Archive of Our Own ^beta

I. An Invitation

Third grade was a long time ago, but not a day went by when I didn't think about that year. About how strange and marvelous it was. About the teacher we had, and about the way we learned how to learn. Time passes, of course, and people grow up and change. Even sixteen years later, I still thought a lot about how crazy that was. I don't know how Ms. Frizzle got away with it, but she did and I'm glad she did. I was lucky enough to have had a lot of good teachers in my life and a few great ones, but no one taught me to trust myself more than she did. I missed her, in that foolish and sentimental way we miss other adults we used to know.

Maybe she'd be at the wedding. Maybe everyone from the class would be there. As long as Arnold didn't once say he wished he'd stayed home today, it might all work out beautifully.

III. A Reunion

The fifteenth of June dawned clear and sunny. It was a perfect day for a wedding, with temperatures in the mid-70s, a light warm breeze blowing in from the west, and not a cloud in the sky. The school courtyard was decorated for the occasion, and if I didn't know better I'd have said that a few teachers or teacher-type people had a hand in that. On stage there was an arbor made of purple flowers cultivated right from Mr. Seedplot's garden. All around bees zipped by, birds sang, the grass grew green, and butterflies filled the air. I couldn't think of anything more perfect for Phoebe, and she deserved it. At first I wondered about Phoebe and Arnold. They seemed so similar and yet so opposite, but Arnold worked hard for NASA and Phoebe tempered that. She was a teacher now herself, working with kindergarteners. Last I heard, she prided herself on a classroom absolutely filled with imaginary play. I read in the newspaper that she had Tim come in to read his picture books to her kids on a regular basis. Once sweet, always sweet, and it made me wonder about the rest of the class. If everyone was invited, I knew we'd be in for one wild ride. I just hoped that didn't happen literally.

For once, Ms. Frizzle was dressed appropriately. It was the first time, as far as I could remember. Other than that I didn't think she'd changed at all. Her hair was still red, it still stuck out at odd angles, and she still had that mischievous gleam in her eye. No wonder Arnold kept looking at her skeptically with that please-don't-ruin-my-wedding expression all over his face. But this was his day, his and Phoebe's, and as glad as I was to see everyone from the old class, they were all remarkably well-behaved. Ralphie took the day off from his busy baseball schedule, Wanda's summer fitness camp hadn't started up yet, Keesha found a substitute at the library, and Carlos… I hadn't seen Carlos in a long time. He and his brother Mikey ran some sort of business together. Something to do with computer security, last I'd heard. I could see that easily for technology genius Mikey, less so for Carlos, but they were both smart. We'd have to spend some time catching up.

The only one from the old class I hadn't yet seen was Phoebe, but that wasn't unexpected. Brides liked to sequester themselves away until the ceremony and even though this was a casual and nondenominational wedding, there were still some niceties that had to be observed. In the meantime I worked the small crowd enough to say hello to all my former classmates. Catching up with everybody to see how they grew and changed was fun. Better than fun.

"I was surprised to find out about Phoebe and Arnold," Wanda said. "I didn't see that one coming."

That made me laugh. Every one of us knew that Wanda and Arnold had a thing for each other back in third grade, even though at that age those things only last a day or two. "I wasn't. According to my observations, they'd been growing closer and closer over time. It was just a question of when."

"Easy for you to say, D.A. You're a researcher. You're trained to turn over rocks and look underneath."

I turned to find Carlos at my side, tall and good-looking in that easy kind of way he always had. "Oh, you've been paying attention to my career?"

He shrugged. "No more than usual. I've been paying attention to everyone a little bit. It's good to have the whole group together again." He nodded to the Friz, standing by the punch bowl fixing a stray strand of hair, but before he could say anything else, Arnold ran up to us, a frantic look in his eyes.

"What is it, Arnold?" I hadn't seen him look this unhappy since we all got sent to investigate Gerri Poveri's lake monster, and that was a long time ago.

"It's Phoebe! She's frozen in place. I don't think she can move!"

I remembered a field trip from a long time ago when we found out that Phoebe's worst fear was stage fright. She would need help now just like she did back in third grade when we were putting on that production of Jack and the Beanstalk, the one where she got turned into a plant and had to learn to produce her own food so she could grow. Only today, the stakes were much higher than ever before. I doubted that the offer of a simple Mallow Blaster would shake her out of things this time.

