Mrs. Stogbuchner walked around the room for a while, then she went over and stood in the doorway, looking down the hall. Soon she said, "Put your things away now. If you brought raincoats, or have anything else to take home, get it, then line up."
Baartock hadn't brought a raincoat, but he went to his cubby to get the fire drill and his lunchbag. He decided to take his pencil box home, too.
The class was all lined up, waiting for the bell. Mrs. Stogbuchner said, "If it keeps raining like this, watch the news on TV to see if we're having school tomorrow." Then the bell did ring, and they were all hurrying to get to the school busses.
"See you," called Jason, as they went down the hall. They got to the front door and the wind was blowing the rain right in at them. The floor was wet and someone had put down rubber mats so they wouldn't slip or fall.
When they went outside, everybody ran to the busses. Baartock was soaked as he got on Mr. Barnes's bus, from just that short run. There were lights on the front of each bus, and there were sticks wiping back and forth to get the rain off the front windows. But Mr. Barnes still drove very slowly to the high school. He wasn't talking all the time, this afternoon.
When Baartock got off the bus, he ran to his path to get home. The creekbed was filled with water rushing and splashing down hill. There was a lot of water going through the culvert. Baartock hurried up the hill, next to the stream. He wanted to see what it was like at his bridge.
Chapter 15
It had rained all the rest of the day. Baartock had a great time up at his bridge. The water was racing under the bridge, making a wonderful gurgling sound. It made hiding under the arch like being in one of the stories his father told. The only thing missing was someone walking over the bridge. He would come out from under the bridge screaming his loudest and run up the side of the stream bed. He could just see them running away.
Right then it really didn't matter that there wasn't anyone crossing his bridge. Baartock now knew so many humans and so much about them, that was easy to pretend who was walking up to cross the bridge. There was Mr. Fennis, of course. He had run away so wonderfully. Then there was Ms. Laurence. Baartock could scare her easily. He didn't pretend to scare Mrs. Jackson or Mrs. Stogbuchner. Somehow they didn't seem like people to scare. But that girl in his
class, Janice, Baartock scared her again and again. And some of the other children in the class. They were all so easy to scare. He was having a great time.