had come to a stop.

  But we were still swerving. You could feel the tyres struggling to catch a grip on the icy road. It felt like an ice-skating rhinoceros was balancing the bus on its shoulders.

  Everyone was harshly flung to the left and then the right. Shoulders bashed into more shoulders, heads knocked windows and kids sitting on aisle seats were flung out their seats like rag dolls.

  Robyn crashed into me and I banged my head on the glass window. It stung and I knew it would result in the biggest bruise I had ever been dealt in my life.

  "Ow!" I exclaimed.

  "If I could have helped it, do you think I would have slammed into you on purpose?" Robyn replied, her faint Spanish accent suddenly growing stronger.

  Then the bus took a sharp turn and everyone was tossed to the right again. I clutched and dug my fingernails into the seat to prevent myself from slamming into Robyn.

  Then, with a sickening thud, crunch and metal on metal scraping that pierced everyone's eardrums; the bus lurched forwards. Those who had managed to stay in their seats tipped forward.

  Robyn was launched out her seat and onto the floor of the bus. The girl who sat in front of us had managed to get both shoes off before the terrible accident and now the festering shoes tumbled away from her and hit Robyn square in the nose.

  She started mumbling in Spanish and then, "That ain't funny!" she said, in English. Robyn slid across the floor, on her back, to the front of the bus. When she came to a halt, she sat up. Her hair was in a mess with her fringe in her eyes and long locks of thick, chocolate brown hair plastered to her face. She didn't look happy. (I bet she wished she had just spent the day breathing in harmful chemicals at her house.)

  The screech of the tyres, the engine straining and the high-pitched shrieks of girls had nearly killed my eardrums.

  Can you imagine a bus full of girls not shrieking when the bus began to plummet? I can't. Everyone screamed like there was no tomorrow.

  My heart stopped. When it started again, it raced like a speeding bullet.

  "What just happened?" some girls shouted.

  No one had to reply, it was easy to figure it out. The driver must have swerved to miss something, lost control on the icy roads and right about now, I figured we were hanging, perilously, over the edge of a cliff.

  This was a textbook example of a disaster.

  Nevertheless, it was about to be the perfect textbook example of a superhero rescue...