The Agent's Daughter (9 page)

Travis made his way up the aisle of the bus
and stopped when he saw Melina and Jean.

“
Hey there bro,” Melina
said. “How was your first day?”

“
Terrible,” he said. “I
spent most of the day getting introduced to everyone and watching
them set up the lab. I didn’t get anything done.”

Jean patted the seat across the aisle from
her. “Well, little dude, have a seat and join us for the ride
home.”

Travis did not like being
called ‘little dude’. He knew that he was a little smaller than the
other kids in his grade were, but he still thought comments that
drew attention to it were demeaning. It seemed to him that no one
else was offered a greeting using a euphemism for one of his or her
physical traits. No one said,
Hey
man-boob, how are you doing?
Or
Unibrow, my man! What’s up?

“
Thank you,” he said. “But
I am going to the back. There is a large bench seat back there.
Maybe I can get a quick nap.”

The girls looked at each other and started
to laugh.

“
No, seriously,” he said.
“I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere.”

“
That’s not what we are
laughing about,” Melina said. “You can’t just sit anywhere.
Especially the back.”

Travis arched his brow in confusion. “What?
Are there assigned seats? Nobody told me what my seat was.”

“
It’s not like that,” Jean
said, in a half whisper. “Only certain people sit in the back if
you know what I mean.”

A look of understanding crossed Travis’s
face. “Oh. You mean the learning challenged kids sit in the back?”
he whispered back.

Melina smiled. “In a manner of
speaking.”

“
The popular kids!” Jean
whispered a little louder. “They sit in the back.”

“
Ohhh, I get it now,”
Travis said, nodding his head. “Popular. In the back. I should fit
right in then.”

Travis turned and headed for the back. Jean
turned to Melina. “You are not going to let your brother sit back
there, are you? They will eat him alive.”

Melina looked at Jean and then toward the
back. Travis had taken off his shoes, and now he was stretched out
on the long back seat. He was using his backpack as a pillow, and
he was well on his way to sleep.

“
We are right here,”
Melina said. “At the first sign of any trouble, I will go back and
get him. He needs to see how things work here.”

The relative silence of the bus was
interrupted by a small commotion toward the front. Ellen Barrow and
a few of her minions were getting on the bus. Ellen didn’t have her
driver’s license either, and her parents didn’t let her ride in the
car of any of her fellow students, so she had to ride the bus.
Every day she took out this misfortune on the poor souls at the
front by making a few rude comments about their clothing or hair as
she passed through to the back.

She stopped when she got to Melina and Jean.
“I heard that you are Alex Winfield’s partner for the magnetism
lab.”

“
Yes,” Melina said, with
mock dread. “I am going to be forced to spend hours at a time in
close contact with him. Oh, the horror.”

Ellen smirked. “Laugh now, Roberts. I told
you that he was way out of your league. It’s just a matter of time
before he-”

Ellen looked toward the back for the first
time.

“
What is that thing in the
back row?” she said as she moved toward the back of the
bus.

She stood over Travis as one of her gang
poked at him. He opened his eyes and slowly sat up.

“
Who are you and why did
you wake me up?” he said indignantly as he sat up.

“
Wait, how old are you?”
Ellen said as she got a better look at him.

“
I am in the seventh
grade,” Travis said. “I take classes here a few days a
week.”

“
What are you doing back
here?” Ellen snapped.

Travis got that confused look on his face
again. “I thought it was obvious that I was taking a nap. You know,
lying down. Eyes closed. What do they teach here? Sheesh.”

Melina stifled an audible laugh. Ellen was
not smiling. “You don’t belong back here!” she said with a raised
voice.

“
I was told that there
were no assigned seats and that I could sit anywhere on the bus
that I wanted,” Travis said as he looked around the
back.

Ellen pointed right at him. “Look little
boy. Only certain people are allowed back here. I would suggest
that you get your little seventh grade butt out of that seat and
move to the front of the bus.”

This was it Melina thought. Time to get
ready to comfort her little brother as he slinked away from the
back. Travis, however, had other ideas.

He arched his brow and displayed his angry
face. “Listen, toots. I don’t know who you are, but you should get
to know me. My name is Travis Roberts. I won a Castle Grant this
year. Do you know what that is?

Ellen and her minions looked at each other.
None of them had the answer.

“
I didn’t think so. It is
a grant given to the top five middle school students in the
country. That may not impress you, but here is the sweet part. It
comes with a stipend of 250,000 dollars to be spent at the school
that I attend.”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “Big deal, so you won
a prize.”

“
Focus here, lady,” Travis
continued. “You are missing the sweet part. The 250,000 dollars.
That pays for three teachers and a whole science classroom full of
expensive new equipment. At the school that I attend. All I have to
do is call up Principal Kalis, and tell her that I am transferring
to another high school because the environment is too hostile at
this school. At that point, she has a couple of choices. She could
let me, the teachers, and all of the science equipment go down the
street to another high school. Or she could eliminate the hostility
by sending the hostility to another high school down the street. I
have her on speed dial. Number seven. Why don’t we ask her? I’m
sure she is still in her office.”

Travis grabbed his backpack, took out his
phone, and started pressing buttons on the screen.

“
There is no need to call
Principal Kalis,” Ellen said, the words sounding high pitched and
nervous. “Continue your nap, please. We’ll sit over here in this
row.”

Travis put his phone back in his backpack,
punched it a few times to shape it into a pillow and then he lay
back down.

Melina and Jean looked at each other with
their mouths agape.

…………………………
.

