The scary conductor cackled again as she shoved me toward the back of the bus. I scrambled away from her as well as I could and climbed into a seat. She leaned into the back window and made a concert of rude gestures at Mia, who was jumping up and down in the middle of the road. Then the bus flung itself around a corner, going left instead of right toward school, and I hung on tight as it suddenly gained speed.
The big woman lurched back up the central aisle. As she went past me, I shrank against the window.
‘Quickly, you moron!’ she screamed at the hunched driver, who was braking as we approached a red light. ‘Keep driving! Keep going!’ She thumped his back viciously until the bus regained speed.
I braced myself just in time as we sideswiped a delivery van and kept going. Pedestrians s
