Sleepovers, Solos, and Sheet Music

by Michelle Schusterman

  “No fighting, I promise.”

  I chewed my Twizzler (not the one that had almost been in my nostril) while Gabby made fun of Seven Dates, and Natasha pretended to be offended. But my thoughts kept straying back to Julia. Gabby was right—if I tried to talk to her now, when we were both upset, it would probably lead to a fight.

  Still . . . I peered at the front of the bus and saw Mr. Dante on his cell phone. Mrs. Park stood next to him, listening. Judging from the looks on their faces, the mechanic hadn’t given them good news.

  The whole band was stuck on a broken-down bus in the middle of nowhere. Maybe we’d sleep on the bus, or camp out in a field. Either way, this trip was about to get seriously interesting, and I didn’t want to spend it ignoring my best friend.

  First chance I got, I was going to talk to Julia and straighten this whole mess out.

  It turned out “broken engine” also meant “no air conditioning or movies.” The mechanic called for a tow truck, but it was two towns over, so they said we’d have to wait at least an hour. Mr. Dante tried to get a local school bus to take us someplace to hang out, but since it was almost three o’clock, all the district’s buses were taking kids home from school. And we couldn’t even go outside because Mr. Dante and the chaperones said there wasn’t enough room between the fence and the road for us to stand safely. Natasha and I pressed our faces to the window, but highway, fences, and farmland extended out in both directions as far as we could see.

  Forty-two kids, five chaperones, and one band director stuck in a bus with no air conditioning in eighty-something-degree weather. Things got real gross, real fast.

  “Trevor, I swear to Zeus,” Gabby yelled, pinching her nose and making her voice all nasally. “If you don’t put your shoes back on, I am literally going to sue you.”

  Trevor snorted without looking up from his video game. He was leaning against his window in the seat in front of Gabby, his bare feet dangling in the aisle. “Sue me for what?”

  “For—for polluting the air,” Gabby announced. “I’m choking to death over here.”

  For a few seconds, Trevor didn’t respond. Then, slowly, his foot appeared over the top of his seat. Gabby glanced up a second too late, shrieking at the sight of his toes inches away from her nose. Natasha and I laughed as she scrambled out of her chair and hurried to the back of the bus.

  “It is getting pretty ripe in here,” Natasha said, fanning her face with her music folder. I nodded in agreement. My hair was a humidity nightmare—half sweaty and plastered to my forehead and neck, half frizzed out in all directions. But everyone looked so grungy, I didn’t feel too self-conscious.

  Aaron still somehow managed to look good, of course. (Not that I was staring or anything.) He’d spent most of the last hour talking to Liam and Gabe across the aisle, even though he was still sitting next to Natasha. It was kind of weird. They weren’t ignoring each other exactly—they still joked around a little and smiled at each other and stuff—but really, what’s the point of sitting with your boyfriend or girlfriend if you’re going to spend more time talking to everybody else?

  Maybe that was partly my fault for coming to sit in front of Natasha. But apparently she’d spent most of the ride before we broke down trading fashion magazines back and forth with Victoria, who sat two rows behind her. I flipped through one for a few minutes, but it was from last fall and looking at all the winter furs and boots made me feel ten times hotter. Leaning against the window, I fanned the back of my neck with the magazine and squinted down the highway at something yellow on the horizon.

  “Hey, a school bus!” I cried, sitting up. “Do you think it’s for us?”

  Natasha leaned over to look. “Is it empty? Please let it be empty . . .”

  I crossed my fingers as the bus got closer, then blinked when someone shoved a few bottles of aerosol body spray in my face.

  “Sweet Pea or Vanilla Sugar—which one smells girlier?” asked Gabby, shaking the bottles. I wrinkled my nose.

  “I don’t know, but are you sure you want to use that now?” I asked. “It’s so gross in here, they’ll just make the smell worse.”

  Gabby studied the bottles. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said, nodding. “I should use both.”

  “That’s not what I said!”

  But Gabby was moving up the aisle again before I’d even finished the sentence. Crouching like a cat behind Trevor’s seat, she shook both bottles hard. Then she pounced.

