Read Amber Brown Sees Red Online
Authors: Paula Danziger
Amber Brown Sees Red (3 page)
I count the number of school buses.
There are a lot of them.
Some of the buses are the ones that normally bring kids to our school. Some are the ones that normally take kids to the middle school and the high school.
Buses filled with kids who have permission to go home will be leaving soon.
Buses filled with kids who are waiting for someone to pick them up are staying in the parking lot.
I am one of those kids who is waiting.
I am one of those kids who is getting worried about whether I am ever going to be picked up.
I am getting worried about holding it in until someone rescues me.
Trying to think of other things, I turn to Brandi, who is sitting next to me, and start singing, “One hundred smelly old skunks on the wall, one hundred smelly old skunks on the wall, take one down, pass it around .... ninety-nine smelly old skunks on the wall....”
Brandi joins in.
So do some of the other kids.
Jimmy changes the words. “Ninety-nine smelly old skunks on the wall, knock one down, kick it around ......”
Tiffani hits him on the head with her knapsack. “Skunk abuser.”
Jimmy rubs the top of his head. “Ow!”
“Serves you right.” Tiffani shrugs. “You can hurt people, just not animals.”
Jimmy turns around and stares at her. “My father’s got a name for people like you ..... ‘tree huggers.’ ”
Tiffani folds her arms. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me.”
“Skunk hugger.” Jimmy sticks his tongue out at her.
“I may love skunks ... but you smell like one ...” Tiffani sticks her tongue out at him.
“If you love skunks,” Bobby grins, “you must love Jimmy if he smells like one.”
Both Tiffani and Jimmy make gagging noises.
From the front of the bus, Mrs. Holt calls out, “Amber Brown. Brandi Colwin. Someone is here for you.”
Brandi and I give each other high fives.
One of our mothers has finally gotten here.
We can get out of here, off the bus, to a bathroom.
Saved from a life of embarrassment ... I look out of the bus, expecting to see my mom or Mrs. Colwin.
It’s neither.
Chapter Five
“Max. What are you doing here?” I look at my mother’s boyfriend, actually my mother’s fiancé .... my future stepfather. (But I try not to think of him that way. I like to think of him as just Max, this nice guy. If I think of him as “stepfather,” then that means I’ve given up thinking that my mom and dad will ever get back together.)
He looks at me, pretending to be hurt ... at least I think he’s pretending. “Would you like me to leave? Would you like to go back on the bus?”
“No!” Brandi and I yell at the same time.
“You must be Brandi.” Max smiles at her.
She smiles and nods.
He explains. “Amber, the school contacted your mom and then she called me to see if I could help by picking up you and Brandi. I changed my schedule. Your mom faxed signed permissions to the school ... and, here I am.”
It’s weird.
I really like Max but it’s sort of like he’s totally becoming a part of our lives .... and like my father’s almost not there .... like Max is becoming my father.
I think about my real father and I think about how he’s almost becoming my unreal father.
It’s hard to stay close to someone who I hardly ever see, who is basically just a voice. A lot of the really good times that my dad and I had seem so long ago.
Now it’s Max who is there when we need him.
“Save us! Save us!” Kids on the bus yell out of the window. “Help! We’re being held captive because of skunks!”
“Quiet down!” one of the teachers yells.
“Help! We are being held captive by skunks!”
I’m not positive but that sounded like Jimmy Russell.
“Detention!” the teacher yells.
With that detention added to all his others, Jimmy will have to come back from college for that punishment .... or maybe he won’t even go to college.... It’ll probably be a job or jail.
I remember an important fact.
I have to go to the bathroom.
“Wagons ho.” I use the phrase that my Aunt Pam always says when she’s ready to leave.
We go to the car.
Max pretends to be a chauffeur, opening the back door for Brandi and me.
We get in and drive off, leaving Skunk School behind.
“Pit stop!” I yell as we approach a gas station.
Max stops.
I run into the bathroom.
When I come out, Max and Brandi are pretending to be gas station attendants, washing car windows.
When I woke up this morning, I had no idea it was going to be like this.
Every school should have at least one Skunk Day a year, only without the skunks and without the smell.
I only hope that I can convince Max to take us to the mall.
Chapter Six
“You have one thousand, two hundred and eighty-two points.” The arcade attendant tells us our total.
That’s the most points I’ve ever gotten.
There are several reasons for all of those points.
One is that Max put a twenty-dollar bill into the token machine and the three of us played until all of the tokens were gone.
The other reason is that Max is really great on the bowling-ball machine and the basketball hoops. Brandi really scores on the rock-and-roll machine and I am the champ of the Skee-Ball machine.
The other is that we’ve put all our tickets together ...... One thousand, two hundred and eighty-two points.
Brandi and I look at all of the possible prizes.
There are so many.
Some need so many tickets.
I would really like the cassette-player jukebox, but it costs too many tickets.
Brandi and I keep looking at everything.
Max looks at his watch. “Come on, girls. Make your choices. It’s time to go to the food court.”
“In a minute, please,” I beg.
Max doesn’t seem to realize that these tickets are the closest thing that Brandi and I are going to have to paychecks for a lot of years. Allowances are different somehow and we’re not old enough to baby-sit. So, our choices are important.
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