Ms. Bixby's Last Day

by John David Anderson

  Of course it doesn’t matter now.

  We get on the bus that will take us back to school, Steve helping Topher up the steps. It’s hard to tell how much his ankle hurts him—he can be pretty melodramatic—but I can tell it’s swollen. He could probably use an ice pack and some painkillers. If he were at my house, he’d be set. One oxycodone would do it. My father wouldn’t miss it; he’s got a three-month supply. Topher takes an empty seat and motions for Steve to sit next to him. He’s mad at me. Topher. For yelling at him. For giving up. Maybe even about the sketchbook still. Steve doesn’t seem angry. He just looks worried, like always. I sit in the empty seat across from them but scoot all the way over, leaving room for an imaginary fourth person between us. The fourth musketeer maybe, but really I just need some space.

  Steve gets on his phone, mutters something about the battery nearly being dead, then shuts it off and stuffs it back in his pocket. Without it, his hands don’t seem to know what to do, so they start fiddling with the zipper on his backpack. I shift and look out the window, press my face up against it. My cheeks are hot and wet and the glass is cool, and I can feel the vibrations of the bus’s engines rattle my teeth. It’s quiet, save for the bus’s rumble. Nobody on the bus is talking. That’s absolutely fine. I’m used to the quiet. I’ve learned to cope without conversation. Even on those Friday evenings with Ms. Bixby there would sometimes be stretches of silence, riding in her car, watching the sky change colors and thinking that I wasn’t ready to go home, even though I knew I had to.

  Those days with her just felt different. They felt better. It felt like I was in some magical space where time stood still, where nothing bad could happen. They were almost perfect.

  That’s what today was supposed to be. That’s what hurts so much.

  Across the aisle by the opposite window, Topher leans his head back. He glances over at me, as if confirming that I’m still there, then looks straight ahead. “Who do you think would win in a fight? Wolverine or Captain America?” he says.

  He’s not talking to either of us in particular. He’s just throwing it out there. Cutting the silence. Filling the space. I keep my head pressed to the window, making wishes on passing cars.

  “I mean Wolverine’s claws could probably just cut right through Cap’s shield, wouldn’t you think?” he adds.

  I don’t respond. I won’t respond. But naturally, Steve takes the bait. “Doubtful. Wolverine’s claws are made out of adamantium. Captain America’s shield is made out of proto-adamantium, which is better than regular adamantium.”

  This is the reason you will never have a girlfriend, I think, but I wouldn’t say that to Steve. He doesn’t seem all that interested in girls anyways.

  “Yes,” Topher says, still looking at the seat in front of him, “but you’re forgetting the awesome factor. Captain America’s a goody-two-shoes dweeb with goofy little wings on his head that don’t even let him fly. Wolverine has killer sideburns and a better backstory. Wolvie beats him on coolness alone.”

  “Superheroes are not traditionally rated on their coolness,” Steve says.

  “Everyone is rated on their coolness,” Topher replies. “What about Thor versus Cap?”

  “Thor’s a god,” Steve replies. “He can beat up anybody.”

  “So does that mean he could beat up Jesus?” Topher presses.

  I laugh. Okay, I don’t really laugh, but I sort of snort at least. Enough that Topher knows I’m listening. He doesn’t look at me still, but he smiles. “I don’t think Jesus and Thor would even fight,” Steve says. “That’s not Jesus’s style.” Topher nods, conceding the point.

  Part of me wants to ignore them, to keep looking out the window, to shut myself out and be alone, but I can’t help it. Topher has somehow suckered me in too. “What if Jesus had Thor’s hammer? He was a carpenter, right.”

  Both of them twist around to look at me, a little surprised that I joined the conversation after storming off and shouting at them before. Steve shakes his head.

  “Theologically speaking, billions of people currently believe in Jesus, and probably only a handful still worship Thor. Advantage Jesus.”

  I don’t argue. Steve goes to Mass every Sunday, so he probably knows better. Dad had an entire church come to the house once, the whole congregation showing up in a long white bus. It was right after the accident. They stood on our front lawn and sang a song called “Rise Up!” I don’t think they were being ironic. They really thought he might do it.

  “All right. I’ve got one,” Steve says. “Legolas versus Hawkeye.”

  “Unfair comparison,” Topher says. “Legolas is immortal.”

  “Not if you stick him full of arrows, he isn’t,” Steve counters. “Especially those ones Hawkeye has that explode. You’d have little elf chunks flying everywhere.”

  “Elf chunks.” For some reason I find this funny too.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Topher says. “Legolas is eternal. He doesn’t get old. He doesn’t get sick. Even if you kill him, his spirit comes back, like Obi-Wan Kenobi. He will live forever, no matter what.”

  As soon as he says it, Topher frowns. Steve pushes his glasses back up his nose.

  A long silence follows, and I look back out the window and up at the sky. The clouds have cleared out now, making room for endless waves of blue. I wonder what it is about clouds that makes people think of heaven. Maybe just they are in the way, so there must be something else up there.

  Suddenly there is a gurgled growl coming from Steve, loud enough for me to hear from across the aisle. “Dude. Was that you?” Topher asks.

  “I haven’t eaten since breakfast. It’s already past noon,” Steve says, holding his stomach with both hands like he’s afraid it’s going to pop out and go looking for food on its own.

  “I guess we didn’t think about lunch,” Topher says. Then he turns and looks down at the floorboards, and I realize what he’s looking at. Steve’s backpack and the bent white box stuffed inside.

  “Twenty-five dollars is a lot to waste,” Steve says. “I mean—if nobody else is going to eat it.” He means Ms. Bixby.

  They both look at me. Because I paid the most for it. Or because the whole thing was my idea. The whole cake. The whole everything.

  “She wouldn’t want it to go to waste,” Topher says.

  That’s true. She was a firm believer in making the most of things. I don’t say yes, but I don’t say no either. I just shrug. I already feel sick to my stomach. I can’t bear the thought of eating anything. The bus pulls up to the next stop and Steve starts to unzip his pack, shimmying the dilapidated box free. Topher starts to dig in his pack for the plates he brought. We have nothing to wash it down with. Just one empty wineglass. I figure I’ll try a bite though. For Ms. Bixby’s sake. Just to see if Eduardo was right.

  I look over at Steve, who has his hands on either side of the box, but he’s not opening it. Instead he’s looking up at the front of the bus. His eyebrows shoot skyward.

  He drops, slinking behind the brown vinyl seat in front of him, pulling Topher alongside and hissing at me to do the same. “Get down!”

  “What? What is it?” I duck behind my seat, wondering what in the name of Michelle’s white-chocolate raspberry supreme cheesecake he saw. Someone from school? A teacher? Mr. Mack? Or maybe it’s his parents; they found out he’s skipping and are hunting him down. Or maybe the cashier from the liquor store called the cops and they are looking for us. Or maybe it’s just Steve’s turn to be melodramatic. I peek over the top of the seat in front of me.

  My jaw drops.

  I can hardly believe our luck.

  You could say Ms. Bixby saved me, but that would be melodramatic. All she did was pick me up. It was all a matter of luck.

  She found me in a snowstorm, up to my knees, six grocery bags hanging from my arms and wrists. I’m not sure how she spotted me. Probably recognized my coat. Or the hat that I wore—blue with a yellow floppy fuzzball on top and giant earflaps that nearly hit my shoulders
, borrowed out of the closet from Dad. She found me and she pulled over and opened her window and called my name. And I didn’t want to stop because I figured she would ask me all sorts of questions. It wasn’t school, we weren’t in class, and I didn’t have to explain, to her or anyone. So I trudged on, pretending not to notice her, but then she honked her horn and leaned over and said, “Do you need a ride?”

  I wasn’t sure what I needed, but I looked at the car with its heater and music both blasting and the mile of foot-high snow I still had to trudge through and figured a ride wouldn’t hurt. Just this once.

  And that’s how it started between me and Ms. Bixby. She just happened to be passing by.

