6
Sage
With their faces all smashed up, the men with the pantyhose over their heads looked like the thing from Jeepers Creepers. I ’ d snuck downstairs to watch it one night when Grandpa fell asleep while he was babysitting me and Bonnie .
Thinking of the man as that sack-headed monster scared me so much I wanted to hide under the bus bench and cry.
They ’ d made the ties on our wrists so tight, the skin was burning and my fingers were starting to go numb.
I refused to cry, though. Because Bonnie—who was crying—kept looking at me like she needed me to be calm for her.
I wasn ’ t calm inside. Not even a little. There was a feeling in my stomach like I was falling down a flight of stairs. Sick and spinning. But I pushed all of that down deep for my sister.
I kept looking out the window at Ms. Jessa , the way Bonnie kept looking at me, but that only made me feel worse. Because Ms. Jessa just did what they told her to do, like the bad guys were the real grownups in charge now and she was one of us kids.
If Mom were here, she would ’ ve done something. I didn ’ t know what, but I just knew she would have. Run them over with the bus, maybe. Broken off the gearshift and smashed them over the head. Something. Anything. Not duck her head like a kid, follow the first guy off the bus, and just let it happen.
The scared, sick feeling crackled in my stomach like Pop Rocks.
The second guy—the one who told us he ’ d shoot Ms. Jessa if we didn ’ t stay quiet—finished tying up Mindy, the girl in the last seat.
Bonnie shrank against me and whimpered as he whipped around and stomped back down the aisle to the front of the bus.
There was something familiar about him, but maybe that was just because I kept imagining the squish-faced guy from Jeepers Creepers. For some reason, he felt less scary than the other man. Maybe it was the way his hand holding the gun shook a little.
“ You two.” He pointed at me and Bonnie, then down the bus steps. “ Start moving.”
I ’ m pretty sure I know him. The spark of recognition pinged in my brain again. It wasn ’ t just that his face looked like that creature from the movie. It was his voice, too. There was something familiar about it, like I ’ d heard it a long time ago. But when I tried to find the memory, the spark went out.
Maybe I was imagining it. Even so, it made the snake of fear in my stomach coil tighter, until I couldn ’ t breathe very well.
I moved toward the bus aisle so I could walk down the steps and into the orchard, even though I didn ’ t want to.
Bonnie made a strange little sound as I shifted away from her, and the guy tilted his head to look at her but didn ’ t say anything. Her face was bright red from crying, and her mouth was pursed in a tight line like it was full of bees she was trying to keep inside.
Snot and tears were rolling down her face, but she wasn ’ t going to make a sound.
She wasn ’ t going to let them shoot nice Ms. Jessa.
I stepped back toward her and stretched out my tied hands to grab hold of her pinky finger. Just a soft touch. “ Come on, Bonnie,” I whispered. “ It ’ ll be okay. Come with me.”
More tears poured down her cheeks, soaking the front of her purple My Little Pony T-shirt, but her mouth relaxed a little and she followed me as I moved into the aisle.
The first guy, the one who ’ d taken Ms. Jessa away, was waiting for us the second we set foot on the dirt. His gun was just a few feet from my head. “ That way.” He used his free hand to point at the open door of the gray van, maybe ten yards away. “ If you try anything, Ms. Jessa eats a bullet.”
Bonnie made that noise again, and a spark of anger in my stomach flared to life. You don ’ t need to keep saying that, I wanted to yell. We ’ re doing what you say.
I kept silent though, and for some reason that made him laugh, even though we were doing exactly what he told us to do.
“ Such nice, quiet girls.”
I stared right at him and noticed that there was a wet ring around his mouth, like he ’ d been licking his lips. That part of the pantyhose had gone more see-through, showing little bits of white when he opened his mouth. His teeth.
Bonnie heaved out a breath behind me, but kept moving past the man. I didn’t turn to look, but I could hear more of the kids following behind us.
Gravel crunched under our shoes. The sun hit my cheeks. The fresh smell of dirt and grass washed over me in the tree-thick orchard as we approached t he gray van. “ It ’ s okay, Bonnie,” I whispered again.
I surveyed the orchard without moving my head, hoping I ’ d see a house somewhere, another car driving down the dirt road, anything that might mean somebody could see us. Wouldn ’ t someone else be following that same detour sign any minute?
I couldn ’ t hear any other cars coming down the road, though. The only thing I could hear was the sound of kids lining up behind me and Bonnie, and the man with the wet ring around his mask telling them to hurry up and keep walking to the gray van. All I could see were rows and rows of trees. The dirt road was so narrow and choked with weeds, I was starting to wonder if it was really much of a road at all. There were hardly any tire tracks.
In July, the orchard probably buzzed with activity as workers picked cherries, but the season was over now.
My eyes moved to the gray van ’ s back doors, wide open a few feet in front of me, like the entrance to a cave. Pitch dark and full of things that might jump out at you any second.
I wanted to turn around and look at the other kids, but all I could think about was the man behind us, herding the last kids off the bus, and the other man leading us toward the gray van. Somehow I knew that if I looked at the other kids’ scared faces, I ’ d freeze up and stop walking, and then everybody else would stop, and we ’ d get in trouble. So I just kept on going, like the Pied Piper, with Bonnie and the other kids following behind.
Where was Ms. Jessa? Was she inside that dark van? How were me and Bonnie supposed to get up into it with our hands tied?
Every part of me wanted to run. But I could still feel that gun trained on the back of my head.
Heavy, fast footsteps came up behind us when Bonnie and I reached the bumper. I turned my head in time to see the man with the lighter brown pantyhose jog past me to stand beside the man with the darker pantyhose.
“ When I lift you up, you scoot to the back of the van real quick. Got it?” he said in that weird, too-deep voice that sort of sounded like Batman.
I nodded, but I wanted to scream when I thought about him touching me.
“ I don ’ t wanna get in there, Sage,” Bonnie whispered, echoing my own thoughts.
“ It ’ s just a van,” I told her, trying to sound like I believed my own words.
It wasn ’ t just a van, though.
It was like every bad thing I ’ d ever heard about getting in a car with strangers had suddenly appeared in front of me. But none of the things I ’ d been taught about getting away would work. I couldn ’ t run. I couldn ’ t say no. I couldn ’ t find a grownup to help.
Take care of your sister. Mom ’ s voice.
Sisters are for life.
For the first time, Mom’s words rattling around in my brain felt important instead of annoying.
I swallowed hard and braced as the man reached for me with one arm, keeping his gun pointed at Bonnie with the other.
With one quick motion, the man scooped me up and set my rear end on the back ledge of the van. “ Move, ” he hissed, pointing at the cave-like darkness.
And I moved, suddenly realizing that after Ms. Jessa, I was the closest thing to a grownup here. And I wasn ’ t a grownup. Not even close. For the first time, being a too-tall sixth-grader didn ’ t feel very big at all. Sure, I could take care of Bonnie by going with her into the baby pool so Kenan didn ’ t push her down the slide again. Yeah, I could let her tag along when I went to the park. I could help her tie her shoes when one of them came undone, or pretend to admire her clay people the way Mom would.
But none of that could help us now.