by Tom Rogers
“Mayday mayday. Bogeys at twelve,” Doug interrupted, under his breath.
Alex turned—and came face to face with the sneering mug of Calvin Butts.
Calvin Butts was one of Jordan McCreevey’s two goons. All three were a grade ahead of Alex. Calvin jerked his head, and the boy in front of Alex scrambled to a different row. Calvin slammed his squat, square, heavy body into the seat and stared hard at Alex.
A second kid threw himself into the seat beside Calvin, took one look at Alex, and let out a creepy laugh. He laughed backwards, exhaling in a raspy pant and then making long, wheezy, squeaky yelps while he inhaled. This was Deemer. If he had a second name, nobody knew it. Deemer never said anything; he just wore a sick, pasted-on grin all the time like some kind of crazy clown.
But they didn’t worry Alex.
The real trouble was coming down the aisle.
Jordan McCreevey.
Unlike Calvin and Deemer, who advertised their weirdness from a hundred yards away, Jordan kept his face so empty that the emptiness alone was menacing. With Calvin and Deemer, you knew what was coming. But Jordan’s meanness could sneak up on you. That made him a hundred times more dangerous.
As Jordan made his way to the rear of the bus, kids shrank back in their seats, hoping to be passed over this day. He worked his way steadily down the aisle, never once looking at Alex. But somehow, Alex knew Jordan was coming for him. Alex forced himself to stare out the window, knowing not to make eye contact. He didn’t have to look up to sense that Jordan was there. Armpit and Cheetos: he’d know that smell anywhere.
But to Alex’s complete surprise, Jordan kept going, right past Alex’s row.
Alex exhaled. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath.
“Anyone sitting here?”
Jordan was right beside him.
Without waiting for an answer, Jordan started to flop down on the empty seat. Alex barely managed to snatch the box of cupcakes off the seat and onto his lap.
Jordan pointed at the bakery box.
“Birthday?” His voice was even, almost friendly. Alex nodded. But he wasn’t fooled. Jordan lifted up the corner of the box and peered inside.
“Bake ’em yourself?”
“My mom.”
“My mom can’t even cook toast.”
He made this sound like it was Alex’s fault.
Alex slid the cupcakes over to his right, away from Jordan, next to the bus wall.
“You better leave them alone.”
Behind him, he heard Kwan gasp. No one told Jordan what to do.
Jordan looked right at Alex. “I’m not gonna touch ’em. Swear.”
Alex clenched his jaw, smart enough not to lower his guard. Jordan turned back and continued to stare straight ahead with that same blank expression. They rode in silence, the hum of the bus the only noise. Up ahead, the road curved to the left. Mary Jo steered the bus into the turn.
As the centrifugal force pushed them sideways, Jordan slid across the seat and slammed hard into Alex, ramming him into the side of the bus and smashing the cupcakes into the wall. It happened so fast that Alex hadn’t seen it coming.
Calvin and Deemer were laughing, beside themselves.
“Don’t cry, crybaby,” Deemer hissed.
Jordan continued to stare straight ahead, as if nothing were going on.
As the bus came out of the turn, Jordan didn’t let up. Alex could feel Jordan’s hips flex as he pressed his feet into the floor, shoving his body harder and harder against Alex’s, mashing him against the side of the bus. Alex tried to push back, but he had no leverage.
Pinned and powerless, with Jordan pressing into him with all his might, Alex found it hard to breathe. Even if he could have filled his lungs, he wouldn’t have said a word to the bus driver. If he tried to get Jordan in trouble, Jordan would wiggle out of it, claiming it was an accident. That was Jordan’s genius: he never got caught. Even now, as Mary Jo glanced back, all she saw above the seats was Jordan sitting quietly, staring calmly ahead.
And all Alex could do was sit there and take it.
