No Girls Allowed (Dogs Okay) (14 page)

I
climb onto the bus. I fall into the first seat behind the driver. On the way to school Ms. Rigormortis keeps looking at me in her rearview mirror. I wish her black zombie eyes would stare at somebody else. I pick at a rip in the cushion.

“Where is your sister?” she finally asks in her blah voice. “She hasn't been on the bus all week.”

“She's fine,” I say.

My sister won't go to school because she's afraid everybody will tease her about Isabelle's Smell. I've tried to tell her I am sorry. She won't let me in her room. She screams through her bedroom door, “Go away, Pilobolus.”

Ms. Rigormortis is looking at me again. “Tough year,” she says.

I sigh. “No kidding.”

“I meant for Isabelle.”

Isabelle, Isabelle, Isabelle. Everyone is worried about Isabelle. Uncle Ant and Jewel came over and brought my sister a gold heart necklace. My mom made ziti, Isabelle's favorite food. What about me? I'm the one who has to clean desks every single recess for two weeks. I'm the one who has to write a five-hundred word essay about being a responsible
student (I don't even know five hundred words). I'm the one who had to give back every dime I earned selling Isabelle's Smell. Worst of all, I'm the one who won't be getting a dog EVER! So it's only fair that I should be the one at home now. I should be wolfing down strawberry ripple ice cream. I should be crying into my butterfly pillow—I mean, you know, if I was a girl. You
know
what I mean.

The bus turns into the school parking lot.

“Have a nice day,” Ms. Rigormortis says without emotion as we leave. “Have a nice day. Have a nice day. . . .”

I don't say anything back.

After school I go to my sister's fifth-grade classroom to pick up her homework. Mr. Corbett hands me a folder and Isabelle's notebook. “I hope she'll be back soon. Your sister is doing great in my class. Just great. I know it must have been a challenge to get moved up a grade this year.”

“Not for Isabelle,” I say. Nothing is a challenge for my sister.

“In my fourteen years of teaching she's one of the brightest students I've ever had. You must be very proud.”

“I guess,” I say. I hadn't thought much about it before. I mean, Isabelle doesn't need me to be proud of her. She's got our parents, Uncle Ant, her teachers, and pretty much the entire population of Granite Falls. What difference does it make what I think?

When I get outside, it's raining. The first bus is pulling away from the curb. Oh, no! Mine is fourth in line, but the door is still open.

“Wait for me! Wait, number eighteen! Ms. Rigor—” My toe finds a crack in the sidewalk.
Splat!
I go down. Isabelle's homework folder lands upside down on the wet pavement. The wind scatters the pages. I scramble to my feet. I run, trying to scoop up papers as I go. My sister's notebook is floating in a puddle. I grab it. The bus door hasn't closed yet. I can make it. I
can
make it! Holding everything tightly to my chest, I run faster. I can see the edge of the sidewalk. Leap.
Leap now!
I launch myself off the curb. I am flying, flying, flying—
Ker-chunk!
My nose hits glass.

I slide down the bus door. I hear a crunching sound. I gag on engine fumes. I am a pile of bones on the ground when I hear it.

Eeeeee-yoe.

The door opens. Ms. Rigormortis is staring straight ahead. She doesn't say anything. Her skeleton hands hold the wheel tightly. I stagger up the steps. I don't
want to sit behind her, but it's the only seat left. My nose throbs. I think I broke my face.

I lay out all the loose papers on the seat. I try to put them back in the right order. The folder is bent and dirty. I hope I got everything. I'm shaking the water out of my sister's notebook when I see a big red X. The ink is runny, but I can still read what is written beneath the X: