“Remember to keep gas in the tank,” Chris reminded me because on his trip, they ran out of gas and had to walk for about five miles to a gas station and then lug the gas to the bus five miles back.
“And remember to save your money,” Ian added because he ran out of money a week early on his trip and they had to feed on left overs for that whole week and I think they even stole food from a gas station at one point.
“Never drive after midnight,” Garret piped because on his trip, they had a scare with one of the guys who was driving who had almost fell asleep at the wheel, not to mention the fact that it’s insanely dark and I hate driving in the dark.
“But the most important thing,” Austin interjected. “Is to have fun. Because you will never be able to do this again.”
“No matter how much you want to,” Ian finished their little put together speech.
“Guys,” I laughed. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We’re just trying to help,” Austin justified with a shrug. It was Sunday morning, right before everyone else was supposed to meet us at my house to set off. There were a lot of people there at my house to celebrate our take off. Mainly people from the school- basically our whole high school was in my backyard, including the class that I just graduated with yesterday. Not only were present students there, but previous bus-riders were also in attendance to pass on the legend. All of my brothers keep in touch with most, if not all, of the people that they shared the bus with, so almost all of them were there too, so it was a very big gathering, which my mother was more than happy to accommodate.
“I know,” I sighed.
“Are you the most excited person ever?” Baker shrieked, coming into the back yard, grinning hysterically at me. “No, of course you’re not, because I’m the most excited person ever. Of course, you can be the second most excited person ever.”
“Baker,” Garret greeted my enthusiastic best friend. “You’re as weird as ever.”
“Austin, you’re as attractive as ever,” She shot back confidently, looking over at Austin, who looked incredibly confused.
“I, um, I wasn’t the one who said that,” He said awkwardly. “But thanks, I guess.”
I rolled my eyes at my brazen best friend. “Okay Baker, you can stop being creepy now, I see Rosa coming.”
Baker brightened up even more when I mentioned Rosa and then started looking around for her until she saw our friend bouncing towards us. “Rosa!” Baker cheered. “Rosa, are you the most excited person ever?”
“How do you stand this?” Chris wondered incredulously.
I laughed and shrugged. “It’s a chore. A reminder, though, that you used to put up with her just fine.”
“Maybe old age has stolen your sense of humor,” Baker shot back at Chris with an innocent smile.
“You can cram it, Gertrude,” Chris fires back teasingly, using Baker’s first name, which is like, completely off limits to Baker that she got so mad whenever somebody used it.
She flipped him off subtly so that her mother, who was talking to my mother just a little farther away from us, didn’t see it.
“Is everybody here?” Rosa wondered as she approached us, nearly bouncing with excitement just like everybody was.
“Nope, but Gory’s in the garage getting in one last whatever it is that they do before the road trip.” I informed them.
“Ew, you’re letting them have sex on your car?” Rosa wondered with a disgusted look on her face.
“No, that would be gross,” I said quickly. “Ian’s car is in the garage.”
“Do you guys have maps?” Austin cut into the conversation.
Rosa nodded. “Yeah, I brought a few.”
“Burn them,” Garret suggested. “You don’t need maps.”
“But we’ll get lost,” Sydney pointed out, approaching our growing group of people.
“You don’t get lost,” Austin rolled his eyes. “When you don’t have a destination.”
“That seems so dangerous,” Sydney mumbled.
“Well, you’re not going on this road trip to play it safe,” He laughed.
“You’re so right,” Baker chirped, staring creepily at Austin. “Which is part of the reason that you’re so attractive.” Yeah, in case you haven’t been able to tell already, Baker had a pretty big crush on Austin since forever and even with him away at college, it didn’t go away. And when she got a crush, Baker could be very creepy and I say that with all the love in my heart.
“That’s, uh, nice, I guess,” Austin stammered, trying to be as polite as he could to my creepy friend.
“No creepiness,” I reminded Baker as I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket with a text and when I pulled it out, I saw that it was from Ross, who was one of the guys going on the trip. He was on the soccer team, like all of the guys going on the trip this year. Well actually, all of the girls going on the trip were on the soccer team as well now that I think about it.
