1 The day of the disaster Tyler Manning couldn’t believe he had screwed up so badly He leaned over and rested his forehead against the seatback He clutched his cell phone in his hand trying to focus on the maze game he’d downloaded the week before Usually he could finish a level within a few minutes but today he just wasn’t thinking clearly The school bus lurched jolting Tyler backward and forward so his head smacked on the seat in front of him He dropped his phone It skidded up the floor crashing into the pair of feet in front of him 1
Hey Sha’relle snapped pulling off her headphones Sha’relle’s music was playing so loud that even in the seat behind her Tyler could hear it was Beyoncé Yeah watch it her seatmate Daniela said glaring back at Tyler Sorry Tyler rubbed his forehead where he had smacked it on the seat He felt around on the floor until he found his phone His phone had lost service once the bus had gotten far enough into the middle of nowhere Tyler wished he had some music saved on his phone since he could no longer connect to his streaming app but normally he wouldn’t have needed it because he and Ethan would have been talking the whole way home That’s what they did for the past speech-team events they’d gone to this year Instead Ethan sat two rows back with L J who was in the spot Tyler had occupied on the way to the state tournament right across the aisle from where Julia Evans sat Since they left the tournament Ethan had acted as if he didn’t even know Tyler 2
