Daughter of Pluto | Wattys2017

I

EVEN BEFORE THEY GOT ELECTROCUTED, Jason and Aimee were having a rotten day.

Aimee woke in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where she was, holding hands with a boy she didn't know. That wasn't necessarily the rotten part. The boy was attractive, but she couldn't figure out who he was or what she was doing there. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to think.She couldn't recognize her surroundings.

A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of her, listening to iPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around her age ... fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. She didn't know her own age.

The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Aimee was certain she didn't live in the desert. She tried to think back ... the last thing she remembered ...

She heard a voice behind her. "Jason,you okay?"

Aimee looked over her seat to find Jason holding hands with a girl in faded jeans,hiking boot and a fleece snowboarding jacket. But that wasn't the first thing that Aimee noticed,the girl's choppy chocolate brown hair was what really caught her eye. It was uneven and had thin strands braided down the side. She had no makeup and Aimee decided that she didn't need it,the girl was pretty enough without it.

Jason looked up at Aimee. "Um,I don't know-"

Aimee felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find the boy sitting next to her looking right at her.

"Aimee are you okay?"

Aimee almost smiled,almost. She nodded slightly answer the boy even though she wasn't okay at all. She had no memory of anything before waking up on the school bus and from what she could see,Jason didn't either.

In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, "All right, cupcakes, listen up!"

The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he'd eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would've looked pretty scary if he hadn't been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, "Stand up, Coach Hedge!"

"I heard that!" The coach scanned the bus for the offender. When his eyes found Jason and Aimee,his scowl deepened.

A jolt went down Aimee's spine. She was sure the coach knew her and Jason didn't belong there. He was going to call them out, demand to know what they were doing on the bus—and neither of them would have a clue what to say.

But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. "We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way."

He picked up a baseball bat and made like he was hitting a homer.

Jason looked at the girl next to him. "Can he talk to us that way?"

She shrugged. "Always does. This is the Wilderness School. 'Where kids are the animals.'"

She said it like it was a joke they'd shared before.

Jason looked at Aimee who shrugged. They couldn't remember a thing but each other. They knew that they'd known each other for a long time but nothing past that.

"This is some kind of mistake," Jason said. "We're not supposed to be here."

Aimee nodded in agreement as the boy next to her turned and laughed. "Yeah, right, Jason. We've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Piper didn't steal a BMW."