He knew they couldn’t be that far from school, but the rest of the ride seemed to take forever. Alex tried making deals with the universe, the way he usually did: “If I hold my breath to the count of thirty, he’ll get bored and stop.” “If I close my eyes for three more blocks, he’ll let up.”
Jordan never let up, even as he was telling dirty jokes to Calvin.
Deemer kept up a sing-song taunt: “Crybaby, crybaby, stick your head in pie, baby!”
Alex clamped his eyes closed, trying to shut them out. He was in the middle of one of his deals, counting to forty-five this time, when the bus stopped hard for a red light. Alex opened his eyes, hoping to see their school out the window.
He saw something better.
A dog.
A muddy stray, nosing through a pile of trash next to an abandoned gas station. He wasn’t much to look at, but the mere sight of him made Alex’s heart lift.
Alex had imagined getting a dog for as long as he could remember. He’d thought up a hundred different names and pictured himself with every possible breed. Up to then, his dream of getting a dog had always seemed just that: a dream.
But as he stared at the stray, something lit up inside him. The dog had cornered a sock and was playing a game with himself, picking it up and flinging it across the ground, only to chase it down again. He was everything Alex had ever wished for, fun and feisty and full of mischief.
Alex knew with a certainty he couldn’t explain that this dog was the one.
Then the dog looked up. Right at Alex.
They locked eyes. The dog stared at him, head cocked to one side. Alex stared right back.
“Hey, boy,” Alex whispered.
The dog’s ears twitched.
He heard me, Alex thought.
The light changed, and the bus started to move. Alex held the dog’s gaze as the bus gained speed.
And then the dog took off in hot pursuit.
Alex twisted his neck around. “Go, boy,” he whispered.
Miraculously, the dog started to gain on them. He was only half a block back, when suddenly the bus turned a corner, and the dog disappeared.
Alex’s stomach dropped. He stared back, searching—
—and then the dog bolted out from an alley, right behind them. He’d found a shortcut! Alex couldn’t believe how smart this dog was. The dog raced down the sidewalk after the bus. He was actually gaining on them.
And then the bus zoomed across a busy intersection. Four lanes each way. Sixteen lanes of traffic at rush hour.
A death zone.
“STAY!!!” Alex shouted.
Jordan turned toward him sharply.
Alex didn’t notice. All he cared about was this: the dog stopped with one foot in the street, then pulled back onto the curb and sat down, staring after the bus.
“Good boy,” Alex murmured under his breath, sad, but relieved.
He stared back until he couldn’t see the dog anymore.
The bus finally pulled to a stop in front of Alex’s school. The brakes hissed as Mary Jo turned off the engine and swung open the door.
Jordan stayed seated, still leaning into Alex, until the rows in front of them had emptied. At last, he eased off and yanked himself into the aisle. His eyes lingered over the crushed bakery box, cake and icing oozing out the seams. Then they flicked back to Alex.
“Happy birthday,” he said.
CHAPTER 5
Worst. Birthday. Ever.
9:45 a.m.
Alex stared out the window of Room 15. He had spent all of homeroom and most of first period thinking about that dog. But then his stomach started to growl, and by second period he had a serious case of cupcakes-on-the-brain.
His teacher, Mrs. Hamlin, had given him a funny look when he handed her the cupcake box that morning. He had tried to reassure her that the cupcakes weren’t a total loss. He figured he could scoop up the mashe
d remains like snowballs and mold them back into shape. Totally salvageable. “They’re a little smashed, but they taste fine. I tested one to be sure.” She looked at the box like she was considering throwing it away. But all she did was raise an eyebrow and set it on her desk.
Now Alex’s stomach grew so noisy that Doug started growling back at it under his breath, which gave Kwan the giggles, which goaded Doug to growl even louder, which cracked up the rest of the class but also drew a look from Mrs. Hamlin. This was a problem, because Alex was trying to figure out how he could convince her to let them eat the cupcakes now.
