Quicksilver Read Online Free PDF Page B

weather uncraps itself. I thought about getting a car, but that’d put a major dent in my university fund.”
    There was a rhythm to small talk, once you got into it. It had taken me a few years to master, but now I barely had to think about it. “Which university?”
    “Haven’t decided yet.” He pushed his glasses back onto his nose. “You?”
    “I’ve got another year of high school first,” I said.
    “Oh yeah? I thought you were older.”
    I felt older. Actually, watching the girls across from us gleefully snapping duck-faced pictures of each other with their cell phones, I just felt old. I gave a faint smile and left it at that.
    “So,” said Milo after a moment, “what school are you at, then? Cartier?”
    “I’m not,” I replied. “I’m taking my courses online.”
    He nodded, as though it made sense. But he shot me a sidelong glance from behind his lenses, and I knew he was trying to figure me out. Nothing about me screamed shy or bullied , and I didn’t look like I came from a super-religious family. None of the usual reasons that a girl of sixteen—no, seventeen—might be finishing up high school on the Internet seemed to apply.
    “And how do you like that?” he asked.
    I liked it a lot, actually. Before I went missing I’d been one of the most popular girls at my high school, but all that social stuff had taken a lot of energy. Now I didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s expectations, I could take as many math and science courses as I wanted and get top marks in all of them.
    “It’s not bad,” I said.
    “So what made you do it?” he asked.
    This was why I didn’t go out of my way to talk to people anymore. Because they got curious, and they asked questions. I was debating how to answer when a horn blared suddenly from the darkness, and I heard the screech of spinning tires.
    Black ice, I thought numbly, as headlights swept the front of the bus. Somebody’s lost control, there’s going to be an accident—
    And then I realized that the driver had slumped onto the wheel, his foot still on the accelerator, and that the bus was drifting into the oncoming lane.
    The girls screamed and clung to each other. Milo started to his feet, but it was obvious he’d never make it in time. Caution vanished and instinct took over: I leaped to the front of the bus, shoved the unconscious driver aside, and grabbed the steering wheel.
    The road was slick, and I could feel the back end skidding sideways even as I wrestled the front back on course. If I didn’t do this right, we’d spin out across all four lanes of traffic. But even as my heart hammered against my rib cage, my mind sharpened to a crystal point. The bus was a machine. I knew machines. I could do this. I made myself turn back into the skid, feeling the tires like an extension of my own body, until the bus stopped fishtailing and we were on the right side of the road again.
    I barely registered Milo hauling the driver out from behind me, but at least those big feet weren’t blocking the pedals anymore. Was that the brake? No, it was the accelerator (another scream from the girls in the back). Okay, that was the brake. I practically had to stand to reach it, the seat was cranked up so high. But a slow, steady pressure did the trick, and in a few more seconds I’d lined us up beside the curb. I killed the engine, yanked out the key, and turned to Milo.
    “How is he?” I asked.
    Milo crouched beside the man, feeling for a pulse. “There’s no heartbeat,” he said.
    My dad had had a heart attack four years ago. He’d nearly died. “Do you know CPR?” I asked, and when Milo hesitated, I tilted the driver’s chin up and blew a couple of breaths into his mouth. “Start with that,” I said. Then I grabbed Milo’s hands and put them on the man’s chest, laying mine over them. “Now do this,” I said, showing him how far to press down. “Keep doing it for a count of thirty. Then do the breaths again.”
    I was afraid he’d