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coffee and yanked the Kindle out of danger even as lukewarm coffee soaked his crotch.
    .
     
    Fifteen minutes later he was pacing the living room of Robbie Henderson’s apartment while Robbie—who’d been up when Wesley came hammering at the door but was still wearing the tee-shirt and basketball shorts he slept in—stared at the screen of the Kindle.
    “We have to call someone,” Wesley said. He was smacking a fist into an open palm, and hard enough to turn the skin red. “We have to call the police. No, wait! The arena! Call the Rupp and leave a message for her to call me, ASAP! No, that’s wrong! Too slow! I’ll call her now. That’s what—”
    “Relax, Mr. Smith—Wes, I mean.”
    “How can I relax? Don’t you see that thing? Are you blind ?”
    “No, but you still have to relax. Pardon the expression, but you’re losing your shit, and people can’t think productively when they’re doing that.”
    “But—”
    “Take a deep breath. And remind yourself that according to this, we’ve got almost sixty hours.”
    “Easy for you to say. Your girlfriend isn’t going to be on that bus when it starts back to—” Then he stopped, because that wasn’t so. Josie Quinn was on the team, and according to Robbie, he and Josie had a thing going on.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I saw the headline and freaked. I didn’t even pay for my breakfast, just ran up here. I know I look like I wet my pants, and I damn near did. Not with coffee, either. Thank God your roommates are gone.”
    “I’m pretty freaked, too,” Robbie admitted, and for a moment they studied the screen in silence. According to Wesley’s Kindle, Monday’s edition of The Echo was going to have a black border around the front page as well as a black headline on top of it. That headline read:
    COACH, 7 STUDENTS KILLED IN HORRIFIC BUS CRASH; 9 OTHERS CRITICAL
     
     
     
    The story itself really wasn’t a story at all, only an item. Even in his distress, Wesley knew why. The accident had happened—no, was going to happen—at just short of nine PM on Sunday night. Too late to report any details, although probably if they heated up Robbie’s computer and went to the Internet—
    What was he thinking? The Internet did not predict the future; only the pink Kindle did that.
    His hands were shaking too badly to enter November 24 th . He pushed the Kindle to Robbie. “You do it.”
    Robbie managed, though it took him two tries. The Echo ’s Tuesday story was more complete, but the headline was even worse:
    DEATH TOLL RISES TO 10
     
    TOWN AND COLLEGE MOURN
     
     
     
    “Is Josie—” Wesley began.
    “Yeah,” Robbie said. “Survives the crash, dies on Monday. Christ.”
    According to Antonia “Toni” Burrell, one of the Meerkat cheerleaders, and one of the lucky ones to survive Sunday night’s horrific bus-crash with only cuts and bruises, the celebration was still going on, the Bluegrass Trophy still being passed hand-to-hand. “We were singing ‘We Are the Champions’ for the twentieth time or so,’ she said from the hospital in Bowling Green, where most of the survivors were taken. “Coach turned around and yelled for us to keep it down, and that’s when it happened.”
    According to State Police Captain Moses Arden, the bus was traveling on Route 139, the Princeton Road, and was about two miles west of Cadiz when an SUV driven by Candy Rymer of Montgomery struck it. “Ms.Rymer was traveling at a high rate of speed west along Highway 80,” Captain Arden said, “and struck the bus at the intersection.”
    The bus-driver, Herbert Allison, 58, of Moore apparently saw Ms. Rymer’s vehicle at the last moment and tried to swerve. That swerve, coupled with the impact, drove the bus into the ditch, where it overturned and explodedc
     
    There was more, but neither of them wanted to read it.
    “Okay,” Robbie said. “Let’s think about this. First, can we be sure it’s true?”
    “Maybe not,” Wesley said. “But Robbieccan we afford to take the chance?”
    “No,” Robbie said. “No, I guess we can’t. Of course we can’t. But Wes, if we call the police, they won’t believe us. You know that.”
    “We’ll show them the Kindle! We’ll show them the story!” But even to himself, Wesley sounded deflated. “Okay, how about this. I’ll tell Ellen. Even if she won’t believe me, she might agree to hold the bus for fifteen minutes or so, or change the route this guy Allison’s planning to take.”
    Robbie