the bus driver muttered as the bus jolted to a stop. It looked like the truck was going to play chicken with our school bus.
I gripped the seat in front of me as a black cloud spewed from behind the truck, which, by the way, looked ready to explode. When it got closer, I could make out two faces behind the cloudy windshield. Boys. The one in the passenger seat was waving his arm out the window.
“Good!” Mr. Romero said, a smile in his voice as Scott returned to his clipboard.
“I thought we had everybody?” Scott said.
“We do now,” Mr. Romero said.
Scott’s brow furrowed as he continued to study his clipboard. He flipped through a stack of white pages. “Who’d I miss?” he said, as if it were not humanly possible for him to miss anything. Which, for him, was probably true. I’d heard that he’d gotten a perfect score on the math section of the SATs. I mean, who scored perfect on that? That was borderline freakish.
“Sam Tracy,” Mr. Romero said as he stared out the front windshield. “But let’s cut him some slack, okay? He traveled a long way to get here.”
4
Sam
Martin’s truck almost stalled three times before we finally chugged into the school parking lot. It was a miracle that his wheels made it at all.
Both my parents had worked late, so if the truck had died, waking them wouldn’t have been my favorite option. At the casino on the Rez, Dad worked security and Mom worked in a back office, “counting the money,” she always said, but really, she was an accountant for the tribe, and a damn good one. Dad was Gila and Mom was Havasupai and they’d been together since the summer of their senior year when they’d met at some high school summer program in Oklahoma. Figures that two Natives from Arizona would have to travel across state lines to meet. According to Mom, they’d fallen madly in love that summer, which was impossible for me to picture. You had to know my dad to understand—and knowing my dad, even a little bit, was one of the hardest things in the whole world. Harder than AP physics. Dad wasn’t exactly the flower-and-chocolates type. “Your dad’s just not sensitive like you are, Sam,” Mom had whispered to me once when I was about ten years old and I’d made him a Father’s Day card at school. “But he loves you, even if he doesn’t say the words. It’s what he thinks in his heart that’s most important.” Dad had looked at the card I’d made and smiled, sort of, but then he’d closed the card and placed it facedown and never looked at it for the rest of the weekend. I knew, because I’d watched him. I’d never made another card for him again. “But you’re more alike than you realize,” Mom had added, which I absolutely had not believed. Still didn’t. Sometimes I wondered if I was adopted.
On a good day, you’d never hear Dad utter five words, least of all to me, but I supposed that came in handy when most of your day consisted of sitting in a smoky haze and watching for people who cheated or misbehaved while playing slot machines or blackjack. I knew that my parents loved me. At least, my mother told me she did all the time. I just wished that I could hear my father say it, even once, before I stopped caring altogether.
Fortunately for my parents, they usually worked the same hours, but that was unfortunate for me from a ride perspective. So Martin really had saved the day by offering to drive me to school at the butt-crack of dawn on a Saturday morning, on the condition that I stayed later at last night’s party.
“How are you gonna stay awake long enough to reach Coolidge?” I stifled another yawn.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Martin said dully, his eyelids as puffy as mine.
“You sound like a rapper.”
“Don’t I wish,” he said. And then he flashed some sign with his fingers. I had no idea what it meant, but I was sure it was stupid.
I didn’t know how I was going to make it to noon on practically no sleep, much less through the rest of the weekend. I figured I’d catch some z’s on the bus ride.
“There they are.” I pointed to two yellow school buses.
“Dude. I’m just tired. Not blind.” Martin slammed down on the accelerator, grinding it to the floor.
I could smell something burning. Motor oil? It was pluming somewhere in the back of the truck. I felt kind of bad leaving Martin, especially since there was a pretty good chance he’d need a ride home. “Call Fred’s brother, Trevor, if you break down again. He’s good with cars. He’ll tow you home if you need it. There’s a pay phone by the front of the school, next to the drinking fountain.”
Martin nodded. “I’m not worried,” he said, and I smiled to myself.
Martin was about as good a best friend as a dude could have. We’d known each other all our lives. We grew up together. Our dads grew up together. It was like we were brothers, not friends. “Thanks, man,” I said as he approached the buses.
“No prob, bro,” he said. “Just don’t turn dork on me, okay? I’ve got a reputation to uphold.” He smirked, one arm draped lazily across the wheel, even though he was practically playing chicken with a school bus full of high school students, not to mention a couple of teachers.
I chuckled. “Sure. Reputation. Got it.”
Thanks to Martin, the bright yellow bus had no choice but to stop. Its brakes even screeched a little.
Ouch.
I sure hoped that Mr. Romero wouldn’t be too mad at me, but what could I do? It wasn’t like we’d be able to catch up to the bus if we road-raced down the freeway.
“Sure you want to do this?” Martin asked. “I can always keep driving. Here’s your chance.”
Chance. I needed one. I needed a hundred. “Yep. Got to.” I reached for the door handle. “Besides, I think Romero is ready to dive through the windshield. Can’t back out now. He’s probably pissed.”
“Okay.” Martin didn’t sound convinced. He paused. Then he said, “You know you can’t avoid her forever.”
I sucked back a breath, hitching my backpack over my shoulder. I looked at Martin for an instant without saying anything. Then I said, “I know. But I can try.”
Martin just shook his head.
“Later, dude,” I said.
“Later. See you Monday.”
I closed the door—more like slammed it, because the rusted door stuck a little—and then jogged the six steps to the waiting bus.
Even through the windshield, I could see at least thirty faces, including Mr. Romero’s, staring back at me like two rows of dominoes. A few mouths hung open.
“Okay, you idiot,” I muttered to myself. “You asked for it. Now deal.”
When I reached the door, it was already open.
Mr. Romero stood at the top of the stairs. His mouth twitched in one corner below his salt-and-pepper mustache. I couldn’t tell whether he was angry or glad to see me.
“Sorry I’m late, Mr. Romero. Had some trouble with the truck.” I nodded back at Martin’s ride, as if its mechanical limitations weren’t obvious. Martin turned and headed back toward the freeway as blue-black smoke billowed out of his tailpipe. He was never going to make it to the Rez.
“I can see that,” Mr. Romero said. “Well, glad you made it. Now have a seat. We’re already behind schedule.”
“Sorry,” I said again as I looked over his shoulder at all the faces on the bus. As usual, I was the only Native. I recognized maybe six people on the bus including Matt Hendricks from advanced chemistry. He nodded. I nodded back. Unfortunately the seat next to him was taken.
“You’ll have to put your backpack under your seat.”
“No problem,”