I read the text eagerly, to find out where he was and when he was getting here so I could know when we could leave and start this adventure.
“Ross is on his way,” I announced excitedly as I read the text. “And he’s with Logan and Gaige, so that’s three.”
“We need two more guys then, if Cory’s in the garage right now,” Rosa reminded me.
“Right, there’s just Turner and then…” I trailed off, not remembering the other guy’s name, even though I’ve heard it a billion times.
“Kenton,” Sydney giggled. “How do you not know who Kenton Gerald is?”
I shrugged meekly. “I’m not sure, why?”
“Because he was probably one of the most attractive people in our class,” Rosa butted in with a small laugh. “He moved here at the end of junior year and he plays on the soccer team, obviously.”
“I didn’t have any classes with him or anything,” I justified. “Maybe I’ve seen him in the hallways or something.”
“If you saw him in the hallways, you’d know,” Sydney nodded. “He’s that attractive.”
“Make sure you kiss him on the bus,” Garett teased. “You know the rumors.”
“He has a girlfriend,” Rosa sighed sadly.
“No he doesn’t,” Erin chimed, joining us out of the blue. “They broke up last week.”
Both Rosa and Sydney gasped dramatically at the news, but I still had no idea who this guy was, so I wasn’t that caught in the news, I guess. “Seriously?” Rosa yelped, finally voicing her shock.
“Yeah, but I-“
“Excuse me,” I heard a voice pipe from behind me but I didn’t recognize it as anybody that I knew, so I spun around, as everybody else did, to face whoever it was who interrupted Erin and her very important announcement.
“Yeah?” I replied, noticing a tall red headed woman standing there with a camera.
“Can we get a few pictures of the Belton siblings? For the local paper.” She requested.
I nodded and all of my friends backed away to leave room for me and my four brothers to get in a line for her to get pictures of us. The local paper wasn’t something huge, it was a neighborhood paper and The Belton Bus had its own article every year, right next to the obituaries- it was very special.
I stood between Chris and Ian with Austin and Garett on the sides and we smiled for a few but then Chris pulled my hair teasingly so I yelped and then stomped on his foot, nudging into Ian on the other side of me, so he pinched my side and then I yelped again because I was extremely, dangerously ticklish and they loved using that against me. So the lady took a few pictures of us kind of wrestling and laughing a little bit until she thanked us and I was able to push them off of me.
“I’d like to get a picture of everyone who is on The Bus this year too, if that’s alright,” She added, putting her camera down on her side as I brushed out my hair that my brothers just messed up, which was amusing yet irritating at the same time.
“They’re not all here yet, but I’ll let you know,” I chirped politely.
“Three more just got here,” Erin piped, motioning to the drive way as Ross, Logan, and Gaige were walking towards the party, looking just as excited as everyone was, if not more.
“That leaves Turner and Kenton,” Rosa informed us. “And they have three minutes before they are considered late.”
“They’re on their way,” Logan informed us, running a hand through his short, wavy black hair. “Turner stayed over at Kent’s last night so he wouldn’t have to deal with his mother this morning.”
I nodded because that made sense, Turner’s mother was incredibly sentimental and cried over everything. Happy tears, sad tears, overwhelmed tears, she just loved to cry. Lord knows how many arcs we’d need to build if she was here to see off her only son on a two month stupidity trip. “Well, they better not be too late.”
“They’re on their way, Lanie,” Logan repeated with a laugh, looking down at me because he was so tall. “They’ll be fine.”
“I know, but-“
“Oh man,” Ross interrupted me with an annoyed groan.
Curious as to why he seemed so miserable, I looked over at him to see him looking over across the party to a bouncing blonde girl, who I knew was his girlfriend, Bailey. Ross wasn’t the kind of guy to stick with one girl for a while, though, and he’d been with Bailey for almost a month, which is probably a record for him, but it was obvious to everyone around that his ‘oh man’ groan was a signal that he was about to end it. To put it in the nicest terms out there, Ross was a player. He had this bad boy thing about him that made him irresistible to most girls and he knew exactly how to play the part too. He had the perfect troublesome smirk and curly dark hair and he just looked sexily bad boy-ish. He wasn’t actually a bad boy or anything, though, he was actually really amazing, his morals are just a little bit questionable at times.
