The Bus

Ring, ring, ring. You leave your class and race to your bus. Along the way, you realize you’ve been conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs: Ring, go to homeroom; ring, go to class; ring, it’s time for lunch; ring, go to the bus. This irritates you, but there is nothing to be done about it.

Finally, you reach your bus, the one in the very back. You find your seat, second from the front on the left. You plop into it, and watch your other bus mates enter the bus as well. None of your friends arrive, so you content yourself with trying to sleep. However, the bus vibrates violently when it is parked, like now, so you quickly abandon that idea.

The engine of the bus revs up, and you soon begin your way to home, about twenty-five minutes away.

Filling the time, that is the main problem. You glance around; not only are your classmates still not very familiar to you, they are enraptured with their new gadgets and gizmos. No conversation will come from them, you decide. Trying to be productive, you try to do your homework. Nausea sweeps over you, and you put away your homework after two minutes.

You choose not to partake in any conversations, but instead listen to them around you.

“So many zombies!” says the Asian boy to your left. A smaller boy behind you screams incessantly. You turn around to see if anything is wrong, and he catches your eye and grins; he just screams out of glee. You stop yourself from rolling your eyes and look on.

The first bus stop. It either takes forever or no time at all to reach the destination; today, it nearly takes a millennium. You watch, bored, as people descend the stairs and go out of the bus. The people that are there to shop sometimes stop to watch as well, but most of them continue their business, pushing their carts and reprimanding their children.

And now, you are again on the road. At a red light, you glance out the window and see a little boy who is looking at you. You wave; he waves back. As the bus turns left and his mom’s car turns right, you feel slightly more accomplished.

“So many zombies,” your bus mate says. He’s been repeating this all throughout the bus ride, and you begin to wonder if this is some sort of sexual innuendo. It isn’t; turns out he’s on his iPhone, playing some game. Then you realize that he doesn’t have anyone in particular that he is talking to. Strange, you think.

The window is your only source of entertainment for these last fifteen minutes. You pretend that the stores that you see everyday spark your interest. Some stores that you’ve never really noticed catch your interest: The custard store apparently sells happiness along with ice and custard; and beside it is an “R U HUNGRY? Deli”. You smile, and look at the second bus stop. Yours is the third, and it is only five or ten minutes away from this one, thank goodness. You think this as you examine the back of the leather seat in front of you. A patch of leather has been placed on one side for no apparent reason. You pick at it. It’s hiding green gum. Ewww.

As you await your destination, you overhear that zombie-obsessed boy: “I think that the school is trying to tell us something,” he says.

"What do you mean?” asks the screaming boy behind you.

“Well,” says Zombie Boy, “All of these vocabulary units seem to have at least one word having something to do with crime. Like, it starts over here…” He begins flipping through his book.

“Pilfering,” you say.

“Pilfering,” he says. “Then there’s ‘larceny,’ and then ‘accomplice.’ Isn’t that strange?”

“Yep,” you say. You two smile at each other as the bus enters your bus stop.

You pack your bag and sling it over one arm, and you grab your lunch box. The bus opens its glass doors, and you bound down the stairs and wave to your mom. You open the car door and put in the backpack and lunch box before plopping in yourself.

“Hey. How was your day?” says your mom.

“It was okay,” you say.