Chapter Twenty-Nine

I've never been particularly aware of the "Silent Witness video camera hanging up in the front of our bus with its red eye glowing in the black box that surrounded a mirror-like contraption. Oh sure, the first few weeks it was up, it kind of made me nervous, but after a while it just began blending into the background.

That changed the second I set foot inside of that big, old, yellow school bus that pulled up to my driveway five days a week, every week of the school year except for vacations and snow days for the first time in a week on that Monday morning. The black box hung ominously above the driver's head, the red eye glowing, indicating that the camera, if there even was one in there this week, was on.

I didn't realize I had actually stopped in my tracks until the driver cleared her throat and put her hand on the bar that closed the doors, ready to close it on my feet if she had to. I shook my head and went the rest of the way up the stairs and made my way to the middle of the bus to sit in the usual seat my friend, Julian, and I sat in. I felt the mechanical eye on me the whole time and had to struggle not to turn around and smash it with my heavy Social Studies book as the bus lurched forward.

"Hi," I said, lowering myself down into the seat with my brown-haired best friend. His eyes were transfixed on something outside the window. He acted as if I wasn't there. "Julian," I tried again, nudging him this time.

This startled him and he gasped. Then, seeing me, he relaxed slightly.

"Jesus, Parker," he said, letting the reprimand hang in the air as if he were about to go on, but didn't.

"Hi?" I said in response.

"Hi," he said in a more puzzled tone of voice as if he had never seen me before. "What're you doing here?" he asked me, his voice curving around an accent that could easily be mistaken for English, though almost everyone knew that Julian had never set foot off of American soil in his life. He blamed the way he spoke on his father, who happened to be from England and was constantly making trips there.

"Where else should I be?" I asked, finding the question odd.

"I don't know," he admitted, shrugging. He returned his attention back to the scenery rushing by outside of his window as if he weren't going to go on. "It's just that you've been goine for quite some time, you know. I was beginning to wonder if Gi--uh, your mother had just suddenly packed you up and left without telling anyone," he explained, stumbling over Gina's title. He was one of the few people I had actually told about being adopted and he was also one of my few friends that Gina let call her Gina.

"Nope," I said shortly, hoping I wouldn't have to go into anymore explanation than that. How do you explain to the guy you used to make terrible fun of a certain band with that one of them is your brother?

"How come?" he asked and I felt myself cringe.

"Uh...Family problems," I said.

"Oh," he replied. "Who died?"

I opened my mouth to correct him, but then, seeing a golden opportunity, I quickly re-thought it and, against my better judgment, lied to him.

"My mother's aunt," I said, shrugging. "I never knew her but my mother was invited to her funeral so she decided she had to drag me along with her."

"Ew. Open casket?" he asked. Julian has a very morbid way about him sometimes.

"No," I answered, rolling my eyes so that he wouldn't be able to see in them that I was lying to him.

"So let me get this straight," he said after a moment of silence as I listened to the DJ on the radio begin some advertising spiel about Brother's Gourmet Coffee or something like that.

"What?"

"You were gone for a whole week just for some funeral?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, well, you know," I said. "Her family is mostly in Oklahoma and all that. I mean, it took until Monday to get the tickets, we left Tuesday, the funeral was Thursday, and then we left on Saturday." I didn't stop to think about how illogical this story was. Luckily, neither did Julian.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I forgot her family was in Oklahoma."

So had I. Jeez, it really makes you wonder how I didn't figure it all out before that stupid concert. I mean, we look exactly alike, I'm adopted, Gina and I are originally from Oklahoma, where does this not fit?

"So.....What did I miss?" I asked.

This was when one of the corners of Julian's mouth curled up in the famous smirk of his. You always know he's got soemthing up his sleeve of he's about to tell you something really good when he plasters one of those on his face.

"Did you hear about the Hanson concert thing?" he asked quietly, turning his head toward me again.

I swallowed, suddenly aware of that red light in the corner of my eye, watching me. Seeing through me?

"Yeah....I did," I said. "I mean, jeez, Lee, it was Tulsa, of course it was all over the news," I added trying to sound casual about the whole thing, but not quite pulling it off.

He nodded. "I guess," he said. "But you know Devonny Wilcox?"

"The girl with the locker next to mine?" I inquired.

"Yeah," he said. "Well, she actually made a get-well card. She's been trying to get everyone to sign it, but some people put some, um, obscene things in there so she had to start over," he told me, the smirk never leaving his face although it wavered slightly when he noticed that my own smirk was not on my lips yet.

"Did you sign it?" I asked him, trying to make it seem like it was the most absurd thing I had ever heard. Not that it wasn't, but I was suddenly having trouble acting that way.

"Naw," he said.

We both left it at that.

