A Tragic Accident

Kimmy staggered back until she hit the tile wall.

Panting loudly, she pointed to the water rushing in a broad stream from the shower head.

“Kimmy—are you okay?” Debra cried in alarm. “What is it?”

“The water—it’s scalding hot!” Kimmy told her.

The three girls turned off the taps and hurried out, clutching their towels.

“Ow, that burned!” Kimmy declared, starting to breathe normally.

“Should we get the nurse? Are you all right?” Debra asked, staring at Kimmy’s chest and neck, which were scarlet.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Kimmy said, relieved, covering herself with the towel. “It was just such a shock.”

“We’ll have to remember to tell Simmons,” Debra said. And then she added sarcastically, “Maybe he’ll get around to fixing it in a year or two.”

Simmons was one of the Shadyside High custodians. He also drove a school bus. A laid-back young man with a blond ponytail and Walkman headphones that seemed to be permanently glued to his ears, he wasn’t terribly reliable in either job.

“Hey—did you drop this?” Ronnie asked. She bent down and picked something shiny off the floor.

“Oh. Thanks.” Kimmy reached out for it. It was her silver megaphone pendant. Her parents had given it to her for her sixteenth birthday. She struggled to put it back around her neck, which was still red from the scalding shower. “The clasp is loose,” she said, frowning. “I really have to get it fixed. Don’t want to lose it.”

The three friends hurriedly got dressed in silence.

Hoisting her backpack onto her shoulder, Ronnie sighed and headed for the door, her sneakers thudding heavily on the concrete.

“You feeling any better?” Kimmy called after her.

“No” was the sullen reply.

♦ ♦ ♦

“This is so exciting!” Bobbi declared.

It was a Friday evening, two weeks later, and the cheerleaders were boarding the small yellow and black school bus that would take them to the Tigers’ first away game.

Corky followed her sister onto the bus. She said hi to Simmons, who was slouched in the driver’s seat, fiddling with his ponytail. He grunted in reply.

Raindrops dotted the windshield. A light rain had started to fall. The sky was a gloomy charcoal color, but not gloomy enough to darken the sisters’ moods.

They had been working hard for that night, practicing the new routines after school and at home, learning the cheers, working up a few new wrinkles of their own.

“Go, Tigers!” Bobbi yelled, tumbling into a seat near the back.

“Go who??” Megan yelled.

The bus quickly filled with loud, excited voices, happy laughter. Simmons leaned forward and pulled the handle to close the door.

“Hey—where’s Miss Green?” Debra called.

Jennifer turned around in the front seat. “She’s driving in her own car tonight. She had to take some friends.”

Kimmy sat in the window seat next to Debra. She rubbed her hand over the glass, trying to clear the thin film of steam away so she could see out.

“Hey, Simmons—how about some air-conditioning?” one of the girls yelled. “We’re melting back here!”

Simmons, obviously lost in his own thoughts, ignored the request, as usual. He started the bus up and clicked on the headlights.

Corky, seated in the aisle beside her sister, turned to stare out their window as the bus backed out of its parking space and headed out of the student parking lot. Rivulets of rainwater ran down the glass, distorting her view.

The rain picked up, drumming noisily on the roof of the bus. A gust of wind blew water through the window, which was open an inch or two at the top. Bobbi raised herself up and, with great effort, pushed the window shut.

“Now we’ll suffocate,” Corky complained.

“Take your pick—suffocate or drown,” Bobbi told her.

“Tough choice,” Corky replied.

“Go, Tigers!” someone yelled.

Someone started a cheer, and everyone joined in.

“Tigers are yellow,

Tigers are black.

Push ‘em bach push ‘em back,

Push ‘em waaaaay back!”

Bobbi smiled at her sister. She settled back in her seat, happy and excited.

The past two weeks had been difficult. The other girls were aloof at first, even resentful. But Bobbi was confident that she and Corky had won most of them over. Kimmy and Debra were still cold to them, still acted as if they were unwanted intruders. But she felt sure that she and Corky would eventually win those two over too.

As the bus rattled down Park Drive away from the school, the rain pounded harder. The trees and shrubs exploded in a white flash of lightning. The thunder seemed to crack right above them.

Heather and Megan began chanting, “Rain, rain, go away.”

