Karen stuffed a banana in her mouth and chewed rapidly. After swallowing, she called upstairs, “Bye, Mom!” Picking up her backpack, she headed out the door and down the street. Halfway to the bus stop, she met her friend Sally, who was struggling to keep her sweater zipped up. Sally’s zipper continually fell down until Karen finally grabbed it and yanked it all the way up to Sally’s chin, saying, “You need some new clothes, sister!”
Sally turned, folding her arms, and said in a mock angry voice, “How dare you even touch my zipper! I shall never speak to you again.”
Karen took out her phone and pressed record. “Dear Sally’s mom! Sally needs new clothes! Take her shopping and get her a sweater that zips!”
Karen giggled, and Sally soon could not keep the grin off of her face. “Come ooon. Let’s go. We’ll be late!” Karen whined impatiently, dragging Sally down the sidewalk, still holding the camera up with her free hand.
They were still goofing off in front of the camera when the bus pulled up ahead. Karen turned the camera toward it and said, “And there’s our bus. It’s always filthy and there are...”  Karen trailed off as she realized something was amiss. Soon she saw what it was. The bus had been going far too fast. The driver swerved to the left, then overcorrected, and the bus fell onto its side, scraping the pavement as it squealed to a stop. Karen dropped Sally’s hand and they both began running to the scene.
But before they had gone past more than two driveways, Sally threw out her arm and stopped Karen. Turning toward her, she whispered, “Wait! I don’t think we should go over there, Karen.” Karen looked at Sally as if she were crazy.
“Of course we should! They might need our help!” With that, Karen began running again, but Sally caught her arm and held her back. Karen was prepared to twist her arm out of Sally’s grip until she caught sight of the look on her face. Pale as a ghost, Sally stood stock-still, staring at the bus crash. Karen slowly turned toward where Sally was staring,
Out the emergency escape slipped five figures, dressed in black with masks on, acting in a very sneaky manner. Karen could feel her heart beating as her mind whirled. What was going on now? Sally, the more practical of the two, seemed to pull out of a trance, and dragged Karen into the yard they were passing. Hiding behind a neatly trimmed bush, Karen felt sick.
Her mind, which was still trying to process all the information that had been suddenly dumped on it, seemed to be working far worse than it had been that morning.
Karen finally cleared her mind and asked Sally, “What should we do?” She noticed Sally’s zipper sliding down and pulled it up again. Sally swatted her hand away and gave Karen a ‘duh!’ kind of look.
“We stay right here and don’t move!” Sally said angrily, and suddenly covered her mouth in horror as she realized how loud she’d been.
Abruptly, Karen stood up and peeked past the tall bush. Pulling her down again, Sally whispered, “What are you thinking? You could get us killed! We’re witnesses that they just crashed our school bus!”
“That’s why we’ve got to stop them!” Karen pulled Sally up and they peeked out from behind the wall. Before, these houses had always been intimidating, like someone would come out and yell, “Get off my property!” But now, it felt like there was no safer place in the world.
Karen held ut her phone, which was still recording, to videotape the black figures as they made their way down the street. Using her zoom, Karen managed to get them on tape until they turned the corner. “We need to find out where they’re going before it’s too late!” she exclaimed, and Sally reluctantly agreed.
“But please,” Sally begged, “Let’s make a plan before you go out and get yourself killed!”
“Fine.” Karen said impatiently, “But we need to hurry! We can plan while we run.” So they ran off down the street, Karen much faster, because Sally was using her breath explaining her plan to Karen (who wasn’t really listening most of the time, but got the general idea).
As they reached the corner, Karen halted expectantly, scanning the street. “Oh, no,” Karen breathed in disappointment, “they’re gone! We were too late.”
“Well, I suppose it’s all for the better.” Sally stated, obviously trying to hide her immense relief. “At least now we’re not in danger. Besides, our mothers are probably worried sick about us.”
“Our mothers still think we’re at school.” Karen reasoned.
“What if they heard about the crash?” Sally argued stubbornly. If there was one thing about Sally, it was that she was stubborn. And kind of a goody two-shoes.
“I’m not giving up.” Karen said determinedly, starting to look around. Now they were on a more deserted road, with only a few run-down buildings. Karen gasped as a black shape whipped around the corner of one and into a narrow alleyway.
Despite Sally’s pleas and protests, Karen dashed over to where the black-dressed people had disappeared. Reaching the alleyway, she stepped in and peeked around a curtain which led into the building she suspected they had gone into. What she saw took her breath away.
The building was huge, much bigger than it had looked from the outside. Before her were at least twenty vehicles, all half-painted or with no license plate. Karen cautiously held up her phone and videotaped the vehicles.
Karen’s phone dropped to the ground as she shrieked. A masked man had grabbed her wrist, trying to take the camera. But in a split second the man lay on the ground, groaning. There in the doorway was Sally, wielding a heavy car part that she had undoubtedly just swung at the man.
“Come on!” Sally yelled at Karen, who was gaping, open-mouthed at her. Grabbing the phone, Karen ran with Sally back toward the bus crash. They stopped to breathe, and then continued to Sally’s house, which was closer. Safety at last.
Two hours later, they were both sitting in the police station, taking turns explaining their side of the story. “Wow.” The officer said. “We sent some cars over there as soon as you guys called. Turns out this is the case we’ve been stuck on. Those five creeps are running a stolen vehicle business They were trying to nab your school bus!. You found the headquarters we haven’t been able to find with all our men on the job. Obviously, that was the thief’s first time driving a bus…” The officer chuckled, then said, “Great job, you guys. All of us here at the station sure appreciate it. We decided to give you a small $50 cash award.”
Grinning, Sally turned to Karen and said, “How should we spend it?”
Karen put on a thoughtful face and said, “How about a new sweater?”