Free The Agent's Daughter by Ron Corriveau

report on the Alex front?”
    “ No,” Melina said. “We
have physics in the morning, but we have just that one class
together in the afternoon. We sit close together, but there was no
opportunity to talk in class today. Frerking lectured the whole
time. That lady is so dull she could kill me with her
voice.”
    “ Did you get to talk at
all?” Jean asked.
    “ I talked to him for a few
minutes after class,” Melina said. “We are going to get together at
my house sometime this week to start work on our
project.”
    Jean smiled. “Just let me know what day.
I’ll come over and help you two out. Wink. Wink.”
    “ Uh, no thank you Miss
Jean,” Melina said, with full eye roll. “I think that I can handle
this myself. We are not getting together tonight, why don’t you
come over and hang out. ”
    Jean shook her head. “Can’t. My mom invited
the ladies that she plays cards with over tonight, and she asked if
I would help her out. How about this weekend. You have any
plans?”
    “ Why, yes I do,” Melina
said. “You will never guess what my dad and I are going to
do.”
    “ You’re finally going to
visit the History of Barbeque Museum downtown?”
    Melina smiled. “Uh, no. I can’t believe that
you went to that.”
    “ What can I say,” Jean
said. “I loves me some barbeque. I can’t believe that you were born
in Texas and have not been there. I thought it was required of the
natives.”
    Melina grabbed Jean by the arm. “My dad is
going to practice driving with me this weekend.”
    “ Whoa,” Jean said. “This
is huge for your dad.”
    “ Yeah,” Melina said. “My
driver education instructor sent home a note that said that if I
did not practice at home that I was in danger of not passing the
class. I’m trying not to push my dad too hard about it, but he just
needs to stop worrying about me so much. It seems like he is afraid
of everything.”
    “ Well. It sounds like
things might be working out for him,” Jean said. “Just go with it
for now.”
    Melina looked away in imagination. “I can
see it now. I’ll get my license. My dad will let me use the car,
and we can escape the hell that is this bus ride. Won’t that be
awesome?”
    Jean did not respond. Instead, she looked
toward the front of the bus. “Isn’t that your little brother
getting on the bus? He’s in seventh grade.”
    “ Yeah,” Melina said,
looking at the front of the bus. “As part of the Castle Grant that
he won, he is going to be taking a few classes here at the high
school a couple of days a week. One of the teachers comes and picks
him up from his school. They are apparently setting up some new lab
here just for him. Today is his first day.”
    Travis made his way up the aisle of the bus
and stopped when he saw Melina and Jean.
    “ Hey there bro,” Melina
said. “How was your first day?”
    “ Terrible,” he said. “I
spent most of the day getting introduced to everyone and watching
them set up the lab. I didn’t get anything done.”
    Jean patted the seat across the aisle from
her. “Well, little dude, have a seat and join us for the ride
home.”
    Travis did not like being
called ‘little dude’. He knew that he was a little smaller than the
other kids in his grade were, but he still thought comments that
drew attention to it were demeaning. It seemed to him that no one
else was offered a greeting using a euphemism for one of his or her
physical traits. No one said, Hey
man-boob, how are you doing? Or Unibrow, my man! What’s up?
    “ Thank you,” he said. “But
I am going to the back. There is a large bench seat back there.
Maybe I can get a quick nap.”
    The girls looked at each other and started
to laugh.
    “ No, seriously,” he said.
“I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere.”
    “ That’s not what we are
laughing about,” Melina said. “You can’t just sit anywhere.
Especially the back.”
    Travis arched his brow in confusion. “What?
Are there assigned seats? Nobody told me what my