  “Auughhhhhh!” Trevor flailed his arms wildly, his video game flying through the air as Gabby sprayed him. “Quit it quit it quit it!”

  “Cover up your stinky feet!” Gabby hollered, chasing him a few steps down the aisle until Mrs. Park grabbed the bottles out of her hands. Trevor fled to the back and locked himself in the bathroom while everyone laughed. (Well, and gagged. Vanilla and sweat weren’t exactly complementary aromas.)

  “Gabby, I think we need to have a little chat,” Mrs. Park said sternly, and Gabby sighed.

  “Sorry, but his feet are lethal weapons. I had to defend myself.”

  I couldn’t help giggling, even though poor Mrs. Park looked like she was beginning to regret signing up to be a chaperone. Before she could start lecturing Gabby, the doors opened and Mr. Dante stepped back onto the bus. He opened his mouth, but apparently the smell hit him before he could get a word out, because he made such a funny face everyone started cracking up again.

  “Ms. Flores, did the candy factory in your backpack explode?”

  Gabby grinned. “Nah. Although I had a bag of chocolate bars that melted. Now it looks like a bag of p—”

  “That’s enough,” Mr. Dante interrupted, shaking his head. “Okay, everyone—take what you’ll need for the next few hours. The tow truck will be here soon, and we’ve got another bus waiting to take us someplace to hang out until ours is fixed.”

  There was a mad scramble to get off the bus and away from the vanilla-sweat smell, which seemed to get stronger every second in the heat. The school bus wasn’t any cooler, but at least it didn’t stink. (Well, unless you sat close to Trevor. Which only Owen was nice enough to do.)

  We ended up spending three hours at a burger place playing Warlock while the mechanic worked on the bus. In the end, he said it wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow. And, Mr. Dante informed us, there were no hotels nearby with enough rooms available.

  “Stranded!” I exclaimed, throwing my cards down on the table. “So are we going to sleep in an abandoned barn? Or camp out near a cornfield that’s a secret hideout for zombies? Or maybe there’s an old haunted house or a—”

  “Holly.” Mr. Dante cut me off and waited for everyone at my table to stop giggling. “I’ve made a few phone calls, and there’s a school about a mile from here on the way to the shop.”

  “A haunted school?” I asked hopefully, but he shook his head.

  “The principal is going to open the gym,” he went on. “She’s already started asking around for people to donate pillows and blankets. We’ll have access to the bathrooms and the vending machines.”

  “We’re going to sleep in the gym?” Gabby asked, her eyes wide.

  Mr. Dante nodded. “Should be okay for one night, right?”

  “Okay?” she cried. “This is awesome!”

  Judging by the excited chatter that followed, everyone agreed. Well, except for the chaperones. I saw Mrs. Park swallow a few aspirin before throwing her soda away and herding us back onto the bus.

  The school turned out to be an elementary, middle, and high school all in one building—and it was still way smaller than Millican. The gym was tiny. I was pretty sure it was less than half the size of that crazy-huge band hall at Bishop.

  A lot of locals turned up with sleeping bags and stuff for us. One woman even brought cookies from her bakery. The chaperones spread the blankets and pillows out all over the gym floor, but we ended up
clustered together in the middle. By nine o’clock, we had the biggest game of Warlock ever going on. More than half the band was playing—even Aaron and Natasha joined in.

  “Lights out in one hour,” Mr. Dante told us. “We’ve got to get an early start tomorrow morning if we still want to visit the zoo before rehearsal.”

  “When you say lights out, do you mean ‘lights out so we can tell ghost stories’?” Victoria asked innocently, swiping one of Max’s cards.

  Mr. Dante smiled. “Nope, sorry. Although I’m sure Holly knows some good ones,” he added before heading back over to the chaperones. Gabby pointed her cards at me.

  “Ghost story,” she ordered. “Go.”

  Before I could respond, Aaron spoke up. “No, I want to hear about the zombie cornfield movie you mentioned earlier. What’s it called?”

