Last Stop on Route 9

Nora rides the longest bus route in the district, until a new kid named Deshi turns forty-one minutes into the best part of her day. Then his stop vanishes from the route sheet.

There are twenty-two bus routes at Fairhaven Middle School, and Nora Vance rides the worst one.

Route 9 goes out past the feed store, past the quarry, past the field where somebody parked a boat in 1994 and never came back for it. Forty-one minutes each way. Nora is the last stop, which means she is the last kid on the bus every single afternoon, alone with Mr. Ruiz and the rattle of the emergency exit.

'You could nap,' her mom always says.

'I could also be at home,' Nora always answers.

So she made up a game to survive it. Every house on Route 9 gets a story. The one with fourteen wind chimes belongs to a retired pirate. The gray one with the curtains always shut is hiding a dragon in the basement. Nobody knows about the game. It is a one-player game, because Route 9 is a one-kid route.

At least, it was.