Just as Alex was about to raise his hand and ask about the cupcakes, a runner came with a note for Mrs. Hamlin, who stepped out of the room to read it.
Alex sighed and lowered his hand. His mind drifted back to the stray dog. He couldn’t explain it—after all, he’d only seen the dog for a few seconds—but when he thought about the dog, he felt the same way he’d felt when his dad put his hand on his shoulder at the air show, warm and happy and connected.
That dog had really gotten under his skin. Alex gazed out the window, half-expecting to see the yellow mutt waiting for him outside.
“Alex?”
He’d been daydreaming. Mrs. Hamlin stood at the front of the room, the note clutched in her hand.
“Pack up your bag, and let’s go.”
Alex looked around, confused. Chairs scraped as the other kids gathered up their backpacks and shuffled towards the door. The classroom was already half-empty.
“Alex, did you hear me? You’re to pick up your sister from Room 4B and go straight to see your mother at work.”
“Um, now?”
“Yes, now.”
“We’re leaving?”
“Yes. We’re…finishing early today.”
“But what about the box?”
“What box?”
“My cupcakes.”
“Just leave it.”
“But it’s my bir—”
“Alex Douglas, not another word! We’ll do it another day. Now let’s go.”
The one other time Alex could remember getting sent home early was when someone set off a stink bomb last year in the girls’ bathroom. The smell was so gross that even the teachers were running outside, staggering around the playground and gasping for air. He heard six kids in the class next to the bathroom couldn’t even make it to the trash can and puked all over their desks. School was canceled while they aired out the building that day, but it still smelled like rotten eggs for an entire week. The only person who seemed to think it was hilarious was Jordan.
Maybe Jordan was behind this, too. Alex sniffed the air but couldn’t detect anything stink-bomby.
He looked over at Dougie and Kwan: what gives? They shrugged.
Mrs. Hamlin hurried them out the door. Her face looked bloodless, as gray as fireplace ash. When he tried to catch her eyes, she looked away.
He gave one last glance at the box of mangled cupcakes on her desk, then gave up and headed for the door. Next to the door hung the class calendar; he stared at the words written there in big green letters: “ALEX’S BIRTHDAY.”
The date was even circled: September 11, 2001.
CHAPTER 6
The Man in the White Shirt
8:44 a.m.
Earlier that morning, across the river in lower Manhattan, a man in a white shirt made his way to the underground mall beneath the World Trade Center towers for coffee and a bagel, his usual morning pick-me-up.
Standing in line, he smiled to himself as he noticed all the other men dressed like him: white shirt, sleeves rolled up, dark pants, tie. The concourse was bustling with workers from the floors above who’d come down for a break, while new waves of commuters poured off the trains from the level below.
At 8:45 a.m., the Man in the White Shirt bit into his bagel and hit the button for the elevator. He checked his reflection in the elevator doors.
At 8:46, he felt the building shake.
People near him looked around anxiously.
“What was that?”
“You feel that?”
He walked back to the concourse to see what was going on. The place was buzzing. Storekeepers hovered nervously in doorways.
“What happened? What happened?”
And then it hit: a fireball exploded out of the elevator shaft, blowing the doors off the elevator where the Man in the White Shirt had just been standing.
Instantly, there was pandemonium as the concourse filled with inky black smoke.
A bank of lights flickered and went out. Sprinklers overhead came on, showering the crowds as they surged for the exits.
“Stay calm.”
“FIRE! FIRE!”
“IT’S A BOMB!” someone shouted.
Then another rumor took hold and raced through the crowd like wildfire until it was repeated so often that it sounded like truth.
But the Man in the White Shirt couldn’t believe it. He cut through the crowd and found a Port Authority police officer urging people to keep moving for the exits.
“What happened?” he asked.
“An airplane just hit the building.”
CHAPTER 7
Sick
10:08 a.m.
“Mom?”
