Had Junie Calloway glanced to her right when she came to the fork in the road, she would have seen what appeared to be a highly exasperated thundercloud-in-miniature rampaging up Main Street. 

 

Junie, however, did not glance right. She did not glance left either, on account of the fact that she was too busy staring straight upward to be much bothered with right or left. There, drifting across the broad blue expanse, was a particularly shapely cumulonimbus cloud. This cloud very much would have reminded Junie of a fire-breathing unicorn if such a creature did, in fact, exist, which of course it didn’t. 

 

Within a few moments, however, the unicorn had dissipated into another shape, this one vaguely resembling an unusually tall platypus, and Junie was reminded of the business at hand. Namely, the very serious business of running away. 

 

Junie hitched her backpack higher onto her shoulder, and leaned down to pick up the guitar case which had been twitching and thumping in mild disdain at finding itself placed, somewhat unceremoniously, upon a pedestrian sidewalk. 

 

Junie gave the case a little shake, saying, “Get used to it, Wampus. Where we’re going, you’re going to be sitting on plenty more sidewalks.” Her words were rewarded with muffled clucks of disgruntlement, but Junie paid no more mind to Wampus. Her attention was now on something else entirely. 

 

The Number 56 Knashville City bus was lumbering toward her, its tailpipe belching out a haze of purple exhaust and its brakes squealing like a chorus of banshees. The bus growled to a stop, and over the deep rumbling of the engine, Junie was suddenly aware of the faint sound of yelling. The yelling, louder now, was coming from down the street. It was coming, sure enough, from the direction she’d just walked. 

​

“JUUUUUNIIIEEEEEEE!!!”

​

Junie would know that holler anywhere.

 

“Dadgummit,” she hissed, then, at the sight of the small bespectacled boy who had just stumbled out of the mouth of a nearby alley, Junie bellowed, “Arlo Calhoun, you get out of here! Just go on back home!” 

 

Arlo, wide-eyed and mouth ajar, took in the sight of his favorite and only cousin standing at the bus stop with a bulging backpack and the case of their grandaddy’s Wampuswood Picker clasped firmly in her hand. 

 

It was all too much for Arlo. Everybody already said he was a crybaby anyway, so he went right ahead and burst into tears. 

 

At that moment, the bus door levered open with a rasping creak of hinges, and Junie found herself staring up into the dark interior of the bus like the gaping maw of a hungry beast.