by R.E. Rowe
Chapter 7
Jayden and Parker carefully navigated side streets lined with tall trees and overgrown bushes until they reached the pick-up bus stop on the outskirts of Vasona Park. They sat down on the cold concrete bench and waited.
Before long, a muddy, plain green bus identical to the one they saw at the Santa Cruz Observatory cruised by them without stopping.
Jayden grumbled under his breath. There goes the plan, he thought.
Just as he was about to admit defeat, a second bus hit its brakes and coasted to a stop alongside the bench. This bus was larger than a yellow school bus but smaller than a city bus. In fact, Jayden realized it was the same exact bus from the observatory.
The driver opened the door.
Jayden glanced at Parker out of the corner of his eye. The same driver, he thought.
Apparently, Parker noticed the driver too. He gave Jayden a nod.
“You two here for the SECC pick up?” the older kid asked from the driver’s seat. He took off his cap and scratched his shaved head.
They both nodded.
“Strange.” The driver grabbed a clipboard and flipped a page. “I don’t show any pick-ups scheduled for this stop until later.” He tossed the clipboard on his dashboard. “Good thing I noticed you on my route . . . Password?”
Jayden felt his stomach sink. It was a terrible time to draw a blank.
Parker pushed Jayden aside. “Dione,” he blurted out.
The driver smirked. “Good. Get in.”
Parker climbed up the metal steps with Jayden on his heels.
The driver held out his hand. “Signed approval forms.”
Parker reached into his back pocket, pulled out his form, and handed it to the guy. He elbowed Jayden.
Jayden was happy to see the determination in Parker's eyes, instead of the uncertainty that had filled them only moments before. He straightened and retrieved the form from his back pocket, then handed it to the kid.
The driver’s eyes narrowed as he studied the pages. “Parker Jameson and Jayden Banks.” After a long pause, the driver relaxed his shoulders. “First two of the day.” He pointed to the back of the bus. “You guys sit in the last row. We fill up from back to front. Box dinners and bottled water are on the seats. Bathroom is in the far back. Get comfortable. I’ll be making pickups for the next ten hours.”
Jayden swallowed hard. Ten hours?
“Thanks,” Parker said before Jayden could object. The driver shut the door and put the bus into gear as they staggered down the aisle to seats in the rear.
Parker picked up the boxed dinners and handed one to Jayden as they both settled in for the long ride.
Inside the box wasn’t much of a dinner in Jayden's opinion. Just a single ham slice between two stale pieces of white bread with a mustard packet, a bag of mostly air and a couple potato chips, and a dill pickle. He gulped down the water and finished off the sandwich in three bites.
“He has got be kidding with the ten hours stuff,” Parker whispered.
“The dude must have just learned how to drive,” Jayden said.
It soon became apparent to Jayden that the driver wasn’t exaggerating. The bus slowly drove around town picking up kids one or two at a time, sometimes in groups of three. He watched as each new arrival walked down the aisle as if the floor had been covered in tacks.
“Take the first available seat in the back,” the bus driver repeated each time he picked up a new kid.
Most everyone was about Jayden’s age, but some older kids got on the bus too. Jayden thought they all looked like kids that went to Brooke Middle School or Zillow Oak High, except for one older kid with long, black, greasy hair and puffy, close-set eyes.
The greasy-haired kid seemed like a typical tough guy who’d been held back a couple years. He wore a black leather jacket to match his attitude. Jayden avoided eye contact.
No one in the bus said a word as they drove around the Valley. A couple of kids seemed to know each other, but most didn’t.
During one stop about an hour into the trip, Jayden noticed a girl with a pixie haircut get on the bus. She was cute, but not like Nora. Her vacant watery eyes summed up the overall mood inside the bus.
The bus slowed to a crawl in bumper-to-bumper Bay Area traffic, and Parker’s head lolled onto Jayden’s shoulder. After a couple hours picking up more kids, Jayden grew drowsy too. The chaos of the past couple days had caught up with him fast and furious. Before long, he was dreaming again that he was sitting on a surfboard, floating on crystal blue water near a white beach. He felt a warm breeze as he desperately searched the beach for Nora. But the beach was empty.
Nora was lost, he thought, and worse, so was the tablet.