This chapter introduces a side gig where Gwen Wong helps walk the lovely bouncy cat bus, InflataLine through her paces, and finds herself in the company of a familiar character from  ephraim225's Bouncy Buoyage.

--- [ CHAPTER 2 ] ----

Saturday

Early morning hours

Gwen Wong’s heart was bound to beat right out of her chest from the excitement within her. Having to put up with another bout of math, science, P.E., and an annoying Language Arts teacher, this special task for her job made the first week of school worth it.
Happily strolling down her home street while carrying an assortment of tools in her backpack, Gwen’s smile grew even wider when she saw something gleaming in the faint streetlamps up ahead.
Filling with air and carrying four people inside, wearing “VOLUNTEER” stickers on their shirts, an enormous white inflatable rectangle stood waiting at a corner of the suburban intersection.
Gwen fainly remembered that these volunteers chose to be here, to prove that this inflatable would be safe for their kids to ride to school.
The girl quickly spotted a long tail of puffy rubber waving back and forth, and the structure’s front, which was dominated by the face of a huge cartoonish white cat. Its green, glossy eyes bore pink eyeliner, and a sign overhead spelled its name, “InflataLine”.
Gwen heard a soft, bold feminine voice in her head as the cat’s eyes turned her way, “Oh, good morning! You’re the maker’s helper, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Gwen’s my name. I...uh, I was at school when he built you.”
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Gwen,” InflataLine giggled. “I heard you’re here to...” she paused to make a huge smirk, “keep an eye on me, right?”
“Something like that,” Gwen nodded. “Just to make sure things don’t go crazy like last time.”
The cat giggled again, and replied in an almost sarcastic tone of voice, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Gwen checked an address in her planner, and spotted an improvised work area in the owner’s yard. Setting down her bag next to the table, Gwen pulled out a handheld radio and paged, “Mr. Danga-” she stopped to remember the codename, “Uh, Boss, this is Gwen, do you read?”
“Affirmative Gwen, how’s the site look? Over,”
Gwen gave InflataLine a cursory glance, along with the equipment, including the pump connected to the house’s exterior outlet, then she replied, “Site condition normal, sir. Ready to proceed with test, over.”
“Roger that, Gwen. Start by getting the ladder from the worksite and deploy it near InflataLine’s port side. You copy?”
“Affirmative, boss. Then what? Just to make sure I don’t mess up something while I’m up there.”
“You have your GoPro camera? Over,”
Gwen checked her bag, searched through the contents, and found the unit in its travel case.
“GoPro confirmed, it’s in my backpack, boss. Over,”
“Right. Take the GPS beacon from the site and put it in your bag, Over,”
Gwen did so, finding the beacon quickly. When she confirmed this, Mr. Dangan continued, “All right. When you’re on top of InflataLine, put the GPS beacon and GoPro on top of her head. Sync the camera to your phone, then come back down and return the ladder. Got all that? Over,”
Gwen carefully processed those instructions, then answered, “Roger, boss.”
“Good,” Mr. Dangan paged back. “Now remember, do not – repeat, DO NOT disconnect InflataLine’s pump until you’re ready to board her! Understand?”
Gwen checked to see that the pump was still connected and running, confirmed so, then answered, “Affirmative, boss. Is that all? Over,”
“Yes, that should be it. I’ve run her through a couple smaller tests before, so all you need to do is tell her where to go on this route.”
Gwen looked at the huge inflatable cat, her four large paws poised ready for action. Nervously, Gwen paged back, “Sounds...” she gulped “Sounds easy enough.”
Mr. Dangan assured her, “Relax, it’ll be fine. If she does anything out of line, poke her a little with something sharp. She won’t pop, but she’ll feel it for sure.”
“Okay, boss,” Gwen cleared her throat, “Okay. But just one question: How did you get the city to approve this stunt?”
“I read in the news that your neighborhood can’t get any school bus service, and it’s like 30 minutes from your school. So I offered the board a chance. Besides, I’m sure students will love it! Shame I couldn’t get it ready on the first day of school, but that’s life for ya.”
“Well, all right. I’ll get to it, Boss. Gwen out.”
“I’ll be watching the camera feed from here. Boss out.”

