HomeTime

3:18, the bell rings.

Everyone puts up their chairs on the desks and turns to leave the classroom, some stampede, others saunter.

By the time I put up my chair, over half of the class has already gone. I gather my things and casually start towards the door. Besides the teacher, I am the last to leave the room. She says goodbye, I do the same. She shuts the door.

Outside the room, a friend or two are waiting for me. They are heading for the bus bays. I tell them I'm going to my locker. They say "see ya", and I do the same.

I make my way to N-block, where the lockers and math rooms are.

Locker 17. Combination: ### (I'll never tell).

I return the day's books and collect tomorrow's, Monday's if it's Friday. I double-check that I have everything, then triple-check, then look over my shoulder as I leave to check again.

3:23

Slowly and casually, I make my way to the bus bays. As I walk, I let the calmness of the quiet schoolyard wash over me. If only the entire day was like these moments, I'd get a lot more done, for sure.

I stop. I'm standing just before the crowded bus bays. It is packed, a portion of the school population condensed into an all too narrow, covered strip of concrete. It's a warm day. The first buses haven't left, so it mustn't be 3:25 yet.

3:25, the busses pull away, as regular as clockwork. I start on my way down, keeping a casual, almost sauntering pace. There is a basketball court that joins on to the bus bays with a fence gate. I wait just outside it, waiting for the second wave of buses to roll away. Naturally, everyone going to my town on my bus is already lined up behind the current lot of kids. They do this every time.

My bus is the last bus at this terminal gate. It arrives at 3:30.

Finally, the current bus leaves and mine rolls up to the gate. I take my place at the end of the line. There are only a couple of kids behind me, but most of the time I'm pretty much the last one on.

It doesn't take very long to get on the bus. Naturally, all the seats are taken. This doesn't happen all the time, but today there are kids who got on at the primary schools that had taken up two seats by sitting on the aisle side and putting their bags on the window side. I press on, I can't blame them too much, it's uncomfortable to sit next to strangers, especially ones that are older than you. I trip forward as the bus starts to move. I steady myself before I can fall and keep pressing on towards the back.

Full, full, full, full- Ah! There we go!

I spot an open seat next to a quiet-looking girl from my year. Her bag was up on the seat, so not wanting to go any further, I ask, "Hey, is it okay if I sit here?" She nods and moves her bag to her feet.

We sit in silence for the entire ride, we don't even look at each other. That's fine, of course, it would give me time to write something.

I pull out my trusty iPod Touch and open Wattpad. I got the update that morning. The design is okay, I'm quite used to it now. I think about writing about the bus and what usually happens on the bus. But not much really happens on the bus.

How about what happens as I go to the bus?  Could that be of mild interest to someone, somewhere, at some time?

I start writing.

4:38. I've been home for 30 minutes, and I'm done.