The 4:12 was late, which was not unusual, and then it was very late, which was. Theo stood beneath the plastic shelter with his hood up, watching rain gather at the edge of the roof and fall in a thin, deliberate line. He had a test to study for, a brother to collect, and a sandwich in his bag that was slowly becoming part of his notebook.
At 4:40 an older man sat down on the bench and set a cloth bag between his shoes. 'It's the bridge,' he said, without being asked. 'They close it when the river gets high. Nothing crosses for an hour.'
Theo did the arithmetic he had been avoiding. If the bus came at 5:20 he would reach the school ten minutes after his brother was supposed to be picked up. If it came later, he would not reach the school at all before the doors were locked.
'You could walk the footbridge,' the man offered. 'Twenty minutes, but you'd be wet through.'
Theo had walked past the footbridge a hundred times and had never once crossed it. It went the wrong direction first, doubling back only after a long curve through the park, and something about a path that begins by taking you away from your destination had always struck him as untrustworthy.
He went anyway. The rain was steady rather than heavy, and the park smelled of soaked earth and cut grass. Halfway across the bridge he stopped and looked down at the river, which was brown and fast and carrying a branch the size of a door. He had lived in this town his entire life and had never seen the water look like that.
He reached the school at 5:05, fifteen minutes early, with wet shoes and a ruined sandwich. His brother came out at 5:20 and asked why he was smiling.
'The bus never came,' Theo said, which was true, and which did not explain anything at all.