Free Glory Girl by Betsy Byars

metallic groans of the bus as it slammed down the rugged bank.
    Nothing could stop it. It crashed into rocks. It flattened brush. It tore the limbs off trees. It turned over again.
    Then there was one last earsplitting splash, followed by a moment that sounded like silence because the only noise was that of water against the bus.
    The Glory bus had come to rest in the creek. It was upside down. The front of the bus was slowly sinking into the rain-swollen waters; the back was in the air. The whole thing seemed about to go underwater at any moment.
    The current rushed around the bus. The bus was lifted for a moment and carried forward. It came to rest jammed against some rocks.
    Inside the bus Anna lay where she had fallen. She was in the front corner of the bus, crumpled on her side. She opened her eyes.
    She could not see anything. The darkness was absolute. Anna blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The darkness continued. There was not even the memory of light.
    It was like the time Anna had gone into a cave. The Glorys had been on their way home from a performance in Virginia and, on the twins’ urging, they had stopped at Endless Caverns.
    Deep within the cave, the guide had cut off the lights for a moment. The darkness had been so awesome that everybody fell silent. No one moved. Even the twins, who had planned to play tricks on each other in the dark, were still standing stockstill when the lights came on again.
    Anna put her hand to her eyes. Pain shot through her shoulder, and she dropped her hand limply to her side.
    As she lay there, stunned, not sure where she was or what had happened, a streak of lightning jagged in the sky. It repeated itself, turning the world white with a light brighter than the sun.
    Anna, her eyes wide with shock and fear, looked out on a world literally turned upside down. The seats of the bus were overhead. The lightning flashed beyond them. She lay on the ceiling. Darkness and, somehow, water were below.
    The darkness came again, merciful this time. And Anna closed her eyes and drifted into unconsciousness.

Dark Water
    W HEN ANNA OPENED HER eyes again, her body was still twisted into the same corner of the bus. She did not know where she was. She did not even remember that she had, five minutes before, opened her eyes and in a flash of lightning seen the upside-down world.
    She stretched one trembling hand out into the darkness. She felt nothing familiar. The only sound was the rushing of water close by. There was nothing familiar in that, either.
    Suddenly she heard someone moan. “Who’s there?” she cried sharply.
    There was no answer.
    Anna shifted. She struggled to lift her head, and nausea swept over her. Her head throbbed. The taste of blood was in her mouth. Icy fingers wrapped around her ankles.
    “Mom?” Anna reached out and touched slivers of broken glass. She rubbed her fingers over the glass, wondering what it was. She touched cloth. Her fingers curled around the fabric.
    “Mom?”
    It was not her mother, only one of the costumes, fallen from its hanger. It clung wetly to her hand.
    The icy water was sweeping higher. It was above her ankles now. She shuddered with cold and pulled her feet out of the water. She paused and listened. Someone was moaning.
    Anna crawled forward. She touched someone in the dark—and gasped. “Who’s there?” Her teeth were chattering now. No answer. “Who are you?”
    Anna ran her fingers over the still face. “Is that you, Mom?”
    The icy water had risen about her feet again. As Anna tried to crawl out of it, lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The lightning turned the world white again, and Anna paused, frozen with horror.
    She saw her surroundings then so vividly that the image would be burned into her brain forever. The upside-down bus. Her mother’s still profile. Her father, suspended upside down in the driver’s seat, his arms hanging over his head as if in surrender. The costumes on the dark water. The body of Angel,