Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own any of the characters from the Sky High movie, but I do own Eve, Beck, Kyle, and their dad. And any other characters I think of later.

Chapter 2: Avoiding Confrontation

The bus doors swung open and a portly guy with an orange-and-white hat greeted us cheerfully, "You must be new! Hurry up; we don't have all day!"

"Is this the bus to Sk—mmph!"

The driver clamped a hand over Beck's mouth, cutting her off as he hissed, "Do you want every super-villain in the neighbourhood to know we're here?"

Beck indignantly pulled away, and after collecting herself she flounced off to find a seat by some girl that was dressed a lot like her. Already making friends, how nice.

Kyle just nodded a greeting to the driver and continued on to slide into the closest available seat, to which the girl he sat beside no objection. She giggled and started introducing herself immediately, assuming that he sat there because of her.

I got to the top of the steps before the doors closed on me and glanced at the driver's nametag, saying, "Sup, Ron?"

He squinted at me and said, "The name's Ron Wilson: Bus Driver. What's your name, freshman?"

He was annoying me a bit now, so I replied sarcastically, "Well, 'Ron Wilson: Bus Driver', I am not a freshman, I'm a sophomore. And it's Eve. Evelyn Grey."

I knew a split-second later that I shouldn't have said my last name and wished the words would fly back into my mouth. No such luck. Ron's face paled and I knew the damage was done. Before he could say anything I turned and stalked down the aisle. Fortunately, the people who were close enough to hear didn't appear to have been paying attention. Just to be safe, I picked the farthest seat away from the front to sit in. As I looked at the back seats surrounding me, I realized that maybe sitting there hadn't been my best idea of the day. Actually, I'd just had a string of stupid ideas so far, starting with getting out of bed.

I was in the second seat from the back on the right, and directly behind me were two mean-looking characters. I couldn't see their faces very well because they were leaned in, having a conversation with each other. One was a fat guy wearing a black and white hat, a sports jacket thing, and an evil grin on his face. The other was a tall guy with long brown hair that almost hid his eyebrows, an identical evil grin, a black shirt with the number twenty-three on it, and…really ridiculous black-and-white striped sleeves. I almost laughed, but they were obviously bullies, so I refrained from doing yet another stupid thing. They hadn't noticed me sit there because they were too preoccupied plotting with their heads together, the odd chuckle escaping as they planned God knows what.

In the back seat on the left was yet another mean-looking guy. Tall, dark, and scary would be a very good way to describe this guy; with his shoulder-length black hair complete with a red streak, black leather jacket, and a deep scowl to perfect the image. It all screamed badass, and since this was a school for kids with super powers, crossing any one of these guys could be a very, very dumb move.

The guy in black noticed my glance, and directed a dark glare at me. I just rolled my eyes and returned to my bagel, completely unfazed. Then, I mentally smacked myself in the forehead as his scowl deepened. After what I just said about not crossing these guys, I'd went and done it anyway. I'm an idiot.

In order to avoid any more confrontation, I took out my headphones and proceeded to listen to Linkin Park and eat the rest of my breakfast. Just as I licked the last crumbs off my fingers and pulled out my drawing book; hoping to make a few sketches of some of the people I'd seen on the bus, seat belts came out of the seats. Abruptly the bus was in mid-air, plummeting to the ground. Before I got over my initial shock, the bus sprouted wings and jets-engines.

The bus took off fast and did a loop, which any other time I would have enjoyed—free entertainment—but in this case, the sudden movement caused my drawing book to go flying backwards. Oh no. I followed it with my eyes as it arced overhead, the pages fluttering. Time seemed to slow as the book smacked right into the face of that stripe-sleeved kid behind me. The book slid down onto the floor as the bus levelled off, revealing a very pissed-off stripe guy. His eyes were wide with outrage, and there was a bright red mark from the middle of his forehead to the tip of nose where the book hit him. Again, I resisted the urge to laugh, which wasn't so hard this time because my heart was still up in my throat.