---

As instructed, Gwen looked for a long metal ladder and found it then, holding all the strength she trained for in P.E. and helping her mom clean the gutters, she set it down flush against InflataLine’s hull.
“Oof!” the cat yelped into Gwen’s mind.
“Sorry, kitty,” Gwen quickly answered. “Just hold still while I do this, ‘kay?”
“Okay, but give me a lil’ pat on the head if you can!” InflataLine requested with a great deal of sass.
Gwen cautiously climbed the ladder up to the top of the giant bouncy cat, trying not to look down. Once over the edge, Gwen tried to walk onto InlataLine, but ended up belly-flopping onto the roof, eliciting an audible, friendly “mrowww!” from the cat.
Gwen could feel the rubber shifting around her, proving that as sassy as this cat clearly was, she wouldn’t let an innocent child fall off like that. Comforted by this, Gwen crawled her way towards the edge of InflataLine’s huge head, set her backpack to the side, and removed the GPS beacon first, then the GoPro, unzipping its case.
“Here, hold these for me, would ya?” Gwen mentally asked the cat while she positioned the two devices.
“Only if you give me a rub on the head first!” InflataLine requested again.
Gwen sighed, “Fine,” remembering how her Aunt Donna’s cat acted.
She carefully reached out and massaged the edge of InflataLine’s head, warping the rubber slightly as she did so, every motion eliciting a chorus of squeaks. InflataLine made an audible purr that vibrated every inch of her body, followed by a muffled sound of the passengers chatting below, no doubt wishing for the cat to get moving.
“There, are you happy now, kitty-cat-bus?” Gwen teased. “We’ve gotta hurry if we wanna meet the schedule!”
“Mmm...yeah,” InflataLine mewled happily.
Finally, Gwen positioned the beacon and camera, making sure the latter had a clear view of the road ahead. InflataLine’s hull warped to hold both units in place as Gwen activated each and synced them to her phone. Then, when all looked good, Gwen grabbed her bag, climbed back down and returned the ladder to where it was.
Confident and excited again, Gwen looked at the cat and daringly asked, “All right, InflataLine. You ready to practice being the new Magic School Bus?”
“Am I ever!” The cat tapped her front paws.
“All right, just don’t run off on me when I turn this off!” Gwen told the ride.
Gwen stepped over to the compressor at InflataLine’s port aft end, and shut it down. Waiting for its fan to wind down, she kept her eyes on the shiny white cat, noticing two of the volunteers happened to be young, excited children.
Sure now that InflataLine wouldn’t move, Gwen carefully detached the pump from InflataLine’s hull, and moved the pump over to the work area, removing its power cord while doing so.
Finally, Gwen walked in front of the cat’s mouth, looked it over, and asked her, “Okay, so...how do I get inside you?”
The cat smirked again, responded in thought, “Like THIS!” then out whipped a long rubber tongue, which promptly pulled Gwen in, backpack and all. The girl found herself surprised as the huge tongue thrust her through a set of huge rubber rollers, along with a familiar sensation of rubber forming across her body.
Milliseconds later, Gwen wound up inside a huge pink and red space, with long puffy benches extruded from the ride’s bouncy floor.
One of the adults asked, trying not to snicker at Gwen’s new clothing, “Excuse me, are you the driver?”
Gwen looked down at her outfit, cleared her throat, then answered, “Actually, I’m your conductor. Sorry for the delay, but we should be ready to go now.”
“Pick a seat, any seat,” InflataLine teased into Gwen’s head.
Taking one at the front, starboard window, Gwen grabbed the radio and paged, “Okay boss, we’re all set on this end. Tell me if you have visual, Over,”
Mr. Dangan replied, “Affirmative, GPS and visual up and running at home base. You know the route?”
That persuaded Gwen to grab a hard-copy of a Google map from her bag, along with her phone, still connected to the camera. Gwen scanned over the printed paper, a black line of pen indicating where the school bus route would be. It zigzagged through multiple streets in this neighborhood and a couple adjacent suburbs, with certain houses circled and numbered for proposed student pickups. Red dotted lines indicated potential bypass routes by going above the trees, meant only for lateness. Gwen felt nervous about the last stretch of the commute, though, since it passed through a major shopping center en route to the elementary school a couple miles past. It was known for morning traffic jams, but she hoped the town would just get used to a new kind of transportation eventually.
“I copy, route present and phone synced to camera. Awaiting clearance for departure, over.”
“What’s she talking about, mom?” One of the kids asked.
“Don’t worry about it, Rachel,” their parent answered.
Gwen’s boss buzzed back, “Clearance granted, InflataLine is go for departure.”
“Copy, Gwen out,” Gwen signed off as she clipped the radio to her pocket. Then she tapped the pink wall and spoke mentally, “Okay Inflate-ah-Line, we’re ready!”
Making sure to tune her voice just right, InflataLine cheered to the passengers, “Hang onto your seats, it’s gonna be a bouncy ride!”

