Free Also Known As Harper by Ann Haywood Leal Page B

the ceiling of the bus. “Any unscheduled stop has to come with paperwork from the office.” He checked his watch and shooed us away from the bus with the back of his hand.
    Then, before I could even think on what he had said, he snapped those bus doors shut and pulled back onto the road.
    â€œHow was I supposed to know?” I didn’t mean to sound angry at Hem, but my voice came out that way without my even trying. “I’ve always been a walker. I’ve never had to set foot on the school bus.”
    I had seen Sarah Lynn Newhart staring at me, her nose pressed up against the window as the bus roared away. She could’ve said something. She always had her hand up to give an answer at school. Friends were supposed to help each other out, even if they were just school friends. I wanted to throw something at her window, and I stooped down and ran my hand over a smooth gray pebble. But then I just got plain sad. She was probably glad I didn’t get let on the bus. She satdown the row from me, and she knew Mrs. Rodriguez would get to her poems quicker if she skipped over me.
    My stomach growled loudly, and I sat myself back down on the worn red bench and took a bite of my apple.
    Hem hung back a bit. The angry part of my voice always scared him.
    I patted the seat beside me. “I’m not mad at you, Hem. I’m sorry. I need some time to cool the angry feelings off my brain and think about things.”
    Hem was never one to hold a grudge. He plopped himself down next to me and started chewing at his own apple. He turned sideways toward me and hugged his knees up on the bench. “If you’re needing some cooling off, we could maybe go swimming again.”
    Hem’s idea wasn’t half bad. I had been wanting to check out that cut-off slide without Winnie Rae Early stinking up the pool area. A few trips down that slide could possibly sort through the jumble in my brain and set me to thinking straight. I had to come up with a way to get back to school.
    I stood up and swung my backpack over one shoulder. “Okay, then, Hem. Let’s go get our towels.”
    As we made our way back down to our motel room, I tried to ignore thoughts of any poems, old or newly forming in my head. But that’s the thing about poems and stories. Once they start taking shape inside your brain, there’s no stopping or ignoring them. They tend to nag at you until your hand gets around to finding a pen and writing them down.
    â€œMama said always lock the door, even when we’re there.” Hem pushed the door open and stepped inside.
    I’d been so worried about getting on the school bus I hadn’t locked the motel room. Which meant that anyone could’ve gotten inside while we were gone. And I was plenty annoyed with what I found on the floor in front of our TV.
    â€œHey, Randall.” Hemingway tossed his backpack on the bed and took another bite of his apple.
    Randall had cartoons on, and he was chewing away on one of our graham crackers. “Lorraine said it wasn’t polite to come in without an invite, but I told her you wouldn’t mind.” He shook some broken pieces of graham cracker into his mouth and crumpled up the waxed-paper wrapper. “I knew you’d be right back or you wouldn’t have left the door unlocked.”
    He was pretty smart for a kid that had had so much school vacation.
    â€œYou mean Lorraine’s found her words?” I couldn’t believe I had missed it.
    Randall shook his head. “Lorraine talks at you with her pen and her hands and sometimes her eyes. You’ll find out once you get to know her better. You catch her with her pad of paper or her arms moving about, and there’s no breaking loose from her.”
    Sure enough, when I looked outside, she was standing off in the corner of the parking lot with Dorothy. Her hand was moving back and forth across her notepad. She must’ve been used to all that quick