park

XTC was no good for drowning out the morons at the back of the bus.

park pressed his headphones into his ears. tomorrow he was going to bring skinny puppy or

the Misfits.or maybe he´d make a special bus tape with as much screaming

and wailing on it as possible.

he could get back to new waves in November,after he got his driving license.His parents had already

said park could have his mom’s Impala, and he’d been saving up for a new tape

deck. Once he started driving to school, he could

listen to whatever he wanted or nothing at all,

and he’d get to sleep in an extra twenty minutes

‘That doesn’t exist,’ somebody shouted behind him.

‘It so fucking does,’ Steve shouted back.

‘Drunken-monkey style, man, it’s a real fucking

thing. You can kill somebody with it …’

‘You’re full of shit.’

‘You’re full of shit,’ Steve said. ‘Park! Hey,

Park.’

Park heard him, but didn’t answer. Sometimes, if you ignored Steve for a minute, he

moved onto someone else. Knowing that was 80

percent of surviving with Steve as your neighbor.

The other 20 percent was just keeping your head

down …

Which Park had momentarily forgotten. A

ball of paper hit him in the back of the head.

‘Those were my Human Growth and Development notes, dicklick,’ Tina said.

‘I’m sorry, baby,’ Steve said. ‘I’ll teach you

all about human growth and development. What

do you need to know?’ ‘Teach her drunken-monkey style,’ somebody said.

‘PARK!’ Steve shouted.

Park pulled down his headphones and turned

to the back of the bus. Steve was holding court in

the last seat. Even sitting, his head practically

touched the roof. Steve always looked like he

was surrounded by doll furniture. He’d looked

like a grown man since the seventh grade, and

that was before he grew a full beard. Slightly

before.

Sometimes Park wondered if Steve was with

Tina because she made him look even more like

a monster. Most of the girls from the Flats were

small, but Tina couldn’t be five feet. Massive

hair, included.

Once, back in middle school, some guy had

tried to give Steve shit about how he better not

get Tina pregnant because if he did, his giant babies would kill her. ‘They’ll bust out of her stomach like in Aliens,’ the guy said. Steve broke his

little finger on the guy’s face.When Park’s dad heard, he said, ‘Somebody

needs to teach that Murphy kid how to make a

fist.’ But Park hoped nobody would. The guy

Steve hit couldn’t open his eyes for a week.

Park tossed Tina her balled-up homework.

She caught it.

‘Park,’ Steve said, ‘tell Mikey about drunkenmonkey karate.’

‘I don’t know anything about it.’ Park

shrugged.

‘But it exists, right?’

‘I guess I’ve heard of it.’

‘There,’ Steve said. He looked for something

to throw at Mikey, but couldn’t find anything. He

pointed instead. ‘I fucking told you.’

‘What the **** does Sheridan know about

kung fu?’ Mikey said.

‘Are you retarded?’ Steve said. ‘His mom’s

Chinese.’

Mikey looked at Park carefully. Park smiled

and narrowed his eyes. ‘Yeah, I guess I see it,

Mikey said. ‘I always thought you were

Mexican.’

‘Shit, Mikey,’ Steve said, ‘you’re such a

fucking racist.’

‘She’s not Chinese,’ Tina said. ‘She’s

Korean.’

‘Who is?’ Steve asked.

‘Park’s mom.’

Park’s mom had been cutting Tina’s hair

since grade school. They both had the exact same

hairstyle, long spiral perms with tall, feathered

bangs.

‘She’s fucking hot is what she is,’ Steve said,

cracking himself up. ‘No offense, Park.’

Park managed another smile and slunk back

into his seat, putting his headphones back on and

cranking up the volume. He could still hear Steve

and Mikey, four seats behind him.

‘But what’s the fucking point?’ Mikey asked.

‘Dude, would you want to fight a drunk monkey? They’re fucking huge. Like Every Which

14/593

Way But Loose, man. Imagine that bastard losing

his shit on you.’

Park noticed the new girl at about the same

time everybody else did. She was standing at the

front of the bus, next to the first available seat.

There was a kid sitting there by himself, a

freshman. He put his bag down on the seat beside

him, then looked the other way. All down the aisle, anybody who was sitting alone moved to

the edge of their seat. Park heard Tina snicker;

she lived for this stuff.

The new girl took a deep breath and stepped

farther down the aisle. Nobody would look at her.

Park tried not to, but it was kind of a train wreck/

eclipse situation.

The girl just looked like exactly the sort of

person this would happen to.

Not just new – but big and awkward. With

crazy hair, bright red on top of curly. And she

was dressed like … like she wanted people to

look at her. Or maybe like she didn’t get what a

mess she was. She had on a plaid shirt, a man’s

15/593

shirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging

around her neck and scarves wrapped around her

wrists. She reminded Park of a scarecrow or one

of the trouble dolls his mom kept on her dresser.

Like something that wouldn’t survive in the wild.