"It's time to get messy," Ms. Frizzle started. "Take chances—!"

"I know what that means. No, Ms. Frizzle! No field trips! I'm not going anywhere! I'm supposed to get married today! No taking chances, no getting messy." Arnold stamped his foot and shook his head emphatically. "And definitely, no making mistakes!"

"Then what do you propose we do?" The Friz seemed as nonplussed as ever.

"Oh, bad." Keesha grabbed Wanda by the hand. "Come on. Let's go talk to her. We've always been able to calm her down."

Tim and Ralphie flanked Arnold, taking turns patting him on the back. "It'll be okay," Ralphie assured him. "We'll get you guys married today."

"If it's the last thing we do," Tim nodded.

I looked from Carlos to Ms. Frizzle, noticing Liz peeking out from between tufts of her flyaway red hair for the first time.

"I guess that leaves us." I got the same weak feeling in my knees that I used to back in third grade, but just like back then, I didn't let it show. Carlos moved to my side. There was no mistaking that gleam in Ms. Frizzle's eye.

"That's the spirit, Dorothy Ann!" Even Liz gave me a thumbs-up.

"What are we waiting for?" The grin on Carlos's face was practically evil.

The Friz laughed, and for the first time I noticed that the white-on-white lace of her seemingly innocent dress actually looked like a full-fledged neural network. Before she even said the words, I heard them echoing in my thoughts and rattling around in my brain just like they had all those years ago.

"To the bus!"

IV. A Field Trip

Curiously, the bus didn't look that much smaller than I remembered, except for the seats. Carlos and I sat down together, all old habit. "This is just a backup plan, right? In case Wanda and Keesha can't talk Phoebe into relaxing enough to get married?"

Ms. Frizzle laughed. "A backup plan is always good! Dorothy Ann, you know the value of redundant source material. But why wait? Why waste time when we could be traveling down a superhighway at the fastest speed imaginable?"

Liz crawled out of her hair and lodged by the steering wheel. One reptilian claw sat poised in the air, just waiting.

"You know, there used to be a little bit of setup for these kinds of trips." I was only stating the obvious. "A little scientific explanation of what we were about to do, something like that."

Carlos didn't look worried. In fact, he grinned as he reached for his seat belt. "Then let's set up and go!"

"CARLOS!" Ms. Frizzle and I both laughed, but she went on. "Today, class—Dorothy Ann and Carlos, at least—we have what we need. Dorothy Ann, you work in biotechnology and Carlos, you work in internet technology. Both of you know what this is going to take. So there's only one more thing to say: hit it, Liz!"

It's quite possible that nobody but a former student of Valerie Frizzle's could understand exactly how simultaneously fear-inducing and thrilling those last three words could be. When Liz reached forward and pressed the button, I could feel everything around us shrinking and knew without a doubt exactly what was going on. The dress was always a clue.

The size of a piece of pollen, the bus wafted through the air to the room where Phoebe, who looked breathtakingly beautiful, stood caught in the thralls of stage fright. I wasn't the least bit surprised when we made our way right into her body through her ear.

"Take a right at the sinus and into the brain!" Carlos observed. "Ms. Frizzle, do you remember that time we went into Mr. Ruhle's computer after Mikey?"

"Of course," she beamed. "I remember every field trip we've ever been on."

"And I bet you have the dresses to prove it." With a smile, Carlos let his hand fold over the seat in front of us. "But I think about that field trip a lot. Wouldn't you both say that the human brain is just a bigger and more efficient computer?"

The way Ms. Frizzle smiled meant that Carlos was on the right track.

"It just has a different type of programming." I remembered that field trip too. That day it was Mikey's instructions that were faulty. I wasn't so sure that Phoebe's stage fright, or anxiety, really, was faulty, though. "Instead of binary code, it's programmed through hormones."

At our size and from this angle it was impossible to tell where inside Phoebe we were, but we could hear the pounding of blood in her arteries. A viewscreen on the bus dashboard showed that we were riding along what looked like some sort of superhighway. I recognized that.

"The bus has basically become a nerve cell or neuron, which sends signals to other cells in the form of electrochemical waves. These waves travel along thin fibers called axons." I gestured to the screen; Ms. Frizzle nodded. "These cause chemicals known as neurotransmitters to be released at synaptic junctions—look out, Bus, there's one now! Don't fall in!"

