Schooled by Gordon Korman

the bus died as if someone had pulled the plug. Was Mr. Rodrigo having a heart attack?
    We were so frozen with shock, nobody noticed that the bus was moving , inching forward into oncoming traffic.
    “Hey!” Cap shoved me out of the way and hit the floor running. He leaped over Mr. Rodrigo’s still form and landed in the driver’s seat, stomping on the accelerator. With a roar of the big motor, the bus lurched through the intersection, missing a dump truck by inches.
    “Where’s the hospital?” Cap barked over his shoulder.
    We all sat there like dummies, scared out of our wits.
    “The hospital!” Cap repeated. “Now!”
    Suddenly, Naomi was sprinting up the aisle. “Turn here!”
    It took all Cap’s wingspan to move the huge steering wheel, swinging the bus into a tight right and speeding off down the street.
    I found my voice at last. “But, Cap—you can’t drive a bus!” Which was maybe the stupidest remark that could have been made. Because that’s exactly what he was doing.
    He shifted gears and we picked up speed. What a sight we must have been—a giant, speeding yellow school bus, weaving in and out of traffic, horn blasting.
    “Turn left!” bawled Naomi.
    Cap heaved on the wheel. The front tires bounced over a low concrete median, jostling passengers and rattling windows. A painful screech of metal on cement raked our ears as the chassis bottomed out. I thought we were hung up for sure, but the bus sprang forward and jolted back onto the road.
    I scrambled on all fours down the aisle, maneuvering around kids who had been tossed out of their seats. Mr. Rodrigo’s face was pale, but his chest was moving up and down. “He’s still breathing!” I called to Cap.
    All at once, the radio burst to life. “Base to forty-one,” crackled the dispatcher’s voice. “Come in, forty-one.”
    Cap looked at the set as if he’d never seen one in his life—which he probably hadn’t. I reached around him and took hold of the microphone. “Hello?”
    “Rodrigo, is that you? We just got a report that you’re way off course and driving erratically. What’s going on?”
    “Uh—Mr. Rodrigo can’t come to the phone—” I began.
    “Who is this?” the dispatcher demanded.
    “Hugh Winkleman.”
    “Who?”
    “A passenger! Mr. Rodrigo’s unconscious! We think he might be having a heart attack.”
    “Who’s driving the bus?”
    I hesitated. “Capricorn Anderson.”
    “Stop right there!” the voice ordered. “We’ll send an ambulance for the driver.”
    “No,” Cap told me.
    “But the dispatcher said—”
    “We have to get to the hospital,” he interrupted. “There’s no time to wait for an ambulance.”
    I spoke into the microphone. “He says no.”
    “He can’t say no!” the man exploded. “He’s endangering the lives of everybody on board!”
    Cap glanced at the radio in annoyance. “Does this have an off button? It’s very distracting.”
    “Uh—gotta go. Bye.” I cut power to the set. To Cap I wheezed, “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
    “Rain says you always know what you’re doing when you’re doing the right thing.”
    About sixty seconds later, we heard the sirens.
    Some kid in the last row made the identification. “Cops!”
    By the time I got back there, two police cruisers were on our tail, lights flashing.
    One of them activated the outside speaker. “Pull over to the side of the road!”
    “You better do it, Cap!” I called. “The cops are chasing us!”
    His expression was hidden behind all that hair, but he crouched lower over the wheel. It was a wordless statement—it would take an M1 tank to stop us now. I hoped this “Rain” was a reliable source. If Cap was just talking about wet weather, we were all up the creek without a paddle.
    As we barreled across town in the direction of the hospital, the line of police cars continued to grow until we were leading a parade of seven black-and-whites and at least a couple of unmarked vehicles. The