Spiderman 1 Read Online Free Page B

laughter and taunting floated through the air toward him. The bus, which had started to slow for a red light, lurched forward when it abruptly changed to green, and a belch of smoke erupted from the tail pipe. Peter held his breath as he ran through it; one inhala tion and it would probably have collapsed his lungs. This sign of open disrespect from the bus itself only jacked up the amusement level among the kids, who laughed even harder at his predicament.
    His bookbag was slamming against his back as he ran. He shouldn't have even brought the stupid thing. But no, no ... he'd had to decide that he might as well bring stuff to read on the trip. Try to get ahead on some courses. Peter Parker, the big brain who just couldn't get enough of books that he had to haul them along on a class trip. Part of him wanted to pitch the stupid things down the nearest sewer, but he continued to clutch them tightly.
    His large rectangular glasses were bouncing around on the end of his nose. Twice they almost slid off, as his face became drenched in perspiration. With his luck, they'd fall off and he'd wind up trampling them. Wouldn't that cause unbridled hilarity for the troglodytes that constituted the senior class.
    The bus put its left signal on. It was about to shift lanes, to move into the Queens Boulevard express lane. If it did that, he was finished; the only way he'd catch up with it under those circumstances would be with a rocket.
    That was when he heard a female voice— the female voice—and even though the motor of the bus was roaring, and even though all the kids were hooting and hollering, she made herself audible over the hullabaloo.
    "Stop the bus!!" came Mary Jane's voice. "He's been chasing us since Woodhaven Boulevard!"

    This caused a collective and disappointed awwwww from the kids on the bus. Naturally. Mary Jane had terminated the fun before it had led to something really entertaining, like a coronary or a blood vessel exploding in his head.
    The bus slowed, and for a moment Peter thought it was yet another tease, another false hope. But then it glided over to the curbside, and the doors opened to admit him. Peter nearly collapsed on the first step, clutching the handrail. The bus driver looked down at him, not with concern but with undiluted annoyance, obviously irritated that this   idiot teenager had disrupted her carefully prepared schedule. "Thanks ..." Peter managed to gasp out. The driver grunted, shoving forward on the bar and slam ming the door shut behind him while he was still in the stairwell. She didn't even wait for him to get into the body of the bus as she pulled the bus forward, grumbling to herself in a steady stream of indecipherable muttering.
    Peter staggered forward, fighting not only his own ex haustion and pounding heart but the swaying of the bus as it practically vaulted into the express lane and hurtled forward. He bumped against kids who were seated, and muttered, "Sorry ... sorry ..." to each one as he went.
    He got a particularly nasty look from the teacher, Mr. Sullivan. Peter always got nervous when he looked at Mr. Sullivan, with his thick glasses, thinning hair, and expres sion of perpetual pain, because Peter couldn't help but worry that he was looking at a future version of himself. It was a disconcerting, even terrifying thought. Mr. Sullivan gestured impatiently for Peter to go find a seat, then looked down at his clipboard with such intensity that Peter felt as if he was in the midst of translating a newly found section of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Peter glanced over Sullivan's shoulder and saw a list of the students' names on it. Sullivan was putting a little black X next to Peter's name.
    That can't be good, Peter thought.
    Seated about three-quarters of the way down was Liz Allen. She had a mouthful of braces, glasses thicker than Peter's, and blonde hair so wiry that it could have scoured clean a pan with two inches of hardened grease on it. She had books with her. And here Peter