Liz steered around the synapse expertly.

"It is like a computer program," Carlos mused. "Oh, snap, a synapse." He laughed at his own joke, but I noticed that his grip on the seat tightened. "What happens when the neurotransmitters are released, DA?"

"It's pretty basic programming," I told him. "A cell that receives a synaptic signal from a neuron reacts. It can be inhibited or excited, stimulated, or modulated. With stress, it's usually an abundance of a hormone called cortisol that causes the anxiety reaction."

"So it's a simple chemical causing Phoebe's stage fright." Carlos nodded. "That means all we have to do is block the cortisol and Phoebe will get over it. But how do we find it?"

"Liz?" The Friz gestured to Liz, who began to press buttons frantically. We could see an outline of Phoebe's brain. Some of the lobes were pulsating. "You see?" Ms. Frizzle pointed to the areas in question. "These regions are the most active ones right now. They're part of Phoebe's ‘fight or flight' network. These areas monitor her body's internal state, the regions involved with fear and other emotions, and those involved with attention. Look!" A fresh flood of something suffused the areas. "Cortisol," Ms. Frizzle explained. "The more cortisol that gets released, the more these areas react." She pointed to the front of Phoebe's brain. "The prefrontal cortex. It controls thought and reasoning. If enough cortisol reaches it, the parts of the prefrontal cortex controlling those things starts to shut down. And that's what's causing Phoebe's stage fright."

Fortunately the bus and I both knew our neural anatomy. "Cortisol's produced by the pituitary gland. There are plenty of good uses for it. Historically it's probably the hormone that's kept the human species from being hunted to extinction. Right now we just need to stem the flood of cortisol into Phoebe's prefrontal cortex. I say we start by the pituitary gland and see what we can do."

Liz steered the bus toward the pituitary gland at the base of Phoebe's brain.

"Hey, DA," Carlos piped up. "Why do neurons like email?"

I was already groaning inside. "Why, Carlos?"

"Because they like to send and receive lots of messages!" He laughed, slapped his knee. "Wait, I've got another. Why was the neuron sent to the prinicpal's office? It had trouble controlling its impulses!"

"CARLOS." Despite myself, I laughed, and so did Ms. Frizzle. "Look, you two. The pituitary gland. Liz, let's get a visual!"

Once again, the bus worked its magic. It occurred to me that in all our field trips, I had never really tried to figure out how the bus worked. Some things, I decided, were better left unexplained, but I made a mental note to ask Ms. Frizzle about it after we were back from our unexpected field trip. On screen, the bus had interpreted the flow of hormones as a series of tubes with faucets. The one labeled CORTISOL was open all the way, splashing the hormone out into the neural network.

"Quick, Liz, shut it off!" Carlos yelled.

"But not all the way," I warned. "A little bit of nerves on a wedding day is a good thing."

An enormous gloved hand came out from the front of the bus and turned the faucet, slowing the flow of the cortisol to a trickle. Back on the other screen, we could see the affected areas of the prefrontal cortex starting to normalize.

"Is there some other hormone we should be replacing the cortisol with?" Carlos had always been thoughtful and smart. That was one of my favorite things about him. That and his puns, although I'd never admit it to anyone else.

"I like how you think," I told him, but before I could answer, he clarified.

"It's Phoebe and Arnold's special day. Is there a hormone that will make her happy instead of anxious?"

The Friz clapped her hands and laughed. "Liz, hit the oxytocin!"

The hand outside the bus moved to another faucet and a new hormone flowed out of it. "Quick, Liz! Get us out of here!"

My biotechnology background made me keenly aware of the effect an overflow of oxytocin could have. Ms. Frizzle's need for speed was well-timed. The bus lurched, then stalled.

"Oh no, the bus is stuck!" Somewhere deep in my memories I could hear Wanda asking what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do?

Carlos must have been thinking the same thing, because the words "I don't know" came out of his mouth. "I'm going to have to go fix it," he said bravely.

"Better put on one of these!" Ms. Frizzle handed him a protective suit. Like an astronaut, Carlos's suit was tethered to the bus and when the door opened I held my breath. I wasn't sure how Carlos was going to free the bus. Liz, Ms. Frizzle and I watched anxiously.

