The Magic School Bus Takes a Smoke Break

The day had just begun, and Carlos strolled into class, last as usual. He took his seat next to Dorothy Ann, who crinkled her nose.

"Ew, Carlos, you smell like cigarettes."

Unfazed, the skater mocked her face of disgust. "Probably because I just smoked one."

"Before school? Gross!" Phoebe held her nose. "Don't you know how bad smoking is for you, Carlos?"

He rolled his eyes. "Of course I do. You think I haven't heard it since I started smoking? Since before I started smoking!"

"Then why do you keep doing it?" D.A. asked.

Carlos shrugged. "The nicotine is addictive. Once you start, it's crazy hard to quit. Besides, I like the buzz they give me."

"You get a buzz from cigarettes?" asked Tim. Pretty much the whole class was listening now, watching Carlos with curiosity.

He looked around in confusion. "Oh come on! Nobody else in here smokes?"

Almost everybody looked back at him blankly. Ralphie shrugged. "I mean, once or twice."

"Smoking is extremely unhealthy. Why would you do that to your lungs?" Phoebe wailed.

Carlos threw his hands up in self-defense. "I told you! It's just hard to quit!"

At that moment, Ms. Frizzle swept out of her closet, a bright green lizard perched on her shoulder. "Good morning, class!" she yodeled. Coming over to Carlos, she took a long sniff in his direction. "Hmm, Carlos, you seem to have a certain bouquet about you this morning!"

"It's hardly a bouquet, Ms. Frizzle. He smells like cigarettes, and cigarettes stink!"

"Thanks a lot, Dorothy Ann."

Ms. Frizzle chuckled. "Well, whatever you think of the smell, it's still a bouquet. Although in this case it's a bouquet of leaves, not flowers."

Phoebe frowned. "Huh?"

"Simple, Pheebs," Ralphie piped up. "Cigarettes are made from tobacco, which is a plant."

"Yeah," added Wanda, "The part of the cigarette you smoke is made of dried tobacco leaves."

"How can leaves be that bad for you?" Arnold wondered aloud.

Ms. Frizzle grinned, and the embroidered wisps of smoke that decorated the hem of her skirt seemed to swirl. "Now there's a burning question," she said, with a familiar twinkle in her eye.

Realizing what he had done, Arnold tried to backpedal. "No wait, I don't really want to know, I—"

"Knowledge is the key to everything, Arnold! To the bus! Two by two please!"

Seven of the eight teenagers hurried eagerly out of the classroom and into the familiar yellow bus, with Arnold straggling behind. It seemed as though the bus hadn't aged a day since the last time they had all filed into it, two by two.

Ms. Frizzle boarded last, and Liz hopped off of her shoulder and into the driver's seat. "Carlos, do you have your smokes with you?" their teacher asked.

Carlos patted his pocket. "Sure do, Ms. Frizzle!"

"Why don't you step outside and light up?"

Dorothy Ann stiffened indignantly. "Ms. Frizzle! Are you encouraging him to smoke during school?"

She grinned. "Unless someone else would like to smoke for science?"

Half of the class looked offended and half of the class giggled. Carlos hopped out of the bus and pulled his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Liz scampered out of the driver's seat and up onto Carlos's shoulder.

"Here you go, Carlos," Ms. Frizzle handed him a small device that looked like an iPhone. "This will allow you to see what we're seeing. And you can plug your headphones in to hear what we're saying."

Carlos took the gadget and plugged in his headphones, which stayed permanently around his neck. "Thanks, Ms. Frizzle!"

"Buckle up, class! It's time for a smoke break!" The bus doors squeaked shut, and with a whirl of the shrinkerscope, they vanished, leaving Carlos and Liz alone in the parking lot.

As Carlos stuck the cigarette in his mouth, a tiny helicopter circled his head. Liz pulled out a lighter, and as he took a long drag, the bus flew toward the glowing coal at the tip of the cigarette.

Inside the bus, Arnold gasped when he saw where they were headed. "Ms. Frizzle! You're flying us right into the burning part!"

"That's called the cherry, Arn," Ralphie informed him.

Ms. Frizzle laughed her approval. "That's right, Ralphie! And it's where the fun begins. Burning the leaves releases nicotine, which is the chemical in cigarettes that most strongly affects the human body."

As she spoke, she steered the tiny bus straight into the red-hot center of the cherry, just as Carlos took another long drag. Arnold squeezed his eyes shut, while the rest of the class looked on in terror. "Woooah!"

There was a bright light, a moment of heat, and then they were getting swept down Carlos's throat, along with a thick cloud of tobacco smoke. The class coughed.

"Oh bad, oh bad!" Keesha complained.

