“Here comes our bus, Jeremy,” Amanda said. “Last time this year. I like that.”

“Everybody likes that,” Michael said.

Jeremy grabbed his hand before getting on the bus with Amanda. “We'll message back and forth all the time.”

“Sure,” Michael said. “See you. So long, Amanda.”

“So long,” Amanda said. As she and Jeremy climbed into the bus, she added, in a low voice, “I didn't used to think much of Michael, but he's okay.”

“He is the best of men,” Jeremy said in neoLatin. His sister poked him in the ribs.

She sat down with a girl she knew. Jeremy sat in the seat right behind her. Somebody in the back of the bus sang out, “'No more stylus, no more…'” Jeremy stuck his fingers in his ears. The guy who'd sat down beside him laughed.

People called good-byes as their friends got off the bus. They waved through the windows. The ones who'd left waved back and then headed home. Some would go out to the alternates for the summer. Some would work here. Some would just take it easy till September. Lucky, Jeremy thought.

Jeremy and Amanda got out at their stop. He hurried up the street toward their house. “What's the rush?” Amanda called.

“Don't you want to finish packing so we can leave?” Jeremy asked. He wished they could have left weeks ago. Amanda didn't need to think very long. She caught up with him in three long strides. They went on together.

Amanda's stomach didn't have time to do more than lurch on the suborbital hop to Romania. Then weight returned, the sky went from black to blue once more, and down they came, outside of Bucharest. “Now for customs,” Jack Solters said. “That'll take longer than getting here did.”