Chapter 1

1: 1

On the way back from summer trip, a tunnel caved in without warning, and the falling rock sealed our school bus in the middle of it.

The boy fostered with my family and I were sitting in the very last row.

Mom and Dad had been up in the front bus as volunteer chaperones, and the second it happened they rushed over.

The bus door had been crushed out of shape, and one by one the students up front climbed out through a broken window.

When it was our turn, a teacher fed a safety line in through the glass.

Mom shouted through the shattered window “Get Ryan Cobb out first!”

I buckled the safety line tight around him and pushed his dinosaur backpack into his arms.

After he was pulled out, I stayed where I was and waited for the line to come down a second time.

But the second rockfall punched through the roof, and the blast of air knocked the teacher flat and sealed off the only broken window.

All that was left inside the bus was me and a red distress beacon blinking on and off.

I held the button down hard, telling the people outside again and again that I still hadn't gotten out.

One of the rescue men asked Dad whether both of his children had been saved.

Dad looked at Ryan, cradled in Mom's arms, and nodded “They're both out.”

I pressed my ear to the cold wall of the bus and waited for him to call my name.

But all I heard was Mom asking Ryan if it hurt, then pushing Dad to get him to the hospital.

The moment the smoke rolled in.

I finally understood that when they lost me, they didn't even need to notice.

……

After they got me out of the tunnel, I slept two days in the hospital.

When I woke, there were monitor pads stuck to my chest, and my left foot was wrapped up like a fat white gourd.

Mom's voice came from outside the room.

“Ryan says the rocks come down every time he shuts his eyes. Doctor, please, check him over again. He's always been a timid boy.”

The doctor tried to reason with her.

“The boy has only a few scrapes, and his tests all came back normal. The one who really needs watching is your daughter. She inhaled smoke, and she has minor crush injuries.”

“Celine Fox's always been tough. When she wakes up she'll call for someone herself.”

Mom's footsteps never slowed, and her voice faded fast.

I lifted my hand and pressed the call button by the bed.

A nurse came in to change my dressings, and the moment she saw my eyes open she bent down.

“You're finally awake. Do you want some water?”

I nodded, then pointed at the bedside table.

The red distress beacon they'd carried out of the tunnel sat there, a crack split down its casing, my blood still on the button.

The nurse held the straw to my lips.

“You can't touch that one. The rescue team gave special instructions, it has to be kept safe.”

“Does it still light up?”

My throat felt packed with sand. Every word hurt.

“The light's broken. But maybe what's inside it isn't.”

The door swung open and Dad walked in carrying a bag of fruit.

He heard what the nurse said, his face went stiff for a second, and then he set the bag on the cabinet.

“What's the point of keeping a broken light around? Don't leave it in the room scaring the kids.”

Dad reached for it, and the nurse blocked him first.

“This is accident evidence. It can't be handed to family for now.”

“I'm her father. You think I'd hurt her?”

The nurse didn't move aside. She only said the rescue team would come to log it shortly.

Dad drew his hand back, sat down by the bed, and asked whether it still hurt.

I could see mangoes and kiwi in the fruit bag, all the things Ryan liked to eat.

“Celine, Dad wants to ask you something.”

His palm pressed down on the corner of the blanket, and his voice went very soft.

“On the way back, why did you go over to the other bus?”

“You told me to.”

“When did Dad ever tell you to?”

I froze.

Before we boarded, Ryan had clung to a tree crying and refused to move, saying he got carsick, that he wanted the back row, and that he wanted me with him.

Dad was busy helping the teacher count heads, and he only snapped a photo of the other bus's plate for me.

“Take Ryan over there, sit in the last row, and look after him the whole way.”

I remember that line clearly.

Because I'd been assigned to the other bus, in the seat right behind Mom.

I'd thought I'd get to sit with her on the way home.

“You said it in the parking lot.”

Dad tucked the blanket in around me.

“It was so loud out there, you probably heard it wrong. Dad said to look after Ryan. I never told you to switch buses.”

“But Ryan heard it too.”

“He's scared out of his wits. Don't go bothering him with all this again.”

Footsteps sounded outside the room, and Ryan came in hugging his dinosaur backpack.

Mom followed behind, carrying chicken soup she'd just bought.

I thought it was for me, and I was just starting to prop myself up when she set the soup down on the little table by the other bed.

“Ryan said he was worried about his sister and insisted on moving in here.”

Ryan dodged my eyes and hugged the dinosaur backpack tighter.

Mom stroked his head.

“Celine, you're the older one. In a little while, if someone asks about the buses, you just say you wanted to keep Ryan company and ran over on your own, all right?”

“Why?”

“The school miscounted heads, so of course they should answer for it. We have to make things clear, we can't let them push it onto the volunteer parents.”

I looked at Dad.

He took a written statement out of his pocket, already filled in, with a space for my signature at the bottom.

The first line said that I had switched buses on my own without permission.

Someone knocked twice at the door.

Steve Heath, in an orange rescue uniform, walked in, his eyes going first to the red distress beacon.

“Celine, I'm here to take something.”

He pulled on gloves and slid the beacon into a clear evidence bag.

Dad stood up at once.

“The child's already been found. What do you still want that for?”

Steve sealed the bag shut.

“This isn't an ordinary light. Every call for help pressed into it gets saved inside the unit first.”

The written statement in Dad's hand slowly creased into a white line.