moment later the bus driver clambered up the steps and whispered something to Mr Dwyer again All right everyone listen up Mr Dwyer said The bus has broken down Groans Told you Kevin said to anyone who would listen I know I’m not happy about it either Mr Dwyer said The bus driver is calling for a replacement Just sit tight until it arrives Shouldn’t be long The bus driver picked up the two-way radio hand piece which crackled with static Hello Hello He looked up for a second to see if anyone was watching Pretty much everyone was watching What would Dad do Tyler wondered His dad was horrible with cars He would probably call Triple-A Tyler checked his phone again still no bars Tyler looked out the window That’s just great he thought Let’s make this horrible ride home even longer A clump of tumbleweed rolled 7
by much faster than ones he had seen earlier Beyond the tumbleweed clouds formed as if nighttime was approaching but it was only mid-afternoon The surrounding sky grew darker Tyler studied the clouds again They looked like a haze of gathering dust 8
2 The screwup at the speech tournament was one of those moments Tyler often had nightmares about but the nightmares hadn’t come true until today The worst part was that Tyler’s event came at the end of the day By then his teammates had all finished their competitions and knew their team’s score and ranking so everyone was watching Tyler His storytelling performance would affect the overall placement of the team and everyone was counting on him to nail it And then he froze In the moments before he took the stage he should have been turning over the first few 9
lines in his head so he could ensure a strong opening delivery but instead all he could think about was how L J had sidled up to Julia all day and kept chatting with her and touching her arm When it came time for Tyler to begin he’d walked up to the podium on stage squinting into the bright spotlight and his mind went blank Tyler glanced around the auditorium He’d completely forgotten the first sentence He stood in silence for what felt like an hour before he finally stammered something Once he got back on track it was too late The opening was worth a huge chunk of points and he had blown it And now he just had to keep going because all eyes were on him He felt himself sweating The next time he spoke the microphone made that horrible sound SCREEEEECH Feedback The audience members covered their ears The feedback problem wasn’t Tyler’s fault but 10