  I feel a warmth surge through me. It’s him. The last one in the line of oncoming passengers. Torn jeans and blue shirt. One hand holding a brown paper bag. Dragon clawing its way up his arm.

  George Nelson.

  The flipwad who stole our money and ruined our day.

  But I don’t really see him. What I see is Ms. Bixby pulling up along the side of the road and asking me if I need a ride. I see her tapping on the steering wheel to one of her favorite songs.

  I see her standing over me, both hands on my shoulders, telling me that sometimes you’re beat before you even get started, but it doesn’t matter. You keep going. No matter what.

  And I realize the day’s not over yet.

  Steve

  THE INLAND TAIPAN IS CONSIDERED THE MOST poisonous snake in the world, but it’s not the most dangerous. The odds of surviving a snakebite from an inland taipan are one in a hundred thousand, unless you’re a herpetologist and carry antivenom in your back pocket. Of course, the odds of getting bitten by one are almost nil, unless you live in the middle of Australia, and even then it’s highly unlikely. You have a much better chance of getting struck by lightning or knocked unconscious by a falling coconut.

  Some things are simply more dangerous than others. The odds of being eaten by a shark are one in four million, and the odds of being injured by a toilet are one in ten thousand, making toilets four hundred times more hazardous than sharks. I don’t know what the odds of being injured by a toilet with a shark in it are. During my one and only encounter, I managed to get out alive.

  Numbers don’t lie; you can count on them. That’s a joke Topher told me, though he had to stop and explain it, which can be frustrating, I know. But numbers are comforting. They let you know what you’re up against. They let you know what you’re getting into.

  Ms. Bixby read us a poem a few months ago, about two people who were soul mates and were separated by some twist of fate. The speaker—that’s the imaginary guy in the poem, I’m told—was complaining about how miserable he was without this other woman and vowing that he would find her again no matter what. Ms. Bixby agreed it was sappy—her word—but she liked it because it used lots of metaphors and she’s big on metaphors. I’m not that fond of metaphors, or poetry, for that matter—I think life would be easier if everyone just said exactly what they were thinking—but Ms. Bixby loves them both, so we were forced to read about this man and woman who were supposedly destined to be together because fate said so. When she finished, I raised my hand.

  “I don’t buy it,” I said.

  “And why is that?” Ms. Bixby said.

  “Because what you’re describing is statistically impossible,” I said.

  Ms. Bixby was intrigued. She leaned forward in her reading chair, which I assumed was my cue to continue.

  “There are approximately seven point two billion people in the world. You’re telling me that you really believe you will find one person out of seven billion who’s the exact right person you’re supposed to be with?”

  Ms. Bixby didn’t even stop to think about it. “I’m not saying I will, necessarily. But I think people do, yes. The man and woman in this poem were soul mates. They were destined to be with each other. That’s what the poem’s about.” She called on someone else as I fished in my desk for my calculator. Then I raised my hand again.

  “Yes, Steve.”

  “All right. Assuming that it takes a minimum of five minutes to fall in love,” I began. There was a chorus of giggles in the class. Brian Frey said something like Not with you, and Rebecca gave him a dirty look. I ignored him and started tapping in numbers.

  “Actually, it doesn’t even have to take that long,” Ms. Bixby said. “Ever hear of love at first sight?” Again more snickering. A few groans. I glanced over at Topher, who was sitting right beside me, then went back to my calculator.

  “Fine. Let’s say one minute,” I conceded. “Assuming that you meet a new person every minute of your life from the day you are born—which is completely impossible, by the way—and assuming that you live to be, let’s say, eighty-five, which is generous, especially for boys, that means that you could conceivably meet . . . forty-four million, six hundred seventy-six thousand potential soul mates before you die. That still leaves . . .” My fingers flick along the keys. “Seven billion, one hundred fifty-five million, three hundred twenty-four thousand people you will never even meet.” I paused to let the magnitude of the number sink in. “I’d say it’s much more likely that we will never come across the person we’re meant for, even if that person exists.”

