Night Buddies and Evil School Bus #264

By Sands Hetherington

The iguanas are back to their stinky shenanigans. They’ve fitted out the flying school bus for real mischief and are marauding all over the Borough. They’ve really got it in for John and Crosley who must sniff out their evildoings before it’s too late! Will they succeed? Join the Night Buddies in their racing blimp for this exciting new adventure!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dune Buggy Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780984741779

Sands Hetherington

Sands Hetherington is a single dad, world traveler, and lifelong learner who turned his son's idea for a bedtime story into a 7-time award-winning children's book series. He enjoys writing, storytelling, and taking care of favorite 4-legged friends. Sands has an MFA in creative writing and an MA in English from UNC-Greensboro.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

J ohn Degraffenreidt! You get out of bed right now! You’ll be late for school!

I rolled over and blinked.

Right, Mom, an’ listen, I can explain about the bus——

"Explain what about what bus? Get up right now!——Why——What on earth is that all over your face?"

I sat up and she grabbed my head in both hands.

"And in your hair too! What have you done?"

It was the iguanas, Mom. An’ really, about the school bus out on the steps——

Out on——There isn’t any bus out on the steps!

Huh?

There’s no bus out there! Oh John, she moaned, letting go of my head, "how could you do this to yourself? Stay right there, let me run get something to clean your face."

She took off down the hall and came back with a bottle and some paper towels.

Sit up straight——!

She bit her lip and started rubbing this icy stuff all over my face.

"Oh, honestly, John——Close your eyes!"

"It was four of them, Mom. OW! On dirt bikes."

Hush. I don’t want to hear anymore about that.

She nodded over at the dresser while she wiped: You must think I don’t see that can of spray paint.

But————Sorry, Mom.

I’ll need to go out and get something for your hair later. Hurry up and get dressed.

Okay——So I ate breakfast real fast and took off out the door. And Mom sure was right. The school bus was long gone, and there was just this brown lizard loogie on one of the steps.

Somebody might slip. So I went and got the hose and washed the step off, and then ran to catch my regular school bus.

I sure wondered what happened to the one on the steps, but hey, that bad boy could do anything it wanted, including fly to the moon and back.

When I got home after school, I had to lean over the side of the bathtub and let Mom shampoo me with paint remover. It took her half an hour, and she fussed the whole time, and I had to keep quiet and take all the blame. Mom won’t believe anything about the iguanas, okay? And she for sure won’t believe they left a flying school bus on our front steps.

But hold on half a second. Before I go any further, you don’t want to hear about what I did the rest of the week, do you? In school and all?

Good. Me neither. But I bet you remember how tired I was after those back-to-back Programs last time? And how I told Crosley let’s take a break? Well, that part worked out great. Because I dropped straight off to sleep six nights in a row after that, and he had no cause to show up. Six nights, right? And then on the seventh, there I was, laying in bed again for the longest time with my eyes wide open. I was wondering about that bad bus and what it might be doing.

SURPRISE! barked the chain saw.

I grinned and clicked on the light: No surprise to it, Crosley. You always show up when I can’t sleep——Hey, wait, where are ya?

Oh, right, went the chain saw. I forgot about my I-ain’t-here doodad——

And then bingo! There Crosley stood grinning——the bright red crocodile in his bright yellow suit. He snapped the little glass doodad back onto his whatchamacallit bunch.

"Yerk! Yerk! I came in right through the front door. Had t’ get invisible for that, right?"

Keep your voice down, Cros. Mom an’ Dad are still up.

Like ya need t’ tell me. Didn’t I just sneak by ‘em downstairs?——Awright, though, I’ll quiet down. He plopped down in my chair with his back legs poking out.

I got out of bed and reached for my clothes: Okay, so what’s tonight’s Program? I pulled my pants and shirt on.

Crenwinkle ain’t said, buddy.

I was tying my orange shoelaces: How come?

"On account of he translated me straight over here when his KID CAN’T SLEEP MONITOR fired up. Never told me nothin’. Get the racin’ blimp out an’ we’ll fly over t’ his place an’ ask ‘im."

At the Zoo?

Last time I heard.

I went in my closet and unplugged the THRUST charger and handed Crosley the gym bag. I picked up the blob of brown plastic by the tie-down ring and got on his back, and we started down the hall for the stairs.

Here, Cros said, hold the time-spreader dingus.

When we got downstairs, he stuck the flat glass doodad back in his teeth, and just like that we were both invisible! I rode him to right outside the living room door.

Mom uncrossed her legs. Charlie, can we talk?

Uh-oh, said Dad. This sounds serious. He put down his magazine.

It’s his behavior, Charlie. She leaned forward: I keep worrying about it. It’s not just his wild imagination. What about that green paint he sprayed all over himself?

Yeah, Dad said. That was some hairdo he went to school with.

It was an awful job, Charlie. And the thing is, he won’t own up to it. Says it was those iguanas again, and there’s that school bus on the steps too.

I forgot to ask, Dad said. Did you get the bus number?

Mom got all red in the face: Charlie, can’t you be serious just for once?

Dad stretched and yawned: That was a week ago, Madge. Tell you what. If that school bus ever gets back on our steps, I promise to get really serious, okay?

Now! Cros whispered.

I pointed the little telescope-looking thing into the living room and pulled it open. And just like the other times, Mom and Dad froze up like statues! Mom was halfway out of her chair and looking like she meant to bust Dad a good one!

Me and Cros headed out the door onto the stoop. I got off him and brushed my backside.

Yeah, I know, he grinned. My back’s knotty, right?

I grinned back: When did ya figure that out?

"Yerk! Yerk! The last six times ya told me."

I gave him back the time-spreader dingus, and he snapped it onto his whatchamacallit bunch. The doodad too.

Then he stood up on his back feet and grabbed the gym bag, and I took the brown blob, and we went down to the ballpark at the end of the street.

Cros got the cable out of the gym bag and hooked it onto my tie-down ring, and I set the