Chapter 1: How it all started

As a boy, and later a young man, in a time before cell phones, paramedics, CPR, personal computers, and ever-present video cameras, I survived a very strange period in my life. Weird things can happen to anyone and I'm no exception. But to have a number of coincidental incidents happen to you in a sequence over a number of years ... well ... a bunch of people, my friends and parents, began to think of it as more than a coincidence. It began when I was nine years old on April 10^th, 1969, at 12:45pm in a school yard in a community near Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada. It was lunch hour and my pals and I were out playing a game of pick-up softball. Hell, it was early spring and the sun was out and we were determined to be outdoors. Anyway, I was playing right field, seeing as how I was considered a "feeb" by my fellow players. I could catch, but my throwing arm was weak and my batting was weaker. The only safe place for me then, was right field.

One of the batters hit a long fly ball my way and I was pretty sure it was going to go foul, but I chased it because I might be able to make an out; assuming I could catch it, of course. Right alongside the field was a road. Not a really busy road, but there were cars going back a forth now and then. As I chased the ball, I heard a voice call out "I'll get it." It sounded like a girl's voice, so I took my eye off the ball to see who was calling.

It was a girl, alright, but to my horror, she was drifting out onto the street and I could see a car coming right at her. I put on a burst of speed and got to her a couple of seconds before the car did and grabbing her arm, I yanked her back out of the vehicle's path. My reward for that was one angry young girl.

"What did you do that for?" she snapped when I helped her up to her feet.

"That car was coming right at you. It was probably going to hit you. Didn't you see it?"

"You're making that up," she snarled as a couple of her friends gathered around her.

"He saved your life, Kelsey," one of them said. "He saved your life," the girl repeated, wide-eyed.

I wasn't sure Kelsey whoever was buying that, but I wasn't really worried about it. The incident was over and I walked back and took up my position in the outfield. The first baseman had safely retrieved the ball from across the street.

"Nice going 'Soup," my pal Chug said, slapping me on the back. "Just like Superman swoops down and saves Lois Lane. That car was going to run her over for sure. Some little old lady who could hardly see over the dashboard was driving it. She never stopped ... she never even slowed down. She had no clue what happened."

"Really?" I said in surprise. "I really did save her?"

"Yeah. Like I said, just like Superman," he grinned, smacking me again, this time on the shoulder.

I felt pretty good about that. I felt real good about that, in fact. Maybe that girl Kelsey didn't realize it, but my guys did. Hell, they were the only ones that counted anyway. We only had time for one more batter before the bell rang and we had to go back into the school and head for our classrooms.

When I got to the door where all the kids were filing in, I saw Mrs. Usher standing there, and she had her eyes on me. Oh Oh! Was I in trouble?

"I saw what you did, Ian," she said as she took me aside. "That was very brave of you. You probably saved Kelsey from being badly injured, or possibly worse. You should be very proud of yourself, acting as quickly as you did. I'm sure Kelsey is very grateful."

"Uhhm ... well ... maybe not. I think I hurt her arm, and she fell on her bum when I dragged her off the street. She was pretty mad at me."

"I understand. Don't worry, Ian, I'll talk to her and let her know just how brave you were. I'm sure she'll feel better about what you did," she smiled.

"Thanks, Mrs. Usher. I'm glad I was able to help her."

"I'm pretty sure that was dear old Mrs. McGonagall driving that car," she said, thoughtfully. "I think it's time she turned in her license. I don't think she even knew how close she came to causing a tragic accident. I'll call her and let her know what I saw. In the meantime, you skedaddle to your homeroom or you'll be late," she smiled again.

"Okay. Thanks, Mrs. Usher," I said as I ran up the stairs and down the hallway to my home room.

"What did old lady Usher want with you?" Chug asked.

"Uhhm ... she wanted to thank me for saving that girl, Kelsey. She saw the whole thing. She said I probably saved her life."

"Oh yeah, for sure, Soup. So, she saw what you did, huh? You'll be famous now." He managed to smack me on the shoulder again, and it wasn't a light smack.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wrestling with math and English literature. I hated poetry, mostly because I could never understand what the writer was saying. Why do they make you read poetry in grade four? Cripes, some of these people died two hundred years ago. Anyhow, it was over and I headed out the front door to catch the school bus. When I got to the bottom of the steps, who should be waiting for me but Kelsey what's-her-face. Oh great.

"Hi, Ian," she greeted me in a nice, friendly voice.

"Uhhm, hi Kelsey."

"I want to thank you for saving me. Mrs. Usher told me that you stopped me from getting killed. You were very brave. I'm sorry I didn't thank you when you did that."

"I'm sorry I hurt your arm and made you fall, Kelsey. I wasn't thinking, just grabbing you and pulling you away from the road."

"I know. I'm not hurt. I was just surprised. I didn't see the car until after it passed me. You did a very brave thing," she smiled ... and then she did the worst possible thing. She stepped toward me and kissed me on the lips. Yuck!