  “Zombie Farmers,” I said, taking Trevor’s swamp demon. “I thought it was going to be gory, but it turned out to be more like a comedy.”

  Liam glanced up from his cards. “Oh, I wanted to see that. It’s not gory?” He sounded disappointed.

  “Well, it kind of is,” I said.

  Owen looked like he was trying not to laugh. “What do you mean by kind of?”

  I shrugged. “Well, it’s a zombie movie. It’s got some gross stuff. But mostly it’s kind of funny. The zombies are trying to live normal lives as farmers—they eat beets instead of brains. But anytime they go into town just to buy milk or whatever, the townspeople freak out and think they’re being attacked. Probably because the zombies are always covered in beet juice and it kinda looks like blood. So the townspeople decide they’re going to destroy the zombies’ farm.”

  “How?” asked Aaron.

  Realizing I had everyone’s attention, I sat up a little straighter. “First, a bunch of them break into the zombies’ cellar. They panic because they see all these jars filled with what they think are eyeballs, but it’s really just pickled radishes. They try to set fire to the farmhouse, but one of the zombies finds them and they run off screaming when he tries to offer them some raspberry iced tea . . .”

  We kept the game going while I described most of the movie. It was pretty fun, with everyone yelling ew or laughing in all the right places. But when I got to the part where the townspeople are sneaking through the cornfields at night and they don’t notice that the scarecrows are actually the zombies in disguise, I noticed Natasha’s face. She looked genuinely freaked out, and no one—including Aaron—seemed to notice.

  “I need a drink,” I announced, setting my cards down. “Natasha, want to come?”

  She gave me a relieved smile and nodded.

  “What about the ending?” Aaron asked. “What happens?”

  “You’ll just have to watch it sometime,” I told him with a grin.

  Natasha and I walked across the gym together. “Thanks for doing that,” she said as soon as we were a safe distance from the group.

  “Doing what?”

  “You know,” Natasha said. “Stopping the horror talk. I know you probably think I’m being stupid, but I don’t know . . . that stuff really creeps me out.”

  “I don’t think you’re being stupid. I’m really sorry,” I told her, and I meant it. I felt bad about how scared she’d looked. “I guess I got carried away.”

  “It’s okay.”

  The doors opened just as we reached them. “Oh! Hi, girls,” said Mrs. Park, stepping back to let us out of the gym. “Where are you headed?”

  “Just to the water fountain,” I replied.

  “Right around the corner.” Mrs. Park lowered her voice. “And could you do me a favor?”

  “Sure!”

  “Would you check on Julia?” she asked. “She asked to use the restroom a while ago, and I think she’s still in there. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

  Natasha and I exchanged an uneasy glance. “No problem,” I said. As soon as we turned the corner, Natasha grabbed my hand.

  “You don’t think a zombie farmer got her, do you?” She sounded only half-joking, but I couldn’t help giggling.

  “Doubt it.” Then I stopped, tugging Natasha’s arm and pointing. “Look.” Near the end of the hall, someone was leaning against the lockers. The light from the cell phone in her hands was just bright enough for me to make out Julia’s face.

  Natasha sighed. “Gee, I wonder who she’s calling.”

  “Yeah.” I headed to the water fountain and took a long drink, then waited while Natasha did the same. “So?” I asked when she finished.

  “So . . . what?”

  “Should we go talk to her?”

  Frowning, Natasha turned to squint down the hall again. Julia was pacing back and forth, still staring at her phone. “I don’t know. I thought we were going to leave her alone for a while.”

  “I know, but this is ridiculous,” I said. “I don’t want to spend this trip fighting with Julia. Do you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Okay then.” I linked my arm with hers. “Let’s go.”

  When we got about halfway down the hall, Julia glanced up and saw us. She froze, eyeing us warily.

  “Hey.” I smiled at her.

  Julia looked from me to Natasha. “Hey,” she said quietly.

  So far, so good. “Julia,” I started. “We really want to talk to you about—”

  A strange, tinny sound cut me off, startling all of us. Julia stared down at her cell phone. New ringtone, I thought, and after a second, I recognized it—her favorite Infinite Crush song.