"Feel the cortisol at work?" Ms. Frizzle seemed spectacularly unconcerned. On the screen, we watched as Carlos managed to free the glove-arm so that Liz could retract it. Watching him was fascinating. I could feel a surge of protectiveness as he worked, and once he'd fixed the bus, I was glad to help him back in. He'd barely made it back in when the Friz told Liz to hit it once again. "We'll make it back in time for the ceremony!"

The bus made its way through Phoebe's body, escaping through a tear duct. As we popped out, we could hear Phoebe saying she felt much better now. Just as she wiped her eyes and just as Wanda accused her laughingly of being a weasely wimp, we managed to fly off. The bus landed a few streets away, where it reverted to its normal size.

"That was fun." Ms. Frizzle patted down her hair and set Liz on her shoulder. "Come along, Liz. We have a wedding to attend."

"Nerve-wracking, even." I helped Carlos out of his protective gear. "Thanks for helping get us back, Carlos."

"I forgot how much fun those things were. I never thought I'd get to have one more field trip. Not with you there, anyway, DA. I've missed you."

I'm pretty sure I blushed.

V. A Wedding

Once Phoebe found her voice ("I knew we could do it," Wanda beamed, and Keesha had to agree), everyone decided that it was the best wedding they'd ever attended. Nobody was too surprised to see that the wedding cake was shaped like the bus except for Phoebe, who seemed certain that the cake was supposed to have looked more like a flower garden. But when Ms. Frizzle was around, surprises were always the order of the day.

As far as I went, I never did ask our former teacher how the bus worked. I decided that not everything was meant to be explained. Even if she had given away all the bus's secrets, I was pretty sure the explanation would be fantastic beyond belief. So why not hold onto some of the wonderment of childhood? One thing, though, was obvious to the trained researcher I'd become. Ms. Frizzle knew what she was doing, and always had. I used to take it for granted but couldn't do that any more.

Oxytocin, I knew, was responsible for a good number of things in humans. Not only was it widely known as the hormone of attachment, but it also engendered feelings of calm and closeness. It promoted bonding, solidified relationships, eased stress (as Phoebe could witness), crystallized emotional memories, improved social skills, triggered protective instincts, and fostered generosity, among other things. I had to think that when the Friz ordered Liz to release the oxytocin, it was no mistake that the bus got stuck.

I hated to think that Carlos sticking to me like glue for the rest of the day was purely hormonal. That was the funny thing about humans. No matter how much we knew about science, we were stubborn about the concept of free will. If magic and crazy teachers with sentient buses and lizards had some kind of effect on us, well… who's to say that's not simply some other kind of science most of us hadn't had the luxury of discovering or experiencing yet? The only thing I could say for certain at the end of the day was that being reunited with my friends from Ms. Frizzle's class was shaping up to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

We saw Arnold and Phoebe off at the end of the reception—for a minute when Arnold saw the bus first instead of the limousine I thought he was going to faint—and everyone started to go their separate ways. Life was busy and we were all adults now. Carlos and I stepped aside to say goodbye to Ms. Frizzle.

"Thanks for the field trip." I reached over and gave the Friz a quick hug, which was weird enough considering she was still and always would be my teacher. As so often happened (and there was a perfectly scientific explanation for it, not that I wanted to get into more science right now), a sudden bolt of virtual lightning struck. Illumination, maybe: Ms. Frizzle, the bus, Liz, and the field trips happened by or happened when we needed them most. I felt awfully lucky to have had the opportunity to have gone on one today.

Ms. Frizzle smiled that suspiciously good-natured smile of hers. "You know what I always say, Dorothy Ann! Take a chance when opportunity presents itself! There's always something new to learn. And now it's time for me to make like a tree and leave. I have places to go, people to see. But I have the feeling I'll be seeing the two of you again." With a backward wave, the neural network on her dress gave way to a small forest of fir trees. Her shoes sprouted rollerblades and she zipped away down the street, waving to Mr. Seedplot as she left. "Remember, take chances!"

"Did her dress just…" Carlos shook his head. "I used to think that was just my imagination."

"I used to think all of it was." Brave, I linked my arm with his. "I'm not so sure any more. Do you want to go someplace and do something?"

He nodded without any hesitation, which made me happier than I knew it would. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."

The obligatory pun about getting burgers and fries to go with that catch-up went unspoken, but if he'd gone ahead and said it, I wouldn't have minded. I wouldn't have minded at all.