I found myself wondering if he would hit a girl, or use some super power to fry me to a crisp. So much for avoiding confrontation. Both the guys behind me were focusing evil glares at me, and the stripe guy said something. However, I couldn't hear anything over the screaming from everyone else on the bus. It's odd how I could notice the unimportant details in that situation, but I did. For one, I noticed that the stripe guy was actually pretty good-looking. Also, out of the corner of my eye I saw that the guy in black wasn't screaming like everyone else on the bus. He was actually watching this mishap unfold with some interest, though I could barely tell because his hair hid most of his face.

My attention was focused on the stripe guy, watching to make sure he didn't try to kill me. My drawing book slid to the front as the bus dipped forward. Next thing I knew, the bus was parked and people were getting off. I kept my eyes on stripe guy and his friend as they got up, but they appeared to have forgotten about me and were leaving. Then I watched to make sure that guy in black left too. After all, he could be their friend. Once everyone was off the bus, I jumped out of my seat and tried to find my drawing book on the ground. It was gone.

I ran off the bus to catch up with the group; someone had my drawing book, and I was going to get it back even if I had to face super powers. I really don't like people seeing my drawings. I was turning on my heel scanning the crowd when a short black kid wearing glasses and an orange shirt came up to me. With him was a tall white kid with bleach-blonde hair wearing painfully bright yellow and white, and the tall kid had my book.

"Hey, I'm Zach, and this is Ethan! Is this your book?" he asked.

I heaved a sigh of relief and answered, "Yeah, that is my book, and if you'd just give it back now I'd be very grateful."

Zach was happy to oblige, so I thanked them and was just walking off with my drawing book in hand when suddenly it was yanked out of my grasp. I turned around to find that stripe guy and his friend hadn't forgotten me after all, and were standing about two metres away. Stripe guy's arm was returning to normal, but it was still a metre long. In his hand was my drawing book. So his power is super-stretchiness. At least he can't burn me to a crisp like I'd feared. My name for him mentally changed from stripe guy to Stretch. They were both grinning evilly at me as they examined the book.

"Well, Speed, what do we have here? Some little freshman's notebook? I wonder what's inside," Stretch mused wickedly.

I realized that asking nicely wasn't going to work with these guys. I had to come up with a better plan to get my beloved drawing book back. I put my hands on my hips and assumed a look that said 'I'm becoming annoyed with you tiny mortals.'

"Listen up, you idiots," I ordered, menacingly calm, "You have three seconds to return my book to me or bad things are going to happen to you in four."

"Yeah right! What're you gonna do?" Stretch laughed.

"Can either of you fly?" I asked coolly.

Their laughter died out and they looked at each other uneasily before hesitantly answering, "No…why?"

I rolled my eyes skyward and, in the tone of mock-enthusiasm you'd use to talk to a child, I replied, "Well! Then it might be in your best interests to give me my book back before I drop you off the edge of the school and see if you miraculously sprout wings in however many seconds it takes you hit the ground. How does that sound? One!"

Now they were worried. Stretch tried to laugh again, but it came out as a weak giggle.

"You can't do that. Speed here could run circles around you," he said, trying to sound confident.

I gave them a patronizing smile and said, still calm, "However fast your chubby little friend there can run, I assure you that time will be going so slow it will be like he's trying to swim in a vat of molasses, and like you said, he can't fly. Two!"

They still didn't move. I shrugged, took a step forward, and started to raise my hands, "Thr—"

Before I could finish, they panicked and threw the drawing book at my feet, taking off towards the school. I smiled to myself, calmly picking my book up and dusting it off before carefully putting it back in my bag. Inside, my heart was pounding so fast I thought it might break out of my rib cage. Man, I'm such a good actress.

The crowd that had surrounded me while all that was happening parted quickly to give me a clear path as I strode forward to get my first look at the school.