  “It’s Seth.” Julia winced, as if she hadn’t meant to say his name out loud.

  I kept my voice light. “Could you call him back in a few minutes? We—”

  “I’ve been trying to get reception for, like, half an hour,” Julia said, and without waiting for either of us to respond, she tapped the screen and held it to her ear. “Hi! Hang on a sec, okay?” Cupping the bottom of the phone, she glanced at me. “Can we talk later?”

  Second place again. I rolled my eyes, the irritation I’d felt earlier returning full force. “Yeah. Later.”

  Julia’s expression hardened. Without another word, she turned her back on us and walked to the very end of the corridor.

  Natasha looked as defeated as I felt. “Well, that went well.”

  “Yup.”

  We headed back to the gym, Julia’s whispered conversation growing fainter with each step.

  I didn’t see Julia come back to the gym, but when the chaperones woke us up early the next morning, she was curled up in a sleeping bag near the wall. And by “the chaperones woke us up,” I really meant “Mrs. Park blasted some sort of air horn that scared everyone to death.”

  “Got it at that shop next to the taco place yesterday,” she told the other parents with a big smile. “I might have to start using this at home.”

  Not far from where they stood, Liam groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Great.”

  We folded and stacked the blankets and sleeping bags in groggy silence. After washing up in the gym restrooms (fun as this was, I couldn’t wait for the hotel room and a real shower) we piled back onto the bus. Mr. Dante laughed when he saw us.

  “Not really morning people, are you?” he asked. I glanced around. We did look pretty rough, although some more than others. It looked like Trevor had somehow managed to get from the gym to the bus without opening his eyes. He fell into the seats behind me and Owen with an exaggerated moan. I could’ve sworn he still smelled a little bit like Gabby’s vanilla and sweet pea body sprays.

  We were all so tired, no one even asked to put in a movie. My eyes felt heavy and gritty. Even after everyone had finally gone to sleep last night, I couldn’t stop thinking about Julia. It was a weird feeling, missing her and being angry at her at the same time. I didn’t know how to fix this. For a while, I’d tried to direct my ang
er at Seth, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault Julia liked hanging out with him more than her friends. So then I’d tried to convince myself that this was just what happened when boyfriends came into the picture . . . but that wasn’t true, either. Natasha had been dating Aaron just as long, and if anything, she and I were closer than ever.

  It had taken forever to fall asleep. When Mrs. Park had started blasting that air horn, I felt like I’d only been out for a few minutes.

  “How long till New Orleans?” I asked Mr. Dante as the bus pulled out of the parking lot.

  “About two hours.”

  Yawning, I glanced at Owen. He leaned against the window, backpack unopened at his feet. Shifting in my chair, I tried to find a position that would allow me to sleep without any danger of accidental cuddling.

  Although to be totally honest, it was tempting. Sleeping on Owen’s shoulder was comfortable. So sue me.

  Better not risk freaking him out, though. I curled up in my chair, facing the aisle, and fell asleep. But it was one of those naps where you actually feel more tired afterward. My head kept falling forward, and I’d wake up with a start each time, then drift off again. By the time we got to the hotel, I had a severe crick in my neck and my left arm was numb.

  Everyone else looked about as cranky as I felt. We unloaded our luggage from the compartment under the bus while Mr. Dante checked in, then waited while the chaperones handed out our room keys. I couldn’t help but stare at Julia when Mrs. Park called her forward with Leah, Sophie, and Brooke, but she kept her eyes on her shoes.

  Once we had our keys, I followed Natasha, Gabby, and Victoria into the elevator. Between all of our suitcases and instruments, it was kind of a tight squeeze.

  “Hands out,” Gabby ordered the second the elevator doors slid shut. She ripped open a massive bag of M&M’s, and we obediently cupped our hands while she poured.

  “Too many!” Natasha exclaimed, laughing when Gabby just kept pouring. When the three of us had overflowing handfuls of candy, Gabby held her finger over the button for the twelfth floor.