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comes forward, you’ll all be punished,” he said. “All of you.”
    But no one said a thing.
    Not Georgie. Not even Sandeep—or Jewel Chu.
    The screaming started almost as soon as Old Quack Quack and Mrs. Miller got off the bus. “We’re all gonna die!” Pierre yelled.
    Kelly was bouncing up and down on Jake’s lap.
    â€œQuack! Quack!” Jake shouted.
    â€œDid you see that hairy spot on his forehead? It looks like a toilet seat cover!” Pierre called out.
    Only Georgie wasn’t saying anything.
    Suddenly, he sprang up from his seat and walked into the aisle. “Gimmee someroom,” he said, stretching his arms out in front and then behind him. The kids in the aisle pressed closer to the windows.
    Georgie was only a couple of inches away from me. I didn’t know what he was up to when he leaned forward and dropped his head between his knees. Then he started breathing really fast, like he was hyperventilating. He kept his head down for a minute, but then he lifted it up really quickly.
    â€œChoke me,” he whispered.
    â€œNo way, man,” I told him.
    â€œGo for it! Choke him!” voices called out—I didn’t know whose.
    â€œUh, I don’t think so,” I said.
    â€œChoke me!” Georgie insisted.
    So I put my hands around Georgie’s throat and choked him, just like he’d told me to. Only I didn’t choke him very hard.
    When he fell to the floor, his face was white as a sheet.
    â€œOhmygod,” Jewel Chu shrieked. “You killed him! You killed Georgie!”
    I felt this lump—it felt as big as thatMacIntosh apple Georgie had thrown at the old lady—form in my throat.
    I couldn’t take my eyes off Georgie’s face. His pupils had slid over to the corners of his eyes. I felt my heart sinking in my chest. What had I done?
    Please be okay, Georgie, I thought, please. And that’s when I made a promise to myself: I was through with troublemaking.
    Georgie was breathing, but only lightly.
    Then all of a sudden, his lips twisted a little, and then he smirked. “I had you there, didn’t I, Lucas?” he said.
    I was so relieved, I could have cried. But what would my friends think if I started bawling like a baby? So I took a deep breath and laughed instead.

chapter nine
    I was so afraid I’d killed Georgie I didn’t even notice when the bus squealed to a halt. This time, the driver didn’t bother pulling over to the side of the road—he stopped plunk in the middle of Côte-Vertu Boulevard, across from the McDonald’s. He stopped so suddenly that a couple of kids standing in the aisle toppled into each other, and a backpack went flying and hit someone in the head. Whoever got hit yelled, “Ow!” and some of the girls at the front screamed.
    Cars were honking all around us. A man in a nearby car lowered his window. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted at the driver.
    A woman crossing Côte-Vertu Boulevard whipped a sheet of paper from her purse. “I’m taking down your license number,” she yelled, “and reporting you to the transit authorities. You could have endangered the lives of those poor innocent children!”
    That cracked us up. Us—poor and innocent?
    The driver just sat, hunched in his seat, running his fingers through his wispy hair. After a few seconds like that, he slid open the window next to his seat. “Go ahead and report me!” he hollered at the woman, who was still standing there, scowling.
    Then, just like that, he started to laugh. It was the same haunted laugh I remembered.
    Some people’s laughs make you want to laugh too, even if you don’t know what’s so funny. But not this guy’s.
    Kelly raised her eyebrows. Jake shrugged. Even Jewel Chu looked confused.
    A few seconds later, the driver sprung up from his seat like a Jack-in-the-Box, and Jewel Chu shrieked, “You scared