Wreath (22 page)

“Nothing to worry about,” Wreath said, moving knickknacks around on a table. “I saw her when I registered. She seems nice enough.”

He nodded. “She’s pushing me to get my college applications finished.”

“So you and I have a lot of classes together?” Wreath asked, and realized she seemed even dumber than she had when she tried to hide behind the chair.

She should be concerned about a teacher looking for her and about college applications. But she was very interested in whether this boy was in her classes.

“A few,” he said. “If you ever show up.”

“I should have gone,” Wreath mumbled. “It’s a long story.”

“Destiny said you probably didn’t know which bus to take.”

“Bus?” Wreath repeated, thinking she sounded like a parrot she’d seen in a barbershop near her grandma’s house when she was in kindergarten.

“The school bus.” Law spoke slowly, as though she were dense. “Destiny rides the bus when her dad can’t take her to school. She wanted to make sure you know there’s a bus stop out near where you live.”

“Where I live?”

Law looked almost like he regretted coming into the store. “Out toward my place,” he said. “The bus stops at the trailer park where I live and at a few other places down the road. Destiny lives down there. She told the driver you might be getting on out there.”

Wreath’s hopes rose and then were dashed again. Riding the bus to school would be much easier than taking her bike, especially when the weather got cold. But then she wouldn’t have a way home from work.

She glanced up to see Mrs. Durham, who was clearly eavesdropping on the conversation. “If you take the bus to school, I can drive you home from work,” her boss said.

Wreath froze and then acted like she hadn’t heard the offer. “Thanks for stopping by, Law, but I’d better get back to work.”

The boy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here’s your class schedule—and the bus times.”

“You told Miss Watson you’d bring this to me?” Wreath whispered, a catch in her voice.

“What’s the big deal?” Law asked. “I told her I’d bumped into you a couple of times, and I’d give you the information if I happened to see you.”

Wreath’s eyes met Faye’s and then went back to Law’s.

“Thanks a lot,” she said. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

As the door eased shut behind the boy, Wreath stared off into space.

“He’s a nice young man,” Faye said. “He can be a big help as you adjust to a new school.”

“Why would anyone want to help me?” She was genuinely perplexed.

Mrs. Durham looked away, and Wreath caught sight of J. D. sweeping the walk in front of the furniture store.

“Most people are happy to lend a hand,” Faye said quietly. “You just have to let them.”

Chapter 21

T
he school bus pulled over to the shoulder, its lights flashed, and the little stop signs flew out from the sides. Wreath ran to get on.

She wasn’t sure this was the right bus for her, but she was determined to make it to school today. She stumbled on the steps, adjusting her big pack to make it through the doors, which wheezed as the driver opened them.

Wreath didn’t move, but glanced back at the empty rows of brown seats. “Is this bus going to Landry High?”

“We’re sure not going to Disney World,” the driver said, but her tone was joking, not unkind. “Step lively. I don’t want to get off schedule the second day.” She pulled out a clipboard, wedged beside her seat, and glanced down. “I heard I might be adding a student out this way. Are you Wreath Williams, by any chance?”

“That’s me,” Wreath said, her face wrinkling with a question.

“One of the kids told me you’d moved out here somewhere. Right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wreath said, spinning quickly to take a seat.

The woman, who seemed older than the bus driver in Lucky, had long red hair in a knot that was unlike any hairstyle Wreath had ever seen. She stopped talking only long enough to pull the bus out onto the road.

“My list says I’m to pick you up at the trailer park down here,” the woman said, meeting Wreath’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Did someone get their wires crossed?”

Wreath drew a breath. “I stay with my relatives over that way.” She pointed behind the bus. “The school said I was supposed to catch the bus down by that trailer park.”

The woman nodded, her eyes flicking from the road to the mirror and back to the road. “The bus sits overnight at Tire World, past the state park, so I head out of town first and double back,” she said. “If you’re an early bird like today, I can pick you up first and save you a walk, as long as it’s okay with your folks. Or there’s another stop right down here, a little closer to where you live.”

Wreath squirmed on the brown vinyl seat. What a luxury to be picked up only a few yards from the junkyard, but what if the driver figured out there weren’t any houses around? “Thanks for the offer,” she said. “I’m not sure if I’ll ride the bus every day or not. I have a job downtown after school, and my mom and I haven’t worked out all the details.”

“The powers-that-be don’t like me to make unofficial stops, but if I see you, I’ll pick you up,” the driver said. “I won’t wait for you, though. I’d never get my route run if I waited for all my riders to primp and get their lunch money and kiss the dog or whatever other excuse they have. Let me tell you, you high schoolers can come up with pretty wild stories.”

