"Ralph?"

"Hmm? I mean, what is it Ms. Wyler?"

"Ralph it's okay. Call me Audrey. But you really don't need to let Ellie be getting that Gulf shrimp for breakfast. We're nowhere near the Gulf."

Ralph Carver slopped another spoonful of gravy onto his biscuits at the motel breakfast bar. "I really don't think it'll matter. They grow those shrimp right around here, in ponds, see? There's really not any reason not to let her get them."

Audrey sighed in hopelessness and went to sit down next to Professor Marinville. "Good morning Johnny. That fool Carver is really getting on my nerves, what with those twins."

"And why did he bring little David along too?" Johnny was gnawing at a rubbery egg. "Funny," he said to Audrey. "This looked real."

Audrey barked a bit of laughter and had a bite of her apple, the only breakfast she was having. Nice fellow, that one, she thought.

Johnny looked up at her from his breakfast. "But that man is really getting on my nerves," he breathed through his greying goatee. "He kept me up with his gawddamned snoring all night."

Audrey looked a little reproachful at him for using the Lord's name in vain, but she could sympathize. "Yes, I had trouble getting to sleep last night as well. One of the kids was talkin up a storm last night and I was gonna go give him a stern talkin too, and what happens then?"

Johnny shrugged, trying to swallow another piece of fried egg.

"I fall asleep. That really shows these children discipline on the most important trip of their lives."

Johnny just shrugged again and reached for his cranberry juice.

Audrey finished her apple in silence. "These kids," she said finally. "I don't know what I'm gonna do with them. And that little Seth? Ooh, he's a baddun. I don't know why-Bill and June were always so nice. And their other children-they're good kids. Why's Seth, the one I've gotta look after, gotta be the baddun? Hmm?"

Johnny shrugged yet again. He was wiping his plate clean of the grits. Audrey sighed. Maybe not that nice...

She stood and called out to the children, "Okay, we go to the bus in fifteen minutes. Get your bags and let's vamoose!"

The children and Ralph Carver groaned. This again. Well, at least they were used to hurrying now; they had packed early, before breakfast this time.

Seth Garin poked Mary Jackson in the small of the back.

Mary looked back at him sharply, taking her gaze off her precious Gameboy. "Quit it, you perv."

"No, Mary, I wanted to ask you. Did you hear anything last night? Like a kid talking?"

"Well, actually, I did. And guess which room it was coming from? Yours! So, I should've gone to Ms. Wyler." She turned back to her Gameboy and groaned, seeing she had lost a life while turned around to converse with Seth. "You idiot!" Mary restarted the game. The humming of the bus lulled her back into her regular sullen mood.

After a moment of silence, Seth asked her, "Well, why didn't you?"

Mary carefully paused her game and turned around again. She was startled by what she saw, a scared boy looking for companionship. And this was in his eyes. Seth was a good actor when he needed to be, but not this good. She moved back to sit with him and received a "You sit down, Mary Jackson!" from Ms. Wyler.

"Seth? What's wrong?"

"Just... why didn't you tell?"

Mary was uncomfortable. "Well, I-I guess-I dunno, I fell asleep. You know. It happens."

Seth nodded and became silent.

Mary watched him for a while and then went back to her game. He wasn't that important. Or that cute... did she just think that? Mary blushed and became absorbed in her game. She would never think that again.

"Give it back, I had it fiwst!" It seemed the Carvers were the only people on the bus that had gotten any sleep. Brad Josephson was out like a light, and Cary Ripton was fast following his example. Cynthia Smith, the older teenager, a child of obscure background who'd wanted to be confirmed into the Episcopalian faith, was listening to her Walkman, seemingly well-rested, but with very dark circles under her eyes that no amount of makeup was able to cover up.

"Now David, let your sister play with it. It is her turn you know."

"But Daddy!"

Ralph Carver could not resist his youngest son's puppy-dog eyes, and David knew it and used it to every advantage. "Well... okay, but you have to give it to your sisters in five minutes.

"Daddy! You can't do anything in five minutes! You have to play fow at least ten bazillion!"

Ralph grinned and ruffled his son's hair. "Fine. Ten, then."

David grinned and stuck his tongue out at his sisters. Ellie stuck her tongue back out at him, but Pie just lowered her face. David always won the arguments. It wasn't that he was a bad kid. Most of the time, he was a very lovable brother. However, when something doesn't go his way, he could be a real pain in the-

"Ask me if you need anything," said Ralph before taking his cassette player down and putting the buds in his ears. He put on his hypnosis tapes. A secret ambition, a rather silly one, but one that might eventually come to some use in Ralph's eyes, was to become a pro at self and other hypnosis. He'd read about it one day on the internet and had been hooked ever since.

Pie waited until her father's eyes drifted closed before saying, "David, you shouldn't have done that. You really shouldn't've. It wasn't right-Dad specifically said you could only play for fifteen minutes, and you asked him for more. Haven't you learned anything from Ms. Wyler's talks?"

"I wasn't lissening, they wewe fow you. I didn't have to lissen."

"Yeah?" asked Ellie. "Well, pay more attention next time. You might just learn something important like SHARING for example."

David just shrugged in a very businesslike manner and went on playing his Gameboy.

Belinda Josephson, sitting next to her son, yawned widely and fell off the seat. She got back up in a stupor, muttering, "Oh great, one more thing to show the youth about the black man, now he's clumsy..."

David giggled.

"And respect, too," Ellie continued.

David shrugged again. I think he picked that up from Mr. Marinville, thought Pie.

Speaking of Mr. Marinville, he was sitting, very much awake, in the front of the bus, next to Ms. Audrey Wyler, who had dozed off while listening to her iPod. Johnny could hear the music blaring through the speakers, and recognized it from the University radio show: "Stupid Girl", by Cold. He only remembered one line of lyrics from the song: "I'm a bad one, /I'm a good one,/ I'm a sick one/ With a smile." Not particularly artistic to Johnny, but this coming from a man who had written a book about homosexual rape shouldn't be definitive. For all he knew, it was the most artistic thing ever.

He hummed those lines to himself under his breath, so as not to wake Audrey. As is, of course, she could be awakened with that music of hers blocking out any outside sound. "Dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadedaa"

Evidently, it was not too quiet, because the bus driver heard it and said, "Whatcha hummin back there?"

"Just a song," replied Johnny. "Hey-" he paused to look at the sign above the driver's head (Your bus pilot's name is STEVEN AMES), "-Steve, when are we gonna be stoppin off? I gotta piss like a racehorse."

"Yeah, me too," Steve replied. "I think I might be stopping off there," he said, pointing to a sign that said, "Desperation, 4 miles/ Reno, 87 miles."

Johnny wryly said, "Desperation, I hope."

Steve laughed and said, "Yep. That's the place. I think I might have passed it on a tour I made out here some time ago. Nice little place from what I remember. Funny name, huh?"

Johnny made a noncommittal sound in his throat and turned his attention out the front window. Desperation... a strong feeling of dŽjˆ vu swept over him. He chuckled a little to ease his tension and hummed to himself, "Dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadadaadaa, dadedaa..."