Riding the bus was never as much fun as it was on TV. Three to a seat, every seat, every day. Sixty-six living bodies rammed onto one moving vehicle with no exit for carbon dioxide and little room for oxygen. Most of the time, your face was so full of hair or someone else's breakfast breath that breathing wasn't even an option anyway. Feet and arms flailed about, searching desperately for a space that wasn't already occupied. And the noise. A noise beyond belief. Sixty-six high schoolers, limited exit for sound, and one sole bus driver trying to keep them all quiet. The chaos usually escalated quickly.
Charlotte was thankful she had a middle seat, squashed between Moxie and Greg. Because though it wasn't as glamorous as the window seat, where you could watch the world fly by and get lost in your own thoughts, it was leagues better than the isle seat, where only half you rear end was squashed onto the bench.
On her left, moxie was busy talking away. "So my older sister says that our AP English teacher, Mrs. Cook, is super strict," She chattered, somehow making herself heard over the overwhelming din. "And that she's going to give us an essay assignment on our first day. It's going to be on our summer vacation, or something."
Charlotte thought. She hadn't done much over the summer. Mostly she had gone to the library or stayed in her room, reading and drawing and planning violent ways to murder the dog next door. Her mother had come in countless times in futile attempts to drag her out of the house to the beach or the country club. But Charlotte was stubborn and didn't much like the sun.
She realized then that Moxie had moved on from the subject. "...And so then I told her, 'you can't tell me what to do,' and was like 'whatever,' and then she just left." She rolled her eyes. "My mom is so annoying sometimes."
The bus rolled up to the front of the high school and halted with a squeal of it's tires and a violent jerk. "So then this morning she took my iPhone." Moxie continued as they disembarked.
"That's too bad," Charlotte said in hopes that Moxie would stop talking. She didn't.
"Yeah well. I guess it's okay. I mean, I still have my laptop, anyway. And my X-box. So I think I'll be alright until I can guilt her into giving it...back..." She slowly faded out as her and Charlotte took in the sight before them.
The school building was enormous; three stories tall, as long as a football field, and windows all around it. The yard duties looked mean with yellow vests and cold eyes. And there were high schoolers.
Big high schoolers.
Tall ones and fat ones and long ones and skinny ones; girls and boys with short-shorts and sagging jeans; crazy hair dyed every color of the rainbow and piercings on places Charlotte hadn't thought possible. Small groups and big groups sat outside on the steps and in the grass separate in their cliques with a mutual understanding of the natural social order-jocks and cheerleaders by the front doors, skater dudes and punks grinding on the stair rails, nerds seated on the middle steps, and the gothic outcasts lounging in the dying grass.
As the first bell rang, the students rose in a wave and trudged inside the building. Charlotte watched in awe as a group of emos wondered past, all black leather and gelled hair. She noticed a very pretty girl with black hair and crazy make up in the group, probably a senior, was wearing the same shirt as her. She wondered if she should say something.
"Hey look!" Moxie shouted before she could decide. "You and that girl are wearing the same shirt!"
The girl looked over, and when she saw Charlotte, her thickly massacred eyes darkened. "So we are," she said in voice like nails on chalkboard. She leaned close to Charlotte's face, so close that she took a few steps back. From that small distance, Charlotte noticed the girl wore colored contacts in a color almost red. The effect was terrifying. "Wear it again and I'll beat your face in." She growled. And then she was gone.
"Nice going, Glitter Queen," Gabriella sneered from behind them. She knocked her shoulder against Moxie as she passed, almost sending her sprawling, then disappeared through the front doors.
Almost all of the kids were inside now, heading to class to find a comfy desk to sleep on. "Better get in there if we want to find our class on time," Moxie said. Charlotte sighed. The moment she'd been dreading since the start of summer.
A squeal of tires, a puff of smoke, and the bus was gone, floating away in the morning traffic like mist.
No going back now, she thought, and took the first step.
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A/N: The picture to the side is Gabriella.
YOU ARE READING
The Shadow Sight
ParanormalCharlotte O’Hara has never been normal. She has strange, violent dreams. Her bone white cat is more unlucky than the poet he is named after. And even the shadows seem to stir in her peculiar company. And though she is often alone with her sketchbook...
