The Cupel Recruits Read Online Free Page B

wisdom. His speech was no longer than it needed to be, motivational and eloquent. Before Governor Jacob even concluded, the applause began. It built until his last word when the sound erupted into a roaring rampage of clapping.
    As the crowd finished cheering and disbanded, small groups sprinkled the grassy area between the seating area and the line of buses. The vehicles had now pulled around to be lined up at the base of the hill path about 150 yards away. No one rushed, since they knew the core project teams would be boarding first and proceed before they could follow to the grand unveiling of the command center. They chatted about current events, caught up with colleagues and gathered food and drink from the small kiosks standing around the area.
    Lela thought to herself how hungry she was, but brushed off the thought as an impossibility. ‘I’ll have to sneak away after the ribbon cutting’ she thought realistically. Bus numbers had been pre-assigned to the core team to speed the transition and each member was now making their way to their own bus number.
    Lela stopped next to Bus #1, holding the core team members, and took a mental inventory of The Governor, Madame, the science team, including her Dad, Brother, Mr. Enam Bamidele and her mother, traveling up as a visitor with Mr. Aquila and Gabriel. Lela also spotted the small team from the United Nations, most of who were speaking to the Bus 1 African visitors, except Jasmine Free who had eyes for Gabriel throughout the entire project. Lela admired her brother’s ability to deftly deal with her advances without hurting her feelings. Lela’s handling of this situation usually amounted to something like “no thanks, creep” so her brother’s soft touch was an example to be emulated in Lela’s eyes. As they were boarding the bus, Madame pulled Lela aside,
    “Lela, Captain Willingham is waving from across the field. It doesn’t seem urgent or he’d have a runner sent, but we should see what he wants.” Lela’s heart sank as she immediately knew “we” meant her. Seeing her face drop a bit and not appreciating the fact that a small moment of victory on the triumphant ride up the hill would be missed, Madame posited her solution in annoyance, “Oh, don’t worry, you can just follow in bus 3 or 4. You won’t miss the ribbon-cutting or anything.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” Lela advised without intonation. Madame turned and boarded the bus, thinking no further of it. Lela began walking back toward the seating area as Bus #1 pulled away for its victory lap without her. As she reached the edge of the row of chairs holding a few stragglers still seated, she glanced longingly back over her shoulder at the bus pulling up the hill like the little engine that could toward the beautiful white and glass building at the top. When it was about 1/3 of the way up, Bus #2 began to pull away. She was halfway through the seating area at this point and quickened her step toward Captain Willingham who was still about 50 feet away so she’d be sure to make one of the remaining core buses. It was bad enough she’d been ousted from her coveted position, she didn’t want to have to ride with the general event attendants.
    Passing by the still-seated gentleman with the leather portfolio, he looked up and locked eyes with Lela. His eyes were as green as grass, a fact that escaped Lela’s attention earlier since he was continually looking down to write. As he held her gaze, Lela heard a loud noise behind her. Startled, she glanced back to see Bus 1 a little more than halfway up the hill now, with Bus 2 still lagging behind it, hitting into the interior side of the mountain with a loud crashing of metal. She had no time to process or even to think before the bus turned sharply away from the interior collision and instead cut to the left. Lela watched in horror as the bus barreled straight through the guardrail and off the side of the mountain. She cried out to the heavens, or