---

InflataLine leaned back on her hind legs for a moment, then took off down the road. While the bobbing pace of the cat’s speed alarmed Gwen and probably the others, all they felt was a rippling sensation in their inflatable seats, like vibrations from a waterbed.
Trying to keep one hand on her phone and the other on the map, Gwen watched the camera feed and compared it to the drawn route. When it looked like the cat was 3 yards from the next intersection, Gwen mentally told her, “When you see Cornflower road, turn right.”
InflataLine wanted to charge immediately, but Gwen insisted on watching for cars. When the coast was clear, the giant rubber cat bounded down that street.
The suburban streets twisted and turned, Gwen never taking her eyes off the phone and map. She instructed InflataLine on which pickup spots to memorize, and where to stop for traffic.
Gwen tried to take her mind off the strange rubber costume that squeaked and crinkled with every motion, feeling lucky that she was clothed.
For a few minutes, she relaxed while InflataLine decided to pick up some speed on the long Joker Drive leading to the busy Wintermute Boulevard.
Realizing how fast the cat was going, Gwen mentally shouted, “Stop, stop!”
“Stop? What for?”
“The light’s yellow!” Gwen replied, almost panicking.
Seeing that InflataLine wasn’t slowing down, Gwen pulled a pencil from her bag and poked it against the inflated wall. This caused InflataLine to skid noisily to a halt, luckily just in time for the light to turn red.
Observing the stream of cars that now cut her off, the inflatable cat meowed in annoyance, then answered to Gwen in thought, “Did ya have to poke me like that?”
“If I hadn’t, someone would’ve hit you.”
“Oh please, what’re the odds of that happening?” she laughed
The light turned green, and the kitty simply rocketed off again, bounding left as fast as she was before the light. “This bouncy cat’s too fast for those hunks of metal, anyway!”
Gwen made a facepalm before refocusing on the camera feed, hoping that there wouldn’t be much more to go. She knew they were in the final stretch, there were only two turns left. But even in a car, traffic jams were awful around here.
As it was, Gwen was practically shrieking in her head to keep InflataLine from colliding with other cars on the busy road, but it seemed that this revolutionary glorified bounce house seemed to know what she was doing, even without orders.
Some ways down the road, InflataLine zoomed past an adjacent strip mall, containing two restaurants, a discount bookstore, a large corner gym, and a coffee shop at the edge of the road.
It just so happened that at the table closest to the road sat a young adult redhead woman, trying to finish her coffee and sandwich against all the commotion she herself had put up with over the past several months, including her unusual new friends. For a few brief moments, relief did come as she drank the last of her coffee, feeling like nothing could possibly go wrong, and that once again she could enjoy a perfectly normal day like she had in Miami.
But just as she recalled other memories of what also took place in Miami, as the woman set down her empty cup and reached for the last of her sandwich, the woman happened to set eyes on InflataLine.
The woman’s pupil’s dilated, she dropped the cup onto the table, the giant rubber cat changed course and smiled, and all the woman could say was, “Oh no, not again,” in a deadpan tone of voice.
And “gulp”, up she went through the giant tubes of rubber into the cat’s hold. Gwen observed this person tumbling across the floor, toward the back of the chamber, and she finally told the cat, “InflataLine, why did you put that woman and me in this? I thought Mr. Dangan said ‘no costumes till after school’!”
“Rules, rules, rules,” InflataLine “Rules are soooo boring! I’m sure all those kids at school will agree.”
“Excuse me, what ship is this?” The redhead asked. She looked down at herself, and added, “And why am I wearing...a diaper again?”
Gwen looked behind her, and quickly beckoned her to join the girl at her seat. The redhead had to keep her head down from the volunteers, whose kids were watching and laughing at her and Gwen’s silly outfits.