  I held up my calculator to show her, just in case she didn’t believe me. All eyes flicked from me to Ms. Bixby. She shrugged.

  “‘Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love,’” she said.

  I set down my calculator. “Huh?”

  “Just think about it,” she said. Then she made everyone take out their writing journals so we could all experiment writing our own sappy love poetry.

  I looked over at Topher. “She’s crazy,” I said.

  “You’re crazy,” he told me.

  “But seven billion people,” I repeated.

  Topher shrugged. “Never tell me the odds.”

  The first thing I think when I see him boarding the bus holding his brown paper bag and dropping his coins in the box is: Impossible.

  The second is: No. Not impossible, just highly unlikely. Stranger things have happened.

  The third is: If he sees us, he will kill us. He will strangle us in our seats.

  I duck, dragging Topher with me, then turn and whisper for Brand to do the same. The incoming passengers step up, the clink of their quarters no longer giving me a shiver of satisfaction. I can hear the riders brushing up against the seats, making their way down the aisle. The bus is only half full, plenty of space, but there is a chance—a statistically significant one—that George Nelson could come all the way to the back, sit down right across from us, right next to Brand. I listen for footfalls. Wait for the shout. To see his face appear up over the seat in front of me.

  I’m not exactly sure what I’m afraid of. He stole our money, after all. If anything, we should be looking for him. But for all the adventures Topher and I have been on together—battling ninjas and pirates, defusing nuclear bombs and piloting renegade spaceships—we’ve never faced a real criminal before. We’ve never faced a real anything, actually.

  I suddenly realize this is the second time I’ve had to hide from someone today.

  Brand peeks over the back of the seat, one hand motioning us to stay down even as he pops his head up. He turns and whispers, “It’s him!”

  “I know,” I say.

  “Him who?” Topher says, then takes a peek himself. I can’t help it—I steal another glance as well, just to confirm. George Nelson is sitting three rows behind the driver, well in front of us, looking out the window. He hasn’t seen us, or if he has, he’s not showing it. He’s got a set of buds plugged into his ears, and his head bobs up and down. We don’t have to whisper. Between the bus engine and the headphones, there’s no way he can hear us.

  I’m thinking maybe he will get off at the next stop. I’m thinking maybe we will stay on the bus until he leaves. I’m thinking there is no way we can let him see us.

  The fierce look on Brand�
��s face tells me exactly what he’s thinking.

  “It’s fate,” he says.

  It’s not fate. This is just really bad luck. But apparently I’m the only one who thinks so. Beside me Topher is nodding, and Brand has made his hands into fists. I think about the time he nearly socked Trevor Cowly after Trevor called us the Nerd Patrol for seventh time. The two of them got into a shoving match by the swings, and Trevor ended up facedown in the mulch. There’s a picture of it in Topher’s sketchbook. Sort of.

  Brand has that same look on his face now. “We are going to get our money back,” he hisses. Topher is still nodding. Once again I’m forced to point out the obvious.

  “He’s a grown man,” I say. “He has a tattoo. Of a dragon.” Though admittedly it could be a tattoo of a baby unicorn and I wouldn’t feel any better about it.

  “There’s three of us and only one of him,” Brand says, which strikes me as faulty logic, even if it has a basis in arithmetic. Three ants are no match for one tennis shoe. “He took our money. He’s gotta pay.”

  I shake my head. The thought of confronting George Nelson makes me want to throw up. I’m certainly not hungry anymore. “There’s nothing we can do. We can’t even call the police,” I remind him.

  Brand’s face blossoms into a devious smile. “Steve, you are a genius,” he says.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “What you just said. Is there any juice left in your phone?” he asks me.

  I look. I’m at 2 percent. Maybe a minute of battery life left.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Brand says. “Just give the phone to Topher and be prepared to get off at whatever stop George does.”

  I don’t want to give my phone to Topher—I know what happened to his last one. And I certainly don’t want to get off at whatever stop George does. But Brand says somebody needs to hang back with the phone and stay out of the way, and with his swollen ankle, Topher’s the best man for that job.