Penelope Orion: Prophecies

Chapter 3

[Okay, so, maybe this one is way longer than I hoped but, I'm just happy that I posted this. I'm going to change things up a bit.]

Penelope's P.O.V.

A few months later...

I woke up to the sounds of kids laughing and yelling. I looked around and realized that I was sitting in a boy's lap.

"Oye hermana." The boy said. He looked like an elf from a picture that someone had shown me. He had extremely curly black hair, sorta pointy ears, chocolatey eyes and, well, his smile reminded me of one. I looked at him, my eyes wide. "¿Qué pasa Penélope? You look scared."

"Jason, you okay?" I heard a girl ask at the same time. I turned around and looked at the girl. She wore faded jeans, boots the looked like they were made for hiking, and a puffy snowboarding jacket. Then I looked to her right - my left - and saw a boy, with a small white scar on his upper lip, let go of her hand.

"Um, I don't--" He began.

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

I looked forward again and had to practically stand on the seat to see who yelled. The man looked like a coach, with a baseball hat low over his hair only showing his eyes, a wispy beard, and a sour face. A whistle hung down from his neck and had a mega phone on his side. He was scary, though he was only five foot zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, "Stand up, Coach Hedge!"

"I heard that!" The teacher guy scanned the crowd for the offender. His eyes landed on me and he scowled, then he looked at the boy behind me and his scowl deepened. A jolt went down my spine as if someone had electrocuted me. This guy knew that I shouldn't be here. Both me and the boy, whom I was having a hard time placing his name. The man 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 going to hit a ball - or a head.

I turned back to the boy and girl behind me. "Can he talk to us that way?" The boy asked. I suddenly recognized his tone.

"Jason?" I asked.

When he heard my voice, his eyes locked onto me. His jaw dropped but, the girl next to him smiled and shrugged, "Always does. This is the Wilderness School. 'Where the kids are the animals.'" She said it as if it was a joke they shared before.

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

The boy that I had been sitting on, turned and laughed. "Yeah, right, Jason. We've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Piper didn't steal a BMW."

The girl blushed. "I didn't steal that car, Leo!"

"Oh, I forgot, Piper. What was your story? You 'talked' the dealer into lending it to you?" He raised his eyes at me and Jason like, Can you believe her? "Anyway," Leo said, "I hope you guys got your worksheet, 'cause I used mine for spit wads days ago. Why are you looking at me like that? Somebody draw on my face again?"

"Um..." I started.

"We don't know you." Jason finished for me.

Leo gave us both a crocodile like grin. "Sure. I'm not your best friend and her bro. I'm his evil clone."

My bro?

"Leo Valdez!" Coach Hedge - finally I got his name - yelled from the front. "Problem back there?"