If she only knew, Wreath thought, looking out the window and beginning to relax. No one could make up a story as weird as Wreath’s life.

“You’re new in town, right?” the driver asked, the bus slowing, its loud blinker clicking. “You didn’t go to Landry High last year, did you?”

Wreath met her eyes in the big mirror again but sensed nothing more than an adult’s general interest. “We moved here this summer,” she said. “My mom’s not sure how long we’ll stay.”

The sound of rocks on the shoulder rattled underneath the tires, and Wreath was relieved and nervous to see a cluster of students waiting. The driver was all business as five kids filed onto the bus, a couple speaking but most silent and sleepy-looking, slumping into their seats.

The un-air-conditioned bus was already stuffy, and it was barely daylight. Students sprawled on entire rows, letting the windows down from the top, hot air from outside blowing through Wreath’s hair.

At the next stop, the row of mobile homes where Law lived, another clump of kids tromped onto the bus, including two teenagers who came running up as the others boarded. Law was one of those two and looked out of sorts, but smiled when he saw Wreath. “Glad to see you made it,” he said, sliding into the row behind her.

“Looks like you were the one running late today,” Wreath said, noticing that his hair was wet and his face had that just-woke-up look.

He rolled his eyes. “My mom was supposed to wake me up, but I guess she forgot. She was still asleep when I left.”

“Maybe you should get a new alarm clock,” Wreath said with a grin.

“Maybe so,” he said and began to gather his things. Wreath’s heart jumped, expecting him to move up into the row with her, but instead he scooted over to the window as several more students got on the bus, including Destiny from the Dollar Barn.

Wreath was surprised to see the girl wearing a cheerleading outfit, with her name embroidered in purple letters on the front pocket of the crisp white shirt. She smiled and said hello as she passed Wreath and slid into the seat next to Law.

“Hey, Law, how’s it going?”

“Overslept,” Law said. “How about you?”

She giggled. “You know my dad. He tried to make me eat bacon and eggs this morning. He said I’d think better if I had breakfast.”

“Must be nice,” he said. “I didn’t even have time to grab a Coke.” His stomach growled loudly, punctuating his words. While Wreath would have been mortified, Law and Destiny laughed together, as though they’d been through this drill a dozen times before.

“You really shouldn’t stay up so late,” Destiny said.

An unfamiliar emotion ran through Wreath, and she tried to identify it. It wasn’t exactly anger. The girl Destiny had been nice enough to her at the Dollar Barn, and Law was friendly.

She stared mulishly out the window but listened keenly to every word in the seat behind her.

“Do you have second lunch shift?” Destiny asked the boy. “I didn’t see you yesterday.”

“Yep, second shift, like last year,” he said. “Everything was so crazy yesterday that I didn’t make it to the lunchroom.”

Wreath’s heart fluttered. Maybe he had been trying to help her out with Miss Watson and missed his lunch. That would be sweet.

“Want to sit together today?” Destiny asked.

Wreath’s feeling of appreciation for Law’s imagined sacrifice screeched to a halt in her brain, and she suddenly identified what she was feeling. Jealousy.

She, Wreath Willis, who had never in her life been jealous of anyone but a girl in first grade who had a toy Jeep you could ride in, was jealous of Destiny’s relationship with Law. That girl not only had a father who cooked breakfast for her but was a cheerleader and ate lunch with Law Rogers.

Wreath thought of her own breakfast, a cereal bar and a cup of lukewarm water from a plastic jug, swatting mosquitoes. She imagined Destiny, showering in a beautiful tiled bathroom and using all sorts of hair products, while Wreath was bathing with an antiseptic-smelling towelette that dried her skin out and trying to figure out how to make her hair look like it had been washed.

She didn’t like this new feeling at all, and swallowed hard, as though she could push it down into a hidden spot, never to be heard from again.

“Earth to Wreath, Earth to Wreath,” she heard Destiny saying and felt a tap on her shoulder.

She wiped the emotion from her face and twisted to look at the row behind her. “Hey, Destiny,” she said.

“Hey,” the girl said.

“Wreath, do you have anything to eat in that bag you carry everywhere?” Law asked. “I’m starving.”

Wreath thought of the precious granola bar she had squirreled away for lunch, but it only took her a split second to offer it to Law.

Chapter 22

A
djusting her battery-powered lantern, Wreath squinted to read the type in the literature textbook. Maybe she needed glasses. The light flickered, and she winced. This thing ate batteries like kids at school ate chocolate candy. Between it and the flashlight, she was spending way too much of her money on the
LIGHT
category in her budget.