Get On the Bus
In ‘La Vitesse’ by Kelly Robson, it’s the early 1980s in the foothills of Alberta, where a mother and daughter battle their demons — and a dragon.
In our feature author interview with Kelly, she told us about the story’s inspiration: “I come from a place that doesn’t get written about, so I’ve been trying for years to rectify that. … I’d been struggling and failing to write stories set in Hinton for years. Maybe my failure was because my feelings about the place are so ambivalent, so complex. It’s a beautiful place, but also ugly in every way. Its history is fascinating, but also brutal. In any case, this story was my first breakthrough at approaching it.”
For more from our interview with Kelly, pick up Issue 42, Spring 2024. Meanwhile, enjoy this excerpt of ‘La Vitesse’.
La Vitesse
by Kelly Robson
March 2, 1983, 30 kilometres southwest of Hinton, Alberta
“Rosie,” Bea said under her breath, but the old school bus’s wheels were rumbling over gravel, and her daughter didn’t hear. Rosie was slumped in the shotgun seat, eyes closed. She hadn’t moved since Bea had herded her onto La Vitesse at six-fifteen that morning. She wasn’t asleep, though. A mother could always tell.
Bea raised her voice to a stage whisper. “Rosie, we got a problem.”
Still no reaction.
“Rosie. Rosie. Rosie.”
Bea snatched one of her gloves off the bus’s dashboard and tossed it. Not at her kid — never at her kid; it bounced off the window and landed in Rosie’s lap.
“Mom. I’m sleeping.” Big scary scowl. Bea hadn’t seen her kid smile since she’d turned fourteen.
“There’s a dragon right behind us,” she said silently, mouthing the words. None of the other kids had noticed, and Bea wanted to keep it that way.
Rosie rolled her eyes. “I don’t read lips.”
“A dragon,” she whispered. “Following us.”
“No way.” Rosie bolted upright. She twisted in her seat and looked back through the central aisle, past the kids in their snowsuits and toques. “I can’t see it.”
The rear window was brown with dirty, frozen slush. Thank god. If the kids saw the dragon, they’d be screaming.
Find out what happens next in Issue 42, Spring 2024!
Kelly Robson grew up in the foothills of the Rockies and now lives in downtown Toronto. She is the author of the short fiction collection Alias Space and the novellas Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach and High Times in the Low Parliament. We featured her story ‘Good for Grapes’ in Issue 23, Summer 2019. ‘La Vitesse’ first appeared in The Book of Dragons (Jonathan Strahan, ed, 2020). Visit Kelly at kellyrobson.com
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