Driver's Ed by Caroline B. Cooney Page A

Friday turned into Saturday.
    No school in the morning; no world to face. He who had not even been able to face guesses about his crush on Remy. How would he face Driver’s Ed, where everybody had talked about taking signs? How would he face Lark, who knew which three had gone out sign-stealing when? How would he face Remy, who had been there?
    In Current Events, Morgan had been astonished to find half the kids never watched the news. He’d assumed the entire world curled up in front of the TV each night to see what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. But no. Plenty of people couldn’t care less. It was entirely possible that Remy did not know about Denise Thompson.
    Nickie would almost certainly not know. He had his own television and watched exclusively MTV, cartoons, and sports.
    Lark couldn’t actually know. But she could make a very good guess.
    And the class.
    They couldn’t know.
    But they could guess.
    Who had watched that broadcast?
    Who had written down the police number?
    Who was deciding whether to call? Christine, who thought it was wrong? Would she tell?
    The odds, Morgan told himself, are that everybody was at the movies, or a party, or playing Nintendo. Ifthey were watching TV, it was a talk show, not the news. If they watched the news, it was some other channel. Besides, a car accident. Happens all the time. People probably got up and got another piece of cake while Anne spent time over yet another traffic incident.
    Incident.
    A woman is dead, thought Morgan, and I who killed her am trying to call that an “incident.”
    D awn was sluggish and reluctant, the death of night instead of the birth of day. Remy left her bed, and stood barefoot and shivering in front of the window. Trees in the yard were thin and brittle without leaves. Already their autumn color had vanished, and only the deadness of coming winter remained.
    It was just a sign, Remy said to herself.
    Just a piece of wood on a post. That woman was probably a lousy driver anyhow. Maybe the road was slick. Maybe she was reaching down to the floor to get her coffee cup where she’d wedged it. Maybe she was singing along to the radio and not paying attention to the road anyhow. Maybe it was her own fault.
    Saturday passed.
    Remy stayed home with Henry while everybody else was out doing interesting things. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, when they were crawling backward down the stairs, which was his new thrill of the week, she thought: Denise Thompson’s little boy isn’t much older than this.
    She isn’t crawling backward down the stairs with her baby son. She’s dead. She’ll never see her little boy grow up.
    Remy began sobbing, first soundlessly and then withhuge bawling groans. She actually felt better from it, and cried more, and the hot acidic tears seemed to drain off some of the horror.
    Her little brother was stunned. He was the one who cried. Not his big sister! His world split open and he clung to Remy. His tiny clumsy hands patted her cheeks. “Me?” he said frantically. “Me?”
    It’s his first word, she thought, and it’s not
me
, it’s
Remy
. He’s saying my name.
    Bobby Thompson would be calling his Mommy today, trying to find her, looking for her in her usual places, raising his voice. Mommy. Where are you? Mommy would never answer.
    Oh, God! thought Remy. Why weren’t you there? Why didn’t you make me stop? Why didn’t you make Denise Thompson stop?
    His first word had gotten him nowhere. Her little brother began screaming with her, the center of his world caving in, until he didn’t even want Remy to hold him anymore, because it was too scary.
    S aturday passed.
    The accident was not on the news again. It was old already. Now Anne of the silver hair was distressed because a football coach had been caught selling drugs and a young housewife had masterminded a mail scam.
    Saturday had one use. Morgan had time to move