5
Ted
The pantyhose was making my face sweat like balls.
So were the latex gloves on my hands. And I was still breathing hard from shoving the heavy detour sign back into the shuttle by myself.
None of that mattered, though.
What mattered was, we ’ d actually done it. The hardest part was over. The lady bus driver with the fried red hair drove exactly the way we wanted and then opened up the door when Andy knocked.
Everything was going to plan, but my stomach was still spinning like a washing machine. All I could think was, We ’ re actually doing this. Holy shit, we are actually doing this.
I ’ d imagined what today would be like in my head a thousand times. It was more real than I ’ d prepared myself for. The sounds the kids made were still echoing in my head. But it ’ d all be worth it in the end.
“ I want my mom,” one of the little kids was saying in a shaky voice, and that made me feel bad. But kids were like rubber bands, I reminded myself. They bounced back.
And these rubber bands were worth a shit-ton of money.
Their parents probably weren ’ t rich: Bright Beginnings aftercare was state-subsidized, so you had to be at least a little bit poor to send your kid there. That didn ’ t matter, though. It was all part of the plan.
I snapped to attention, focusing on making sure the next steps went smoothly.
Apply yourself, Ted, I thought in my mom ’ s snappish, Marlboro-thick voice. The one she used every time I got fired from a shitty job or left a Hot Pocket in the toaster oven longer than she liked.
She ’ d probably pretend she was horrified if she could see me right now. Her forehead would turn into an accordion fan of deep lines, and she ’ d pucker her mouth like she ’ d just popped a lemon. But I was pretty sure she ’ d also be just a teeny tiny bit impressed by how much effort me and Andy had gone to pulling this thing off. And if there was anybody who ’ d taught me that the law was more of a suggestion than a rule—as long as you didn ’ t get caught—it was good old Mom.
While Andy kept his gun trained on the bus driver—Ms. Jessa, from the cutesy Velcro name tag in purple font—I brushed past him and pulled the phones out of the cubbies. I could hear him breathing loudly over the kids’ whimpers while I dropped each phone into a Walmart bag with a soft thud.
Even a couple of feet away, the combo smell of Andy ’ s BO and the spearmint hair oil he loved made my eyes water. Andy was gross. And he could be sorta dumb. But unlike me, he handled his gun like it was an extension of his hand. People always mistook him for a friendly hipster with his chubby cheeks, lazy eyes, and frizzy, shoulder-length brown hair that he rarely washed. That was a mistake. Andy could be mean as fuck.
The little girl in the seat nearest to me, a tiny kid with short black curls, was crouching with her knees on the bus bench and staring up at me with a look that made me worry my pantyhose were the see-through kind after all. I knew they weren ’ t. I ’ d read the word opaque to myself at least a dozen times on the L ’ eggs packaging that promised “ no rips or runs.”
When I tilted my head toward her, her eyes suddenly went big and she ducked down, cowering against the tall, skinny girl beside her. Her sister, I guessed, from how much they looked alike.
“ Hey,” I barked, but my voice came out high and weird. Nothing like I ’ d practiced. I cleared my throat and tried again, aiming for deep and gruff. “ Hey, listen up.” Then I plopped the last of the phones in the bag and said the line that me and Andy had memorized. “ Stand up and put your hands on the seat in front of you. If you do what we say, and keep your mouths fucking shut, nobody gets hurt.”
Every head on the bus turned toward me, but nobody made a move to stand up. The sweat running down the back of my neck itched in a way that made me want to tear the pantyhose off.
I gripped my gun tighter, afraid I ’ d drop it if my hands started shaking the way my legs were. My body burned with adrenaline and too much gas-station coffee.
“ Do what he says, now, ” Andy screamed so loud I nearly jumped. And the kids actually listened.
They fell all over themselves getting their butts out of the seats and their hands in the air, and the ones who were crying toned it down to snuffles.
While Andy kept his gun trained on the bus driver, I reached inside the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie and grabbed one of the long, black zip ties.
“ Hold out your hands,” I snapped at Ms. Jessa. Her choppy bangs looked like they ’ d been cut with kiddie scissors . Way shorter on the right side than they were on the left. She offered me her arms without hesitation, shaking like a leaf.
I zip tied each hand separately, then together, just like me and Andy practiced.
A little girl with blonde pigtails, standing up with her hands hovering above the bench in front of her, stared in disbelief while I pulled the ties tight.