Finally making it to the poofy inflatable seat, she sat down – having to grab the top with one hand as InflataLine made a sharp right.
Gwen looked at the woman closely, and a familiar sparkle glinted in the girl’s eyes as she remarked, “Oh, hey Sylvia!”
The woman looked about to check if anyone else was watching, then nervously answered, “Hi...Gwen. Uh...,” she stammered. “Is this one of your boss’ new toys?”
“Sort of. I’ll tell ya later, need to concentrate. Make sure we don’t crash, y’know?” Gwen tried to downplay the situation, nervously sweating as she did so.
“My my,” InflataLine intruded on Sylvia’s thoughts, “I can sense you know my mom and daddy!”
“What does that mean?” Sylvia thought back.
But the three girls were cut short as Gwen tried to keep from screaming when the camera feed showed a U-Haul van right in front of the cat bus, with a thick concrete partition towering over the right-hand sidewalk.
“Aw, are you kidding me?” InflataLine scoffed. “I can do better than this!”
Suddenly, the whole crowd found themselves shocked at seeing the entire interior filling with a hollow hissing noise. Every square inch of the bouncy bus’ interior bulged and inflated like memory foam.
Sylvia glanced back and forth, asking Gwen, “What’s happening?!”
“Just hold on – grab my hand if you need to. We’ll be fine, no matter what,” Gwen assured her.
Conversely, on the outside, InflataLine seemed to stretch between the waiting bus and the concrete wall, flattening herself to squeeze through, and leaving every human passenger thoroughly smothered in masses of pink and red rubber.
“This is fun, dad!” One of the volunteer kids shouted.
And in seconds, InflataLine cleared the jam, and this time she bounded right onto the traffic signal, then onto the nearest tree. Seeing that there were plenty of trees to go around on this final stretch of road, the cat simply pounced from one tree to the next, barely shifting the passengers in their newly reformed seats.
When the road looked clear, the cat jumped back down onto the street, and followed Gwen’s directions to the rear of the nearby elementary school, where buses would unload.
And there stood Mr. Dangan himself, waiting with a laptop and holding a stopwatch.
Sylvia breathed a sigh of relief that the ride was over, looked out the window, and Gwen told her as she mounted her bag once more, “You can stay here, I’ll talk to the boss.
“That’s great,” she rolled her eyes while laying back on the bench while Gwen and the others filed out, Gwen finally shedding her rubber cat sleeper.
Mr. Dangan smiled as he watched the passengers disembark.
“Well well,” the old man smiled, “I see this test was a success – 22 minutes and 14.8 seconds. That’s less than the average school bus ride!” He jotted this down on a clipboard. “Before I interview the others, how was the ride? Looked quite bumpy and dangerous from the camera view.”
“Barely more bumpy than the average car ride, actually,” Gwen answered. “The hard part was getting your kitty to obey the rules of the road.”
“Yes, I expected that. I’d rather not admit it, but I think her rambunctious personality actually saved us some precious time!”
“We...She also slurped up a hitchhiker along the way,” Gwen added. “Uh...I’d rather not explain it right now.”
“I understand – I saw them in the window,” he glanced up at the cat’s flank.
Then Mr. Dangan cleared his throat, and finished, “Well, I think we’ve performed a good test today, Gwendolyn. We’ll need to run a few more tomorrow to get InflataLine fully accustomed to her route, but for now, I’ll take down the equipment, and you and your friend can have her all to yourselves on the way back. Sound good?”
“Yeah, I like that,” Gwen nodded. “You wouldn’t believe how hectic it was just getting up here. If it weren’t for your...” she coughed, “Talents, we probably wouldn’t have made that tight move on the way here.”
“Don’t worry about the equipment, I’ll bring ‘em down,” InflataLine interrupted.
And in a matter of seconds, after a cacophony of squeaking rubber and warping material, the GoPro and GPS unit popped out of her hull.
“Wow, you sure know how to think ahead,” Gwen remarked.
“Thanks, Gwenny-Gwen-Gwen,” the cat snickered.
The girl winced and retorted, “Don’t call me that again, please.”