Dorothy Ann held her nose. "Ugh, and I thought it stank just sitting next to him!"

Ralphie, on the other hand, took a long breath in through the nose, held it for a second, and let it out. "Oh man, it's been a while since I got a whiff of that!"

"Ms. Frizzle, do you have gas masks or something we could use?" Phoebe asked, with both hands over her nose and mouth in a vain attempt to filter out the smoke.

Their teacher shrugged. "If you would rather not experience the thrill of nicotine for yourself, you may put one of these on!" She pressed a button, and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling. Almost everyone put theirs on in haste, but Ralphie and Wanda left theirs off.

Tim was staring out the window at the dark brown tissue around them. "Is this is windpipe?" he asked.

"It is indeed, Tim."

"All that brown stuff must be cigarette gunk."

"Tar, to be exact, Pheobe," Ms. Frizzle. "It's another result of the smoke."

"It also looks like the throat itself has been burned," said Wanda.

"Excellent observation, Wanda. The heat from the smoke is so intense, it actually burns the tissue of his throat and lungs."

The bus shrank smaller and smaller as they wove through the tight passages of the lungs.

"Gee, Carlos's lungs aren't nearly the same color yours were, Ms. Frizzle," Phoebe observed.

"What's all that brownish goop out there?"

"Mucus, Arnold!" Ms. Frizzle replied. "It's the body's first line of defense against foreign materials entering the lungs. Mucus lines the surface of the alveoli and catches the debris before it enters the bloodstream."

"Does the mucus in your nose do the same thing?"

"Dynamically deduced, Keesha!"

Wanda was still looking out the window. "The mucus isn't stopping all of the smoke, though. A lot of the nicotine is still getting into the bloodstream!"

"Follow that drug!" Ms. Frizzle announced, pulling a lever next to the steering wheel. The bus spun on the spot and transformed into a miniature submarine, which dove into Carlos's blood vessel.

"I haven't been in somebody's bloodstream in years," Tim commented.

"His blood is moving awfully fast," said Dorothy Ann.

"Excellent observation, D.A. Nicotine stimulates your body to produce adrenaline, which accelerates your heart rate."

"Which delivers even more nicotine through your blood to your brain every minute!" Phoebe cried.

"That's right, Phoebe!"

The bus shot through Carlos's veins with each surge of his heartbeat, and in no time at all, Ms. Frizzle pulled the bus out of the bloodstream and into the brain. She threw the bus in park and with a flick of a switch, provided each passenger with a specially-designed scuba suit for exploring the human body.

"Everyone out! It's time to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!"

"In Carlos's brain?" Arnold asked, reluctantly donning his scuba gear.

"I've always wanted to know what was going on his head!" Dorothy Ann joked.

Outside, Carlos took another long breath of his cigarette, and let it out slowly. "I tell ya Liz, Ms. Frizzle is even cooler now that we're grown up. Although I guess I never realized my own lungs were that gross." He closed his eyes and leaned against the brick wall of the school. "Woah, head change."

In his brain, the nicotine seemed to attach to certain nerves, and with the next few heartbeats, new substances started to arrive through the bloodstream and absorb into Carlos's brain.

"What are those other chemicals, Ms. Frizzle?" Phoebe asked, pointing.

"Is one of those adrenaline?" Keesha wondered aloud.

Ms. Frizzle giggled her approval. "Yes!"

"Where did it come from?" Arnold asked.

"According to my research, adrenaline is mostly produced by the adrenal gland," Dorothy Ann informed him.

"What's this other one?" Wanda waved her arm through the second substance, and suddenly a huge grin plastered itself across her face. "Oh, man…"

"That's dopamine, Wanda. The neurotransmitter that causes what we call a 'high.' Give it a try, class." Ms. Frizzle wandered into a stream of the chemical and smiled dreamily. "Waaa-hoo!"

Tim was the first to dive in. "Oh, wow. This is great!"

"Is this what Carlos feels every time he smokes?" Keesha wondered.

Ralphie, twirling in dizzy circles, replied, "It's only this strong the first few times you smoke, but yeah…"

"So you have to smoke more and more each time to get this high?" Even Dorothy Ann couldn't deny the appeal of the dopamine.

"Exactly! And when his dopamine levels return to normal, Carlos's brain will crave that high again. That's what makes cigarettes so addicting."

"You can hardly blame Carlos for wanting to get this kind of a buzz," Tim commented.

"We call it a 'head change' with cigarettes."

"Right you are, Ralphie," said Ms. Frizzle. "But it's time we headed back now. To the bus, everyone!"

"Do we have to? This is really fun!" Wanda chased down one more stream of dopamine and absorbed it with a shudder of delight.