Jennifer turned in her seat to face the rest of the cheerleaders. “It’s not going to last,” she announced. “It’s just a flash storm. They said on the radio it’s going to pass quickly.”

Another loud thunderclap made two girls scream.

Everyone else laughed.

The big wipers scraped noisily, rhythmically, across the windshield, which was covered with a curtain of white steam. Simmons didn’t seem to mind—or notice—the poor visibility.

Holding on to the seat-back, Jennifer stood up. “I have a few announcements to make,” she called out, shouting to be heard over the driving rain.

Kimmy and Debra were giggling loudly about something. Jennifer waited for them to get quiet. “First of all, unless it’s still drizzling, we’ll do the fire baton routine at halftime as planned,” Jennifer said, cupping her hands like a megaphone.

Simmons made a sharp turn onto Canyon Road, causing Jennifer to topple back into her seat. She pushed herself back up, flashing the driver an annoyed look, which, of course, he didn’t see.

“If the storm doesn’t blow over—” Jennifer continued.

“Oh no!” Corky cried. “The fire batons!”

All eyes turned to the back of the bus.

A flash of lightning seemed to outline Corky and her sister.

“We have to turn around!” Corky declared, shouting over the clap of thunder.

“What?” Jennifer called, her face filled with confusion.

“We have to stop at my house,” Corky explained. “The fire batons. Bobbi and I brought them home to practice. We forgot them. Can we turn around?”

Several girls groaned, Kimmy the loudest of all.

“It’s only a small detour,” Bobbi said, coming to her sister’s defense.

“No problem,” Jennifer said, her expression troubled. Standing in the aisle beside Simmons, she tapped him hard on the shoulder.

No reaction.

So she tugged his ponytail. “We have to make a stop on Fear Street,” Jennifer told him.

“Huh?”

“Fear Street,” Jennifer repeated impatiently. “Just turn here.”

Simmons turned the wheel, and the bus skidded into a turn over the wet pavement. Holding on to the seat-back, Jennifer turned back to Corky and Bobbi. “Direct us when we get to Fear Street, okay?”

The two sisters agreed, apologizing again for the detour.

“Oooh, Fear Street,” someone said, uttering a spooky howl. Some other girls laughed.

Kimmy made some kind of wisecrack to Debra, and the two girls giggled together.

The rain fell in heavy sheets, driven by unpredictable, powerful wind gusts. For some reason Simmons sped up. In front of him the big wipers swam mechanically across the steamy windshield.

Jennifer resumed her position in the aisle beside him. “I have just a few more announcements to make,” she shouted.

Staring out the window at the storm, Bobbi saw the passing houses and trees grow darker, as if a heavy shadow had lowered itself over them, over the whole world. Trees bent in the strong wind. The rain suddenly shifted and blew against the window, startling Bobbi and blocking her view.

Up at the front, Jennifer continued with her announcements. Bobbi couldn’t hear her over the pounding rain, the thunder, the angry rush of wind.

Suddenly Simmons reached out and pulled the lever to open the door. The sound of the rain grew louder. Cold, wet air cut through the bus.

“Why did he open the door?” Corky asked her sister.

“I guess to see better,” Bobbi replied thoughtfully. “The windshield is totally steamed.”

“Are we near home?”

The bus sped up. Simmons had his head turned to the open door, his eyes on the cross street, which passed by in a gray blur.

Bobbi stared hard out the rain-blotted window, trying to read a street sign.

Suddenly she realized that something was wrong.

The bus—it began to skid.

There was no time to scream or cry out a warning.

One second they were moving along through the rain. The next second they were sliding, sliding out of control toward the curb.

“Whoa!” Simmons shrieked over the squeal of tires. “The brakes—!”

The tire squeals grew to a roar in Bobbi’s ears. She covered them with both hands. She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat.

The impact was fast and hard.

What had they hit? A tree? A rock? The curb?

The bus seemed to bounce, to fly up off the road, to bounce again.

Staring in horror and surprise at the front, Bobbi saw Jennifer’s eyes open wide. And then as the bus jolted and spun, she watched as Jennifer flew out the open door.

Jennifer’s startled scream was drowned out by the squeal of the skidding tires.

By the crunch of metal.

By the shatter of glass.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 416