"Well, we're here," he said uselesly as the bus pulled to a stop in the bus loop in front of the high school that housed not four, but six grades (seventh and up). I stood up, attempting to get into the aisle but was denied access several times. Finally, I shoved my way in and got off the bus, a feeling of relief washing over me as I no longer felt the red eye watching me.

"Where're you going first?" he asked me as if it weren't the middle of April and I hadn't answered that question nearly a thousand times throughout the whole year.

"Choir," I said, rolling my eyes. "Where else?"

"Ah, the 'easy A' class," he said, repeating my affectionate nickname for it.

"Where're you headed?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Damned if I know."

I laughed. Julian always reminded me of something a comedian once said: Everyone has photographic memories, it's just that some of us don't have film. Julian is always forgetting things. Sometimes you're surprised that he remembers his own name.

I walked up to my locker and took a deep breath once Julian was gone his separate way. I spun the dial in a random way, seeing as how it didn't matter what combination you put into my locker, as long as it wasn't the right one.

As I did this, Devonny Wilcox walked up to her locker and spun the dial on hers. She looked a bit harried as she opened the door and, tearing the small paper rectangle she had been carrying in her hand into two piece and threw them dramatically into the black hole that was her locker.

"Problems?" I said, opening my own locker and feeling the books that I had stuffed into my locker as fast as I could the last time I had been in school fall to my feet. I didn't bend down to pick them up as I waited for her answer.

"Yes," she said, brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. She stared at me through eyes that seemed to be shooting out rays of subzero temperatures.

"Care to elaborate?" I asked after she hadn't said anything for a minute.

"I suppose Julian's already told you of that card thing I've been doing since the little incident at the concert," she said in quite the unfriendly tone.

"Yeah he did," I said. "He said a lot of people were writing some bad things in there so you threw the first one out and started a second one."

She nodded. "Well, the second one didn't exactly work out either," she said, looking away from my eyes. I could hear the wobbliness in her voice that most people get when they're about to start crying.

"Oh yeah?" I said. She looked up at me, obviously surprised. Apparenly she hadn't expected me to be sympathetic about it. Not that I can blame her.

"Yeah," she said. "They were putting things in there like calling them girls, gay freaks, and eunuchs and things like that."

"What, may I ask, is a eunuch?" I asked.

"A castrated man," she said, smiling with amusement that I had asked.

"Oh," I said, regretting the question. "So are you going to start over?"

"I don't think so," she said. "By this time Taylor's probably better and they're in Australia and won't be home until something like July and he won't get it until then and by then it'll probably just be something they'd laugh at."

"I wouldn't be so sure," I said.

"Why do you say that?"

"I say that because I heard on Mtv, VH-1, and MuchMusic that they postponed the rest of their tour," I told her. "Something about appendicitis?"

"That's weird," she said. "Taylor got his appendix out a couple years ago."

Internally, I rolled my eyes. Weren't they supposed to be still stuck on how Taylor had broken his arm?

"Well," I said, shrugging. "That's just what they said. Besides, I think taylor would kind of appreciate a get well card," I said with a knowing smile.

"Maybe," she said, picking at a loose string of fabric on the sweater she was wearing. "Since when do you have so much sympathy for Hanson?"

I cleared my throat. "Can you keep a secret?"

She nodded.

"I was at the concert," I said.

"You were?" she said, a little reluctant to believe me.

"Yeah. My mom's friend's daughter, Theresa, dragged me along with some of her friends. I decided not to waste a chance to ride the Mind Eraser."

"That thing is wicked," she said. "I hear they're putting up a new one for next summer that'll be called the Boomerang. It's a forwards and backwards roller coaster."

"Ick. I don't know if I'd be able to handle that," I said. She giggled.

"So you really think Taylor would like that?"

"Why not? I mean, don't you like getting cards when you're sick?" I said.

"Yeah, I guess," she said. "That reminds me, where've you been?"

"Out," I said.

"Care to elaborate?" she said with a half-smile, repeating my own words against me.

"I went to my great aunt's funeral in Oklahoma," I said.

"Where in Oklahoma?" she asked.

"Tulsa," I said hesitantly.

"You have family in Tulsa?" she asked, her eyes growing wide.

"Yup. That's where my mother is from. We moved here when I was two."

"Are you sure you're not related to the Hansons?" she asked.

"I don't think so," I lied.

"Well, I'd better get going to class. The bell is going to ring any minute."

"Yeah," I said, bending over and replacing the books I didn't need in my locker and pulling out the ones that I did need. "Bye. Oh, and when you get that card made up, I think I'd like to sign it if you don't mind."

Her smile grew wider with pleasure. "Sure," she said. "Bye."

Isn't Parker a sap? E-mail me here to tell me what you think
Index
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Thirty