"All right, everyone off the bus." Coach Merdel clapped his hands and popped open the door. "Stay in your groups, follow the rules, don't make us look bad. Remember, if you need Ms. Mirkle or I, we're going to be near the entrance. Check in with your chaperone when you're told to. Get it? Got it? Good. Get out."

The doors to the bus opened with a distinctive hydraulic hiss and everyone clambered out, clutching drawstring bags and disposable water bottles and pre-purchased tickets to the park. The year was 2004 and students from Cape Hux High School were headed to the town's one amusement park: Huxbay, the place of legends.

Vicky McNamara and her friends had been looking forward to this for months. Lwo and Conner's parents paid for their tickets; Scotty and Vicky did work at the school to pay for theirs. Most of that "work" had been goofing off in the dumpster, but the admins didn't need to know that.

Vicky was excited. She hadn't been here in years, since the 1997 incident. Her mom had gone insane about the water on the boat rides and convinced herself she was having an allergic reaction. It was a mess. Vicky was glad to be back without her, and with four of her best friends.

Well, three was a more accurate number. The fourth was that girl from her geometry class-- whatever her name was. She had been lumped in with the four of them. It wasn't like they had much of a choice. Groups of five were the rule, and the girl from seat 2B was lacking in four other people.

To be honest, that was entirely her own fault. Even Vicky knew that. 2B was kind of annoying and a bit of abitch. She was a class clown wannabe, always cracking jokes that didn't quite land. And she could be funny, but it was always for the wrong reasons.

Vicky was willing to tolerate it, though, if it meant that she finally got to go to Huxbay like a normal goddamn person.

Vicky clambered off the bus, clutching her school-sponsored ticket wristband in one hand and her drawstring bag of lunch and what little cash she had saved up in the other. It was expensive to buy food in the park. Scotty told her that. His brother worked there over the summer last year and was able to get Scotty in for free a few times. He said that everything there was expensive. Connor and Leo didn't really seem to care all that much, inasmuch as paying for things went. Scotty and Vicky didn't really have that luxury, what with all his siblings and her mom's financial situation.

It was a bummer to talk about it unless it was just the two of them, though, so they didn't. Not unless they were walking home, down past the dance studio Vicky's cousin used to go to, along the train tracks that vivisected what used to be farmand and was now a never-ending construction site for a recreational center paid for by taxpayer dollars that neither of them would ever be able to go to. Paid for by the public, but locked in as something only those with some extra cash (fifty to a hundred dollars a month, depending on the size of your family) could afford. It wasn't a place for either of them. More likely, if they were to ever go there, they would bum membership off of someone they knew.

Today wasn't a day for thinking about that, though. Today was a day for fun. For rides. For forgetting the realities of her daily life and getting lost in near heat exhaustion with her three favorite jackasses in the world.

And the girl from seat 2B, but she didn't count.

Vicky got trapped in line with her, separate from Connor and Leo, who still had to buy their tickets, and Scotty, who just ended up in a different line. When she was standing behind 2B and didn't have to listen to her, Vicky had to admit that the other girl was a lot more pleasant. She was in the middle of taking off her dress code-appropriate cardigan and tying it around her admittedly-slender waist. Vicky felt a twinge of something, watching this girl tie the sleeves into a knot with nimble fingers and a soft smile. She wanted to convince herself it was jealousy, but, truth be told, she had no idea what it was.

The jealousy excuse was an easy one, anyway, even if Vicky knew it wasn't quite true. She was sure she was beautiful and desirable by the standards of her colonial ancestors, who needed strong, sturdy wives who could carry five children at a time, survive a famine and kill a redcoat with her bare hands. icky had no doubt that she, short and sturdy like all her ancestors before her, could do all of those things. But she wasn't pretty. Not TV pretty. Not magazine pretty. She felt like the "before" picture in a tabloid weight-loss ad, and she knew that there would never be an after. Not unless she leaned into it all the way and just accumulated so much muscle as possible, which is another issue entirely. Vicky was aware of the way other people perceived her and her body.

2B, though... She was pretty. Like, really pretty. So pretty it almost took the words out of Vicky's mouth when she realized just how pretty 2B really was.

And then 2B opened her mouth and the moment was over.

"So, what are you most excited to ride?" she asked, for once not telling some stupid joke. The threat was still there, though. Vicky was acutely aware of that.

"Uh... the Rapids."

Formally called Radioactive Rapids, the Rapids was one of those water rides Vicky's mother specifically didn't want her to go on. Vicky was absolutely going to, though. What Mama didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

"Why?" Vicky asked, half-demanding, partially apathetic and partially genuinely curious. The line moved forward again, like it had been this whole time. "What's-- What are you?"

"What am I looking forward to?"

"Old Reaper!"

"Why, you like roller coasters?"

"Yeah. I love the ones that spin you around and send you upside down and totally disorient you. Old Reaper is perf."

"You a fan of puking?"

"Nah. I do love the feeling of nausea sometimes, but it's the dizziness that really gets me. It's like being in love, but wilder somehow."

Vicky had no idea what to say to that. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? "I think you're reading way too much into your love for roller coasters. You can love something without linking it back to being in love. It's weird."

"Jealous because you've never been in love with something as much as I love Old Reaper, huh?"

"I've been in love," Vicky countered, a little too defensive.