The bus stopped again, and a bunch more

kids got on. They pushed past the girl, knocking

into her, and dropped into their own seats.

That was the thing – everybody on the bus

already had a seat. They’d all claimed one on the

first day of school. People like Park who were

lucky enough to have a whole seat to themselves

weren’t going to give that up now. Especially not

for someone like this.

Park looked back up at the girl. She was just

standing there.

‘Hey, you,’ the bus driver yelled, ‘sit down.’

The girl started moving toward the back of

the bus. Right into the belly of the beast. God,

Park thought, stop. Turn around. He could feel

Steve and Mikey licking their chops as she got

closer. He tried again to look away.

16/593

Then the girl spotted an empty seat just

across from Park. Her face lit with relief, and she

hurried toward it.

‘Hey,’ Tina said sharply.

The girl kept moving.

‘Hey,’ Tina said, ‘Bozo.’

Steve started laughing. His friends fell in a

few seconds behind him.

‘You can’t sit there,’ Tina said. ‘That’s

Mikayla’s seat.’

The girl stopped and looked up at Tina, then

looked back at the empty seat.

‘Sit down,’ the driver bellowed from the

front.

‘I have to sit somewhere,’ the girl said to

Tina in a firm, calm voice.

‘Not my problem,’ Tina snapped. The bus

lurched, and the girl rocked back to keep from

falling. Park tried to turn the volume up on his

Walkman, but it was already all the way up. He

looked back at the girl; it looked like she was

starting to cry.

17/593

Before he’d even decided to do it, Park

scooted toward the window.

‘Sit down,’ he said. It came out angrily. The

girl turned to him, like she couldn’t tell whether

he was another jerk or what. ‘Jesus-****,’ Park

said softly, nodding to the space next to him,

‘just sit down.’

The girl sat down. She didn’t say anything –

thank God, she didn’t thank him – and she left

six inches of space on the seat between them.

Park turned toward the Plexiglas window and

waited for a world of suck to hit the fan.

Eleanor

Eleanor considered her options:

1. She could walk home from school. Pros: Exercise\, color in her cheeks\, time to herself. Cons:

She didn’t know her new address yet, or even

the general direction to start walking.

2. She could call her mom and ask for a ride.

Pros: Lots. Cons: Her mom didn’t have a

phone. Or a car.

3. She could call her dad. Ha.

4. She could call her grandma. Just to say hi.

She was sitting on the concrete steps at the front

of the school, staring out at the row of yellow

buses. Her bus was right there. No. 666.

Even if Eleanor could avoid the bus today,

even if her fairy godmother showed up with a

pumpkin carriage, she’d still have to find a way

to get back to school tomorrow morning.

And it’s not like the devil-kids on the bus

were going to wake up on the other side of their

beds tomorrow. Seriously. It wouldn’t surprise

Eleanor if they unhinged their jaws the next time

she saw them. That girl in the back with the

blond hair and the acid-washed jacket? You

could practically see the horns hidden in her

bangs. And her boyfriend was possibly a member

of the Nephilim.

That girl – all of them – hated Eleanor before

they’d even laid eyes on her. Like they’d been

hired to kill her in a past life.

Eleanor couldn’t tell if the Asian kid who finally let her sit down was one of them, or whether he was just really stupid. (But not stupid-stupid … He was in two of Eleanor’s honors

classes.)

20/593

Her mom had insisted that the new school put

Eleanor in honors classes. She’d freaked when

she saw how bad Eleanor’s grades were from last

year in the ninth grade. ‘This can’t be a surprise

to you, Mrs Douglas,’ the counselor said. Ha,

Eleanor thought, you’d be surprised what could

be a surprise at this point.

Whatever. Eleanor could stare at the clouds

just as easily in honors classes. There were just as

many windows.

If she ever even came back to this school.

If she ever even got home.

Eleanor couldn’t tell her mom about the bus

situation anyway because her mom had already

said that Eleanor didn’t have to ride the bus. Last

night, when she was helping Eleanor unpack …

‘Richie said he’ll take you,’ her mom said.

‘It’s on his way to work.’

‘Is he going to make me ride in the back of

his truck?’

‘He’s trying to make peace, Eleanor. You

promised that you’d try, too.’

21/593

‘It’s easier for me to make peace from a

distance.’

‘I told him you were ready to be part of this

family.’

‘I’m already part of this family. I’m like a

charter member.’

‘Eleanor,’ her mom said. ‘Please.’

‘I’ll just ride the bus,’ Eleanor had said. ‘It’s

not a big deal. I’ll meet people.’

Ha, Eleanor thought now. Giant, dramatic ha.

Her bus was going to leave soon. A few of

the other buses were already pulling away. Somebody ran down the steps next to Eleanor and accidentally kicked her bag. She pulled it out of the

way and started to say sorry – but it was that stupid Asian kid, and he frowned when he saw that

it was her. She frowned right back at him, and he

ran ahead.

Oh, fine, Eleanor thought. The children of hell shan’t go hungry on my watch.