The bus was approaching Melina’s stop, and
her brother was still asleep. As the bus came to a stop, she got up
and made her way to the back. Ellen gave her a look that questioned
what she was doing back there. It melted into astonishment when
Melina approached Travis. He had said what his name was, but Ellen
had not put it together that Travis was Melina’s brother until that
moment.

Melina gently shook Travis’s shoulder.
“Travis, it’s time to go home.”

The normally raucous bus was now stone
silent as all eyes were on the pair as they made their way to the
front of the bus and down the stairs to the street. As the bus
pulled away, Melina and her brother walked side by side on the
sidewalk toward their house.

“
You realize the
importance of what you did, don’t you?” Melina asked.

“
I didn’t realize that
naps were that uncommon,” he said.

“
I’m not talking about the
nap, you ninny,” Melina said. “The confrontation with
Ellen.”

“
Oh, that,” Travis said.
“I have watched enough prison movies to know that, on the first
day, you are supposed to walk up to the biggest, baddest dude in
the yard and start a fight with them. Let everyone know that you
are not to be messed with.”

“
Wait, why are you
watching prison movies?” Melina said. “A few months ago, you were
afraid of your own shadow, and now you are picking fights with big
bad people?”

“
Things are different for
me,” Travis said. “Mom’s accident changed everything.”

Melina stopped walking and looked at Travis.
“What do you mean?”

“
It’s no secret that I’ve
leaned on Mom a lot over the years,” he said. “She has always stood
up for me. Fought my battles. Much more so than Dad.”

“
Yeah,” Melina said with a
small laugh. “You used to refer to yourself as a momma’s boy
without realizing that those words had a negative connotation. We
just always thought that you two had a unique bond because Mom quit
work to stay home when you were born, but I went to day care. I
learned to have a little more independence than you.”

Travis continued. “When Mom had the
accident, I found myself on my own. I lost my crutch. I was
lost.”

“
So what happened?” Melina
asked. “How did you go from that to what happened
today?”

“
A couple of months ago,
while we were all visiting Mom in the convalescent hospital, you
went in to see her, and Dad and I sat outside. After a few minutes
of silence, I started crying. I don’t know why. When I looked up, I
could see that Dad was crying too. I had never seen that before. I
crawled onto his lap, and he held onto me like I was five years old
again. When I finished crying, I felt older. Like I had grown up
right there. From that point on, I was no longer
scared.”

“
I must admit that you
have seemed a bit older to me,” Melina said. “But how do you
explain the angry boy from the bus?”

“
That’s easy,” Travis
said. “Once you have removed the mantle of fear, you can analyze
any situation logically and use your natural gifts to your
advantage. I must admit, once I discovered that, I was like a kid
with a new toy.”

“
You have natural gifts?”
Melina asked.

“
Everyone has gifts,” he
said. “Mine is that I am smart for my age and can understand
theoretical physics.”

“
Do I have gifts?” Melina
asked.

“
You have gifts that I can
only dream of,” he said. “You can read faster than anyone I know.
You have a keen sense of adventure with a complete lack of concern
for your own personal safety. And you are the greatest older sister
a brother could ask for.”

Melina looked at her brother. She had never
looked at him the way she saw him now. She grabbed Travis in both
her arms and hugged him.

“
I love you, little
brother.”

She stopped hugging him but kept her arm
around his shoulder as they started walking for home again.

As they got closer to the house, Melina
could see that there was a car parked in front of the house that
she did not recognize. She knew her dad was home because he had
texted her phone. He told her to come straight home after school
instead of going next door to Mrs. Baker’s house like her and her
brother usually did.

“
Do you know whose car
that is?” Melina asked.

“
Nope,” Travis
replied.

They went up the sidewalk to the front door
of their house and went inside. From the entryway, Melina could
hear voices from further in the house. She walked down the hallway
toward the sound until she reached the kitchen. Sitting at the
kitchen table was her dad and a woman wearing a warm-up suit and
tennis shoes. She looked to be about her dad’s age. All Melina
could see was the back of the woman’s head, but she could tell that
she did not know the woman. Nobody she knew had long, straight
blonde hair worn in a ponytail. The woman and her dad were laughing
about something as she approached the table.

Melina cleared her throat and glared at the
woman seated at the table. Just who was this woman sitting and
talking with her dad?

“
Melina,” her dad said.
“I’m glad you’re home. I’d like you to meet an old friend of
mine.”

Yeah. Old friend, she thought. More like
someone that is trying to replace her mom. Moved on already,
Dad?

“
This is Angela Coleman,”
he continued.

Angela turned around and looked up at
Melina. Melina paused for a moment. She had the odd feeling that
she had seen Angela before.

“
Hello,” Melina
said.

“
Angela is going to be
staying here watching you and Travis while I am away on a trip for
a few days,” Evan said.

“
Wait… what?” Melina
asked, looking confused. “You’re going on a trip?”

While her dad used to go on short trips
every month or so, he had not been on any trips recently. Not since
it was necessary for someone other than her mom to watch her and
her brother.

“
Yes, kiddo,” her dad
said. “It’s just for a few days. I should be back by the
weekend.”

Melina’s dad noticed that she was still
fixated on Angela. He had never seen her have quite that expression
before.

“
Angela used to work in
the same department that I do,” he said. “She retired a few years
ago, and now she works for the company doing short-term nanny
work.”

Melina’s head buzzed with thoughts. Okay,
she is here to do a job. But she is an old friend of her dad. And
sometimes, old friends become new girlfriends. At this point,
Melina realized that she was staring and not talking. She did not
know what to make of all this, but she did know that she wanted to
leave the kitchen.

She did her best to put on a polite face.
“Excuse me. I am going to go to my room. Pleased to meet you,
Angela.”