I ’ d been worried the bus driver would try to pull some kind of hero shit. Dive for the phones in the cubbies, throw herself on top of me or Andy like a human shield. The kind of thing that ’ d get you on the “ Local Legend” section of KTRB.
But she seemed so eager to let me tighten those ties around her wrist, even I was a little surprised.
My phone, then Andy ’ s phone, made three little chimes. The second alarm. Time to get moving. The bus was due to arrive at Bright Beginnings soon. When it didn ’ t, nobody would worry too much—at least, not right away. With traffic and a busload of kids, delays happened.
That meant we had about fifteen minutes before anybody got their panties in a twist.
We ’ d be long gone by then.
“ Hey, what ’ s your name, bitch?” Andy kicked at the bus driver ’ s shoe. Apparently he hadn ’ t bothered to read the swirly cursive font. Andy was an action man—not a details man. That was me.
“ Jessa,” the woman whispered. Her voice sounded younger than she looked. I ’ d been thinking late-forties from the bad hair, but I upgraded her to early thirties.
Andy nudged me with his foot, but I ’ d already pulled the little notepad out of my hoodie ’ s kangaroo pouch. No technology, we ’ d decided when we first started planning. The things Big Brother could see were unreal.
“ Jessa what?” Andy kicked her shoe again. I wanted to tell him he didn ’ t need to do that. She was already doing exactly what we wanted. But I wasn ’ t about to question him in front of everybody. He hated that.
She hesitated. “ Jessa … Landon. ”
I wrote that down.
“ Walk where I tell you to walk, Jessa, ” Andy said, making her name sound like he was still calling her a bitch as he waved the gun toward the orchard. “ There ’ s nobody out here, so if you scream, I ’ m the only one who ’ s gonna hear. Do it, and I shoot you in the face. Got it?”
For a second, I imagined him actually doing it—shooting her in the face. I pushed the gory image away as fast as it came, telling myself he ’ d stick to the plan. He wanted the money as much as I did.
Jessa nodded and stood up, cowering away from the gun. “ That ’ s right,” Andy growled. “ Down the steps. March, Jessa. ”
As Andy followed her, he turned his head toward me and nodded.
It was my turn.
I glanced at the little girl with the short black curls sitting next to her sister and wished I hadn ’ t. Tears cut through her eyelashes like a sad doll. The way she looked at me made me think of the summer I was ten and my dad paid me two dollars for every squirrel I shot off the fence with my archery set. The squirrels ruined the giant pumpkins we were growing in the vacant field behind the trailer park. The ones we sold at The Farmstead for ten bucks each, but not if they had holes gnawed through them.
I wasn ’ t a great shot. One little guy, I ’ d pinned by the tail.
The way he ’ d looked at me when I got close enough to see his eyes was the same look the girl was giving me right now. Eyes wide and terrified, heart beating so fast you could see it pumping in its throat.
I felt so bad about that squirrel I hid in the shed and cried until my dad came looking for me and smacked me with the flat side of an old tennis shoe. When he left us a month later, I told myself that was why.
I looked away from the little girl with the black curls. Unlike the squirrel, she ’ d be fine. We weren ’ t going to hurt the kids.
With Jessa out of the way, I used the butt of my gun to smash the ancient dash camera that had recorded everything. The clunky device wasn ’ t connected to anything, just looped over itself every day until it ran out of battery. Bright Beginnings had needed new buses for a long time, and this was one reason.
One of the kids started hollering—and kept it up—even after the last of the shattered camera had fallen into the driver ’ s seat.
I whipped around. “ Quiet! ”
She turned down the volume but didn ’ t stop. A few of the other kids were still crying quietly. I remembered what Andy had told me yesterday when we talked through everything for the hundredth time. You gotta shut down any issues quick. If they don ’ t think we mean business, they ’ re gonna make problems. Scare them right off the bat.
“ Fucking hell,” I muttered. Then I drew in another breath and screamed, “ Shut UP! ” in my best imitation of Andy. I moved the gun back and forth across the aisle, making sure it passed over all ten kids’ heads at least once. “ Dammit, shut UP. If you don ’ t, my friend will shoot Ms. Jessa.”
That did it.
Nobody even sniffled.
I pulled another handful of zip ties out of the front of my hoodie and did a quick count. There were ten kids on the bus. It would take me thirty seconds to secure each of them. Then we could get back on the road.
Hurry up, Ted.
Apply yourself.