"Oh, yeah? With who?"

"That's none of your business, 2B."

"Did you just call me-- Do you not know my name?"

"I know your name," Vicky lied. "I'm just choosing not to use it."

"Yeah, sure you do. Sure you do." The girl from 2B shook her head and turned back around to get her ticket checked by the park worker. "You're unbelievable, Vicky. Absolutely unbelievable."

"Yeah, I try to be," Vicky said, stepping up when 2B was through and it was her turn.

Eventually, all five members of the group were through the dingy green foam-padded metal turnstiles and standing by the water fountain near the entrance to the park. Leo had previously demanded that they meet there.

And it was time for this field trip to really begin.

*****

"So, where do we want to go first?" Vicky asked. She was reaching into her bag for her janky old waterproof watch, standing in a close, huddling circle with the four others.

"Rapids," Scotty blurted, like a man on death row demanding his last meal. His face was so red from some weird sort of restraint that he looked like he might explode. "The Rapids. I want to go to the Rapids."

"We can't go to the Rapids first. We'll get all wet and Leo will be miserable all day," Connor pointed out. "Why are you so red, Scott? You look like a goddamn tomato."

"The fuck is a tomato?" Scotty jested, and Connor laughed, like he always did.

"I actually have a plan to proceed through the park in a manner that will allow us to ride as many rides as possible," Leo said, lisping slightly through his still-kind-of-brand-new braces.

Vicky had to admit-- not to his face, of course-- that he wasn't as beautiful as he thought he was, especially not with the new metal gear in his mouth. There was a weird cognitive dissonance there, or whatever the term was that the doctor said when Vicky's mom got involved in that cult that one time. She thought that was the term the doctor had used, anyway. It was like Leo had this vision of himself-- perfect, chiseled from marble, undeniable, and undeniably handsome-- but he was really just kind of a dork who thought he dressed well. He also thought he was infallibly intelligent. He was not.

The itineraries he handed out proved the exact opposite of intelligence. Vicky looked it over and then looked back up at him, eyes squinting and brows furrowed. "The Rapids aren't on here at all. What's that about? Are we not doing Rapids?"

"No, we're not doing Rapids. We're not babies."

"OK, but... half of these are baby rides, Leo. I mean, the Caterpillar? That's not even a real coaster. The hell are you doing?"

"I wouldn't expect you to understand my genius in this plan," he said, looking away with one hand on his scandalized chest. "I'm clearly two steps ahead of you and that's why you don't understand what I'm doing.

Scotty balled up his itinerary and shoved it into a nearby trashcan through the plastic flap. "You set aside two hours for just sitting and trying to talk to girls. No way. You're not in charge, not today.

"Oh? Who's going to be in charge, then?" Leo sneered. "You? Please."

"Nobody needs to be in charge," Vicky pointed out, finding her tongue in all her flabbergasted glory.

"Yeah," Scotty agreed. "It's a field trip to a goddamn amusement park. We don't need a leader."

"We need a leader! Everything falls apart if we don't have a leader!" Leo looked like he was one second away from throwing a toddler-style temper-tantrum.

"I will not be led. I will not be governed at a goddamn amusement park."

"I can't believe I got stuck with you people." 2B muttered.

Leo looked over at her, red-faced and scandalized. "Oh, I'm sorry, peon, who asked you? You're lucky that you're even here."

"Yeah, none of us like you," Connor piped up, all candor for some indeterminable reason.

"That's fine, because I think you're all shitbags. It's all good. The feeling's mutual. Now, I couldn't help but notice that you also didn't put Old Reaper on the list?"

"No, I didn't. Roller coasters are un-sexy." Leo turned his nose up.

"He pukes on them," Vicky whispered, by way of explanation, feeling a distinct sense of disappointment. She wanted to go on the Rapids before the line got too long. It was going to be the longest around noon, and she wanted to get there long before then.

"Whatever, dude. You're already un-sexy. I'm going to Old Reaper. Tag along, don't, I don't give a shit." 2B folded her own itinerary in half and shoved it into the same trash can Scotty had used. Without waiting for anyone, she walked off in the direction of the biggest coaster in the park.

They all watched her go for a second, entirely dumbfounded. Leo's jaw was slacked, which was a rare enough occurrence that even Vicky picked up on it.

"Oh my god, she's a bitch," he whispered.

"She's right, though. We should be having fun." Scotty started walking backward the way the marching band kids did-- up on his toes, with his heels high in the air. "We have nothing to lose but our chains! The way I see it, that's you."

"Oh, fuck it," Vicky huffed. "I'm going, too.

She adjusted her bag on her back and, holding the watch she pulled out of it in one hand, practically ran after the two of them.

"Come on," Leo called out to them, over the sound of a doubled-over Connor laughing, braced on the edge of the stone fountain. "Don't quote Marx at me! Communists are un-American!"

"Yeah, whatever!" Vicky yelled back. "So are dictators! Viva la roller-coaster! Suck my dick!"

When it came down to it, Vicky knew that she didn't really care all that much about what Leo had to say. Normally, it was just easier to go along with whatever he said or he would throw some sort of hissy. She was going on those rides, though, and she was going to have fun. Maybe spending the day with the girl from 2B wouldn't be so bad after all. She found herself smiling as she caught up with her and Scotty.