During a torrential rainstorm, a school bus goes off the road and, with the driver unconscious, it is up to her passengers to try to rescue each other and go for help

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Cheaney's novel opens with a bus accident on a torrentially rainy night and the promise that one character will be famous by book's end; she then rewinds nine months with news of a robbery in the sleepy Hidden Acres subdivision. But these early tinges of suspense wind up being peripheral as the novel unfolds. Over nine months, Cheaney (My Friend the Enemy) follows the stories of nine characters, fourth through seventh graders, who ride Mrs. B's school bus, switching between characters each month