Page 1 of Shimmering Emeralds
1
Meg
My head pounded with the beginnings of a migraine. My sister, Claire, owed me bigtime for bailing and leaving me to deal with an entire school bus full of elementary school-aged children without her. If she were here, we would be talking and laughing about the cacophony. Without her, it just sounded like incessant jackhammering in my eardrums.
Of course, Claire had a good reason for skipping out on today’s field trip to Portland’s Old Port historic waterfront district. Her husband’s mistress was giving birth to his baby. If it wasn’t for the throbbing behind my left eyebrow, I would shake my head in silent disbelief over that jaw-dropper.
The fact that Claire’s lifelong love, Alex, had cheated on her while she was being held captive blew my mind. Knowing that Claire had managed to forgive Alex––along with the hussy that slept with him––and planned to accept the child into her family was positively earth shattering.
Claire was a much bigger person than I was. We all knew that, but this proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. If I’d found myself in the situation she had encountered upon her return after a horrific year of captivity, Alex Biggs and Josie Michaels would have both had black eyes, and I’d have been sporting a sore, bruised fist.
My sister handled the entire situation like a lady, though. She was calm, sophisticated, and mature about it. Now, she and Alex were expecting their second child, and Josie was giving birth to Alex’s bastard. Although Claire would never refer to the baby in such a crass manner, and she would be appalled that I did, I was big on calling things like I saw them. I believed in brutal honesty, in almost everything.
Claire was giving Hannah a younger sister, and I was excited to see the two of them grow up together. I couldn’t––and didn’t want to––imagine a life without my amazing older sister. I would make sure Claire’s baby knew how lucky she was to have Hannah for an older sibling, and I’d show her the ropes of how to be a perfectly pesky younger sister.
Turning to the seat beside me, I smiled at both my beautiful niece, whose life was getting ready to be turned upside down by two infant siblings, and my adorable daughter, Harper. Harper was the ray of sunshine in my otherwise mundane, average life. She was the one thing I’d managed to do right, and I couldn’t be prouder of her.
The long, stuffy bus creaked and groaned as we headed south on the winding, hilly road toward Portland. It was a brisk, but sunny day with puffy white clouds hanging high in the sky. Armed with a fleece sweatshirt to ward off the chilly wind coming in to shore from the water, this would be the perfect day for us to explore the seaport.
I heard the ruckus in the seat behind me and knew immediately what was happening. My first thought was that we needed an adult to deal with the situation, but then I realized thatIwas the grown-up here.
Cringing as my shoulders involuntarily leaped up near the sides of my head, I reluctantly turned around to find out exactly what we were dealing with here. One of the little boys sitting behind me had a greenish pallor and a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead as he covered his mouth with a hand and tried to contain his gagging.
Having struggled with motion sickness more times than I cared to think about, I had no doubt about what was happening.
Mumbling behind his palm, the little boy looked up at me with huge, frightened eyes and said, “I don’t feel very good.”
Scrambling to find something, I grabbed the paper bag I’d packed with our snacks for the day and dumped out its contents in the empty spot on the bench of my seat. Handing the bag to the young man just in time, I said, “It’s okay. You can throw up in this.”
A chorus of ‘Ewww!’ erupted from the other children in our area as the child gave in to the overwhelming nausea. Afraid that it might start a horrible chain reaction, I leaned over to slide down my window, leaving it open a crack for some fresh air and said to them, “Just ignore it.”
They were all staring with appalled looks at the embarrassed little boy, so I decided some distraction was in order. Despite how much I didn’t want to, I forced some enthusiasm into my voice and suggested, “Let’s all sing a song!”
This idea was greeted with excited chatter and numerous shout-outs of annoying, repetitive tunes that we could sing.
Just as we started an overly loud rendition of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” a flash of movement on the side of the road ahead of us caught my eye. A huge figure stumbled out into the road directly in front of us, but before I had a chance to register if it was a moose or something else, our bus driver swerved to avoid hitting it.
The next few moments went by in slow motion as our school bus careened to the side, children screamed, and we slid out of control before tipping over completely and rolling into a ravine on the side of the road.
Once we stopped, an odd moment of silence ensued as we sat there, stunned by the frightening crash. I blinked and tried to orient myself as I realized that the bus was sitting at a strange angle, almost completely upside down.
The tilt of the massive vehicle concerned me a great deal as I got my bearings and began to move gingerly, checking for broken bones. Just as I was thinking that we should all use extreme caution in our movements, in case the bus was balanced precariously on the hilltop and on the verge of tumbling further down, the frightened kids erupted into absolute chaos.
2
Levi
When I opened my eyes, I blinked several times trying to alleviate the grogginess. My mind was fuzzy as I tried to piece together where I was and what had happened. Almost of its own accord, my hand reached up to my forehead. The thick, warm glob of blood there made me simultaneously wince and gag. Knowing I needed to pull myself together, I forced myself to focus through the dizziness.
It had all happened so fast, it was blurred together into one confusing, horrific moment in my mind. Suddenly, I realized that the school bus I’d been driving had crashed. A frigid surge of sheer terror that one of the children in my care might be injured engulfed my senses.
My memory fully returned in a nauseating flood. The man in the road had startled me so much that I had yanked the steering wheel to avoid hitting him. I had broken the number one rule of being a school bus driver. Iknewnot to endanger the kids by swerving to avoid hitting anything, yet in that fraction of a second, I’d seen a fellow human being in our path. When his terrified eyes locked with mine, my instinct had taken over, and I’d done my best not to hit him.
Despite the quick jerk of my hands on the wheel, I’d thought I would be able to recover and not hit the man or hurt any children. We must have been on some black ice on the road because when I turned the huge steering wheel, the ancient yellow school bus began sliding out of control.
Almost like when a person falls, but doesn’t realize what happened until they are on the ground, we careened around and toppled over the edge of the ravine in a fraction of an instant.
The bus was quiet… too quiet. It took me a moment to get my bearings because we were nearly upside down and tilted at a strange angle. I turned my head around, trying to glimpse the back of the bus, but couldn’t figure out why it was so still.