---

While Mr. Dangan busied himself with interviewing the volunteers – whose cars were in the school parking lot, Gwen and Sylvia busied themselves with InflataLine’s hollow body.
As they bounced all by themselves on the now smooth inflated floor, Sylvia asked, “So, your boss turned a bounce house into a school bus?”
“Yep, that’s why we had all that tech – this is new stuff,” Gwen answered. She looked at her outfit, and then Sylvia’s, “Sorry InflataLine put you in that. She’s not supposed to suit anyone until the ride back from school.”
“Well, it’s not the first time I’ve been,” she coughed between jumps, “dressed this way. If you want the details, ask my friend Steven.”
“I’m good, thanks,” Gwen nervously chuckled.
Another sharp turn back the way they came sent the two women tumbling around the floor.
“Hee hee hee!” InflataLine chuckled at the sensation, “You feel like the way my mom’s spheres move when she walks!”
“Huh?” Sylvia asked, befuddled
Gwen caught the metaphor, and nervously explained, “Uh, she means Elefuntine is this ride’s metaphorical mom, and Dragonbounce is her dad. I know, I don’t get it either.”
Sylvia didn’t bother questioning the logic behind that.
InflataLine decided to take a shortcut above the trees again, causing the two girls to make a huge belly flop off the floor. Suddenly, Sylvia felt a strange instinct well up in her again, not felt since her adventure at sea, and as she was in the air, she kicked off the wall and shouted, “Pinned ya!” as she pressed Gwen into the bouncy floor.
Gwen giggled and asked, “Bringing out your inner Nala with that suit, huh?”
InflataLine then spoke into Sylvia’s thoughts, “Yeah, that’s the spirit!”
Sylvia did a remarkable backflip, landed on her feet, looked down at her rubber-coated arms, and remarked, “Wow, I don’t remember being this agile when I wore my dragon suit.”
“You can thank me for that,” InflataLine giggled again. “I give a little of my agility to people who wear my costumes. Plus a few extra features.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes faintly, muttering, “That would’ve been useful months ago,” then she asked, “Well, that was fun, but can I lie down now?”
The floor rippled, and two huge hot pink bowl-shaped rubber structures emerged from the floor, and the cat responded, “Here you go! What cat’s complete without a good comfy bed?”
“Well, thanks!” Sylvia remarked, noticing the familiarity.
“Make sure to drop us off at our addresses, okay?” Gwen asked the cat. InflataLine assured she would, then Gwen provided her home location, and Sylvia’s hotel room address.
Then the two women laid down in the unusually shaped beds, and instinctively started to curl up like a real cat. Neither could deny that it wasn’t comfy, especially with their puffy inflatable suits on, though the rubber crinkling was tricky to get used to.
As both rested, Sylvia ignored a strange hissing sound and an increase in pressure around her waist.
“You’re both such little cuties,” InflataLine quietly flirted. “I’ll make sure you’re all nice and happy cubs on the ride home.”
Before long, InflataLine pulled up to Gwen’s house, and the girl yawned, stood up, and approached Sylvia. Seeing that the woman was soundly asleep, Gwen smiled and patted the rubber cowl on her head. She repeated Sylvia’s hotel number to make sure the cat got it, then emerged, free of her suit.
Gwen patted the cat’s left cheek and finished, “Well, I gotta run. Go easy on Sylvia, will you? I think she’s been through a lot of different inflatables like you already.”
The cat fluttered her eyelashes, and answered, “Aw, you worry too much, kiddo. She’ll be fine.”
“Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow for the next test, if the boss asks me.”
“InflataLine’s always happy to be your bouncy bus!” InflataLine replied before bounding off up the road again.