She smiled and giggled and ran off to be with her friends, who were also giggling in their little girl voices. Oh man, I'll never live this down. Kissed by a girl on the front steps of the school in front of everyone. Yuck and double yuck!

Of course, what happened at noon hour and afterwards was the talk of all the kids on the bus, younger and older. The guys all thought it was pretty cool, while the girls said they wished they had someone as brave as me to save them if they were in danger. All in all, I was beginning to realize this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. On the other hand, a bunch of the guys and some of the girls were teasing me about Kelsey's kiss. I knew that was coming.

I guess I should introduce myself. I'm Ian Dunlop and I'm nine years old, in grade four at Alexander Mackenzie Elementary School. Every one of my pals had a nickname. Mine is "Soup," mainly because I have soup every day at lunch. No exceptions. I love soup; every kind of soup. So, that's how I got the nickname. My dad is Richard Dunlop, but everyone calls him Rick. Mom is Naomi Dunlop. I don't know the first names of my grandparents. I just call them Grandma, Grampa, Nana and Grandad.

Now "Chug" is really Charles Tanner, but we call him Chug because he drinks his milk or his pop in one go ... non-stop. I think his dad gave him the nickname. He's my best pal. He says he wants to be in the Navy when he grows up. He wants to see the world and he's worked out that the Navy is the cheapest way to do that. I'm not so sure what I want to do yet. Dad says there's no rush, so I'll just wait a while and see what comes up. It sure isn't going to be anything to do with poetry.

By the end of the week, two things happened. First, pretty much everyone knew what had happened Tuesday noon hour, and I got a lot of attaboys and nice-goin's from the old guys. That was cool. Most of the time, they ignore us or give us dweebs a hard time. A week later, it was pretty much forgotten except for Kelsey, who always said "Hi" when I passed her in the hallway or outside. I kind of got used to it. I found out her last name was Barnes, and right away I knew her brother must be Kyle, in grade six. He was one of the guys who came up to me and congratulated me for saving Kelsey. It's good to have older friends.

I pretty much forgot about that incident. I never did think of it as being something special. Just a lucky thing I was in the right place at the right time. Someone told my parents about it and they made a big fuss about it, but my sister Danielle didn't think it was anything special. She's in grade seven in junior high, so she's a lot older than me. I didn't care what she thought. I knew what my friends thought ... and some of the teachers, so that was enough.

My life was pretty ordinary for the next three years. I grew some and got better at baseball. I started to play soccer and I liked it. I'd be a teenager next year and I couldn't wait. Why, I don't know. I just thought it would be cool to be a teenager. Chug and I were still pals, but he didn't play soccer. He was a lot bigger than me, so he tried out for the junior football team and they made him a lineman. He was okay with that since he could push other guys around and the coach would tell him he was doing a good job.

Most times, Chug would come to watch me play soccer and I would watch him play football. In the meantime, since we were both on proper teams, we got to meet other guys and make new friends. Chug's best new friend was called "Pigpen," after the Peanuts character. That was because the guy's uniform was always the dirtiest and his boots looked like they had never been cleaned. Pigpen was actually Barry Bronstein, and I wondered how he felt about Chug's nickname. Considering his size (he was a lineman too) I'd have called him "Buck," or something like that. But apparently, he didn't mind Chug's chosen nickname and it stuck.

It was getting near Christmas and the weather had turned cold after a rain and the road was pretty icy. I had just gotten off the school bus when I noticed a car coming down the hill towards us, and it was sliding around and looked like it was out of control. I yelled at the kids at the top of my voice to get off the bus and onto the field next to the stop. I learned later that I was screaming like a banshee, whatever that is.

As I herded some of the slower kids onto the field, I looked up the road and saw that the car was now sideways and sliding on the icy roadway right toward the bus. I hollered at the bus driver, Mrs. Davidson, but she was busy getting the other kids to settle down and didn't pay me any attention. I knew what was going to happen. I could see it in my mind's eye, and I wasn't wrong.

The car slid sideways and almost seemed to gather speed. It crashed into the front driver's side of the bus with a terrible bang. I could hear glass breaking and then screams from inside the bus. Don't ask me what made me do what I did next, but I ran to the open door of the bus and climbed on to see what was going on. A bunch of kids were lying in the aisle, some trying to get up, while others were crying or moaning in pain. Mrs. Davidson was unconscious, I thought. She was lying across the front seat behind her driver's seat and not moving. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I had to do something.

I tried to help some of the kids who were hurt and crying, but I didn't know what to do about them either. I was starting to panic when I remembered that the bus had a two-way radio on the dashboard. I rushed up to the front and grabbed the microphone.

"Help, help, there's been an accident. Can anyone hear me?" I called.

I heard a crackle and some static before a voice came over the speaker.

"Who is this? What accident."

"A car has crashed into the school bus on Prairie Road near the old Rutger house. Mrs. Davidson is hurt and so are a bunch of kids. We need help, please," I said, near panic.

"Okay, kid. Stay calm. Stay there and help who you can. I'll get the ambulance and the police out to you pronto."