Read Online Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu, Erin Mcguire - Free Book Online Page B

and looked around. His eyes passed right over the big slide and Hazel and moved on, stopping at the edge of the fence. A grin spread across his face, and he ran toward the boys that congregated there.
    Hazel squeezed her eyes shut. Of course he wouldn’t come. It was only natural. He was still mad.
    She was not afraid. She marched right over to the boys who were huddled together laughing. She tapped Jack on the shoulder. He turned around and looked at her blankly.
    “Jack,” she said, straightening. “I’m sorry I threw a pencil box at Tyler. It put you in a bad position. I should have thought about you. I was a bad friend and I’m sorry.”
    There! Hazel smiled.
    Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at Tyler. “She threw a pencil box at you?”
    Tyler rolled his eyes. “Yup.”
    “ Psy -cho,” Bobby muttered under his breath.
    Jack cocked his head at Hazel. “Why are you apologizing to me ?”
    “Oh,” Hazel said. A tendril of something began to rise up in her stomach. “Right.” She turned to look at Tyler. “Tyler, I’m sorry I threw a pencil case at you.”
    Tyler wrinkled up his nose. “All right,” he said.
    Hazel looked back at Jack. The tendril was at her heart now.
    He shrugged at her. “Okay. Well, see ya, Hazel.”
    And then the boys ran off.

    Hazel spent the rest of the day encased in ice. She did not talk to anyone, as you would expect from someone encased in ice. She looked out of the window and understood, now, how the trees felt. Not chilled, not safe, just somehow disconnected from everything.
    Today was a bus day, and she took her seat early and glued her eyes out the window so she did not have to see Jack. She heard him, though, as he approached snickering with the other boys. There was a banging sound and the boys all laughed, and Jack’s laughter was the loudest of all. She kept her eyes where they were, but her foolish heart still sped up thinking he might choose today to sit next to her.
    He did not.
    Hazel bit down hard on her lip and watched the world go by.
    At school she was so good at looking out the window and tuning everything else out. She was a professional, she could teach a class. But not here. Here on the bus the raucous voices of the boys in back slapped against her like an angry sea. In the air around her, Jack laughed, Jack hooted, Jack cackled, Jack snickered, Jack was a whole thesaurus entry of glee, and Hazel could only let the waves batter her.
    She had had no idea before that day how long the bus ride was, how slowly the driver moved through the streets. Every stop was a lifetime. The brakes creaked.
    The stop sign on the side of the bus inched its way into place, struggling to push past the uncompromising air. The bus door opened with a hissing psst , like it was telling a secret. The first graders gathered their things, thing at a time, and stumbled by with their tiny little legs. Down the stairs. Out the door. In front of the bus. The blinkers ticked, perpetually. Onto the sidewalk. Psst , the door closed. The stop sign inched its way back, the bus trembled, then plodded down a block or two to do it all again.
    Finally, they got to their block, and with a creak, push, tick tick, psst, it was time for Hazel to get off. She gathered her things with the precision and care of a first grader, but it did not matter. Jack burst through the aisle as if he’d been shot from a cannon and was off the bus and down the sidewalk in a blink. The Revere twins followed. And Hazel picked up her backpack and headed home, alone.
    When Hazel walked in the house, her mom was sitting at the desk. She smiled when she saw her daughter. “Oh, honey, I just—”
    And Hazel started to cry.
    “What’s wrong? Hazel, sweetie—”
    Her mother’s face looked stricken, as if seeing her daughter this way was the worst thing that could possibly happen, and Hazel could do nothing but tell her the truth.
    “Jack isn’t talking to me,” she said.
    Mrs. Anderson led Hazel to the couch and