Alex startled his mother as he came up behind her at the hospital. She’d been on the phone, her back to the door, and she hadn’t seen Alex and Nunu come in. She dropped the phone and ran around the counter to give them a hug. Behind her, a busy signal buzzed from the abandoned receiver.
Alex squirmed as the hug seemed to go on longer than normal.
“Take your sister over there and wait for me,” his mom said quietly.
She pointed to the waiting area across from the nurses’ station.
“They canceled school,” said Alex.
“I know.”
“How come?”
“Just wait over there.”
“But how come—”
“Alex. Please. Just take your sister over there and wait. I need a minute to think.” His mother’s voice sounded tight and thin, like a guitar string about to break.
Alex put a hand on Nunu’s back and guided her to a bench in the waiting area, then pulled out his Gameboy. Nunu stared up at him.
“Alex?”
“Yep?”
“How come we’re not in school?”
“I dunno.”
“What are you playing?”
“A game.”
“Can I see?”
He sighed but turned in his chair so she could watch. After losing four games in a row, he handed it over to let her play.
He couldn’t keep his mind on the game anyway. He kept trying to figure out what was going on. First, they canceled school and sent everyone home. Then there was that strange bus ride over here; it was the quietest he’d ever heard a city bus. Now his mom was acting all weird.
He snuck a glance at her. She was leaning against the counter with her back to him, the desk phone tucked under her chin. With her other hand, she dialed her cell phone, then fumbled the phone and nearly dropped it. Even from across the room, Alex could see her hand was shaking.
His mom turned and caught him staring. She forced a tiny, awkward smile, trying to reassure him, but Alex could tell something was up. He just couldn’t tell what. Most of the time, his mom was calm and in charge and knew what to do. He’d seen her mad (usually at him), and he’d seen her impatient (usually with his dad), but he’d never seen her like this.
And it freaked him out a little.
Alex watched his mother snap the phone shut in frustration without reaching anyone. He wondered who she needed to call so badly.
His mom turned to her supervisor, a solid woman with a jaw like a bulldog’s. They seemed to be having an argument. His mom kept gesturing towards the waiting room. Alex reached over and flipped the mute switch on the Gameboy. With the sound off, he could just catch bits and pieces of the conversation.
“What am I supposed to do?” his
mother asked.
There was more back-and-forth that he missed. Then he saw the bulldog shake her head. “I need you here. This could be a long night. Might get pretty ugly.”
His mom glanced his way again. He twisted around and pretended to watch the Gameboy over Nunu’s shoulder. A moment later, his mother appeared beside them.
“Alex, I need you to take your sister home and stay there until I get off work tonight.”
Alex frowned. “Why?”
She hesitated, then took a deep breath and spoke carefully, as if she’d rehearsed what she was about to say.
“We’ve had an emergency, and they need me here all day. So I need you to take Nunu straight home and wait for me there. Can I count on you to do that?”
Of course he could do that. They rode the bus all the time, no problem.
“Who’re you trying to call?” he asked, then made an educated guess. “Dad?”
“His line’s busy. I’ll get him later.” She changed the subject. “You’ve got your cell phone?”
He nodded and pointed at his backpack.
“Baby, I’m sorry. I know it’s your birthday—”
She tried to stroke his head, but he pulled away. “I’m not a baby.”
“I know. I promise we’ll have cake as soon as I get home. Okay?”
Alex stared at his lap as questions filled his head. He wanted to know why she argued with her supervisor. And why they canceled school. And who she was calling and what the big emergency was and why his birthday was ruined.
“Alex.” Something in her tone caught his attention. “Go straight home, and no TV. Play board games or read. Do you understand?”
She knelt in front of him. She looked as serious as he’d ever seen her look. When she spoke, her voice was quiet but clear.
“I need you to be a grown-up today.”
CHAPTER 8
The Man in the White Shirt
9:01 a.m.
The Man in the White Shirt raced up the concourse stairs, searching for a way out of the smoke.