Free The Agent's Daughter by Ron Corriveau Page B

of
expensive new equipment. At the school that I attend. All I have to
do is call up Principal Kalis, and tell her that I am transferring
to another high school because the environment is too hostile at
this school. At that point, she has a couple of choices. She could
let me, the teachers, and all of the science equipment go down the
street to another high school. Or she could eliminate the hostility
by sending the hostility to another high school down the street. I
have her on speed dial. Number seven. Why don’t we ask her? I’m
sure she is still in her office.”
    Travis grabbed his backpack, took out his
phone, and started pressing buttons on the screen.
    “ There is no need to call
Principal Kalis,” Ellen said, the words sounding high pitched and
nervous. “Continue your nap, please. We’ll sit over here in this
row.”
    Travis put his phone back in his backpack,
punched it a few times to shape it into a pillow and then he lay
back down.
    Melina and Jean looked at each other with
their mouths agape.

    ………………………… .

    The bus was approaching Melina’s stop, and
her brother was still asleep. As the bus came to a stop, she got up
and made her way to the back. Ellen gave her a look that questioned
what she was doing back there. It melted into astonishment when
Melina approached Travis. He had said what his name was, but Ellen
had not put it together that Travis was Melina’s brother until that
moment.
    Melina gently shook Travis’s shoulder.
“Travis, it’s time to go home.”
    The normally raucous bus was now stone
silent as all eyes were on the pair as they made their way to the
front of the bus and down the stairs to the street. As the bus
pulled away, Melina and her brother walked side by side on the
sidewalk toward their house.
    “ You realize the
importance of what you did, don’t you?” Melina asked.
    “ I didn’t realize that
naps were that uncommon,” he said.
    “ I’m not talking about the
nap, you ninny,” Melina said. “The confrontation with
Ellen.”
    “ Oh, that,” Travis said.
“I have watched enough prison movies to know that, on the first
day, you are supposed to walk up to the biggest, baddest dude in
the yard and start a fight with them. Let everyone know that you
are not to be messed with.”
    “ Wait, why are you
watching prison movies?” Melina said. “A few months ago, you were
afraid of your own shadow, and now you are picking fights with big
bad people?”
    “ Things are different for
me,” Travis said. “Mom’s accident changed everything.”
    Melina stopped walking and looked at Travis.
“What do you mean?”
    “ It’s no secret that I’ve
leaned on Mom a lot over the years,” he said. “She has always stood
up for me. Fought my battles. Much more so than Dad.”
    “ Yeah,” Melina said with a
small laugh. “You used to refer to yourself as a momma’s boy
without realizing that those words had a negative connotation. We
just always thought that you two had a unique bond because Mom quit
work to stay home when you were born, but I went to day care. I
learned to have a little more independence than you.”
    Travis continued. “When Mom had the
accident, I found myself on my own. I lost my crutch. I was
lost.”
    “ So what happened?” Melina
asked. “How did you go from that to what happened
today?”
    “ A couple of months ago,
while we were all visiting Mom in the convalescent hospital, you
went in to see her, and Dad and I sat outside. After a few minutes
of silence, I started crying. I don’t know why. When I looked up, I
could see that Dad was crying too. I had never seen that before. I
crawled onto his lap, and he held onto me like I was five years old
again. When I finished crying, I felt older. Like I had grown up
right there. From that point on, I was no longer
scared.”
    “ I must admit that you
have seemed a bit older to me,” Melina said. “But how do you
explain the angry boy from the bus?”
    “ That’s easy,”