"Come on, Wanda." Arnold took her hand and pulled her back towards the bus. Another hit of dopamine hit him on the way and his grip tightened on her hand as he tried to fight off the buzz that overtook both of them. Once the thrill had passed, Arnold continued to drag her behind him, up the stairs and into the bus.

Eventually everyone got their seatbelts fastened, and the doors closed.

Ms. Frizzle threw the bus in drive and headed into a vein, then through the heart and back to the lungs. As they made their way back through the mazes of alveoli, Dorothy Ann put a hand to her head and groaned.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want a cigarette."

"Just one dose of that dopamine is enough to get someone addicted, isn't it?" Tim asked.

"Right you are, Tim. There's enough nicotine in one tenth of a cigarette to form an addiction."

"So are we all going to be addicted to cigarettes now?" Phoebe asked.

"Of course not, Phoebe," Ms. Frizzle replied. "Human resolve is much stronger than a single cigarette."

"I tell you one thing," Keesha said. "I'm sure not going to be as hard on Carlos anymore."

"You're right," Dorothy Ann replied. "Me neither."

Finally, Carlos breathed out the last puff of smoke before putting out his cigarette, and the bus escaped with it. In a whirlwind, the bus returned to normal size, and the doors swung open. The kids piled out.

"Carlos!" Dorothy Ann rushed to him. "I'm sorry I said you stink."

The skater blushed. "Don't worry about it, D.A."

"We'll all support you and help you quit," Phoebe offered.

"Thanks, but I like smoking."

"Even though it's bad for you?" D.A. asked, looking concerned.

Carlos shrugged. "Yeah. Heck, I'm eighteen. I have no concept of my own mortality. I'll quit when I want to."

The class exchanged glances, and shrugged. He was right, of course.

Dorothy Ann was thinking hard. "Maybe there are other ways to get dopamine into your brain that doesn't involve nicotine?"

"Oh, there are lots of things that release dopamine into the brain," Ms. Frizzle replied. "Foods like chocolate and coffee, healthy amounts of exercise, even sex will stimulate dopamine production." She winked at D.A., who looked at Carlos, and both teens turned beet red.

"Maybe she can help him quit by boosting his dopamine production," Ralphie muttered to Tim under his breath.

Dorothy Ann heard him and indignantly took a breath to protest, but Carlos subtly slipped his hand into hers, and she froze. Her face reddened again and she just giggled.

"If you ask me, I'd say they're both pretty dopey-mine," Arnold joked.

"Arnold!" the class groaned, then they all broke into laughter.

All around the world, telephones were ringing.

"Is this the Magic School Bus?"

A tall man hurried into an office and picked up the ringing phone. "Hello, Magic School Bus, producer speaking."

"Hi," said the voice on the other end. "I just saw your show on cigarettes, and I've gotta say, that kind of material is not suitable for kids."

"That's why the kids aren't kids anymore. They're teens. Almost all of them are over eighteen, and Carlos buys his own cigarettes." The producer pulled a bottle of Febreeze out of a file cabinet. "Besides, there's no safer place for them to learn about being an adult and how life works than with Ms. Frizzle."

"I guess that's true. But seriously, is it really that easy to get addicted to cigarettes?"

"Absolutely." Stepping out of the school, the producer took his Febreeze out to the bus, and started spraying down the upholstery. "Any drug that releases dopamine, like tobacco or MDMA, are highly addictive. Just experimenting with them can cause addiction. Thanks for calling."

As he continued to clean the smell of tobacco smoke out of the bus, the phone rang again. "Hello, Magic School Bus, producer speaking."

"My grandpa told me that some people are more prone to smoking than other people."

"Your grandpa is right. Certain people don't produce as much dopamine on their own, so drugs have a stronger effect, and the kind of people who are typically called risk-takers have extra dopamine receptors in their brains."

"How do I know if I'm prone to addiction?" the caller asked.

"Well the best thing is to not get addicted to anything," joked the producer, going back inside. "But if you do form an addiction, get help. Quitting is tough, but it is possible, no matter how addicted you are. Thanks for calling."

Before he even put the phone down, there was another call and he answered once again. "Magic School Bus, producer." He put the Febreeze away and turned to the lizard that had just crawled through the door.

"Did Carlos and D.A. really hook up after that smoking show?"

Both the producer and Liz grinned and blushed. "Well, I don't know if they would like me to share that; I think you'll just have to keep watching to see if anything comes of it."

The voice on the other end chuckled. "I get it, I get it. I'll tune in next week."

"You do that. Thanks for calling." The producer hung up the phone and let out a breath. "What do you think, Liz? Wanna go have a smoke break?"

The lizard made a disgusted face at him, and the producer laughed.

"Good call. Let's do our lungs a favor and not smoke."

Liz nodded happily.