“She’s going to flip, dude,” Gaige laughed, patting one of his tan hands on Ross’s bold shoulder for sympathy.
He was probably right too, considering how clingy Bailey was with Ross. She was actually borderline obsessive and it was pretty scary a lot of the time, since she’d threatened all of my friends multiple times, being friends with Ross and all, especially Erin, since she and Ross hooked up sophomore year and I guess Bailey didn’t forget that, which was absolutely insane to me.
Ross shrugged, not too caring about how he was about to crush Bailey’s heart in two. “I won’t have to deal with it.”
“You’re terrible,” I informed him with a roll of my eyes, noticing Cory and Grace coming out of the garage as she fixed her dress and he was un-wrinkling his t-shirt.
“At least I’m honest,” He laughed, flashing me a pearly white grin as he started walking away from the group towards where Bailey was standing and frantically waving at Ross as if he hadn’t already seen her. I felt bad for her really, considering what was about to happen to her, and I would have felt even worse if she wasn’t borderline insane.
“They lasted a lot longer than I thought they would,” Grace commented, replacing Ross with Cory by her side with their arms looped through each other.
“I gave it two months,” Logan informed. “He always sticks with the crazy ones longer.”
We all laughed loudly but were interrupted when there was an announcement which silenced almost all of the discussion happening in the busy backyard. It was Garett who was making the announcement, because at some point during the conversation, all four of my brothers had left the area when I didn’t notice because they were all standing with each other in the middle of the yard with a megaphone to get everyone’s attention effectively. It wasn’t just my brother’s standing there, though, it was all- or at least all of the ones that they could contact- of the past Heads of the Bus. There were about ten of them there and I knew some of their names, the three that came before me in the three previous years that I’d been in high school.
“The last two riders have just arrived,” Garett announced with the megaphone. “So we’re about to take off.”
The whole crowd cheered incredibly loud, but not louder than me, Baker, Erin, Rosa, Sydney, and Grace, because all six of us started screaming and dancing around excitedly because this was it. It was really it. We had been waiting for this moment for thirteen years and it was finally here- it was finally happening. This was it.
The four guys were also incredibly excited and as Garett was announcing, Ross had made his way back to us, leaving a broken hearted blonde in his trail. They were all grinning from ear to ear in excitement, but they didn’t actually shriek or anything like the girls were, obviously.
“I’m also proudly announcing that this,” Ian took the megaphone to say his own tiny speech. “That this is the last true Belton ride for a very long time, until we have kids so yeah, in a very long time.”
Everyone cheered again, including me and my friends, and then all of the old Heads moved to stand by The Bus. They made a long line standing by the door so that we’d pass each and every one of them as we walked to the bus and stepped through the door.
It was actually becoming real in that moment and I began to shake with excitement. I heard Garett announce earlier that Turner and that Kenton guy had arrived but I was too excited now to actually look for them at all. All twelve of us were standing there, though, everyone was behind me though, save for Baker who was standing next to me as we clung to each other in the pure excitement of the moment.
I had to go last to get on the bus, being the Head of the Bus, that was just how it worked, and so I waited numbly for all of the guys to walk down the line of Heads. They were all in order from oldest to youngest year, with the oldest being closest to the doors of The Bus, except for my four brothers, who were standing at the door together in the line. Logan went first, and then Ross and Turner and then Gaige. Behind him had to be that Kenton guy, but I only saw the back of his head. I mean, it was a nice head, but I couldn’t really determine his cuteness off of the back of his head. After him was Cory and then the girls started getting on. They shook hands with a few of the old Heads like the guys did, and then shook all of my brothers’ hands before disappearing up the steps of The Bus. It started with Rosa and then Grace, Sydney and then Erin, which left Baker and I to get on.
My breaths were growing shallower and I was getting kind of nervous about getting on this bus. There were cameras snapping pictures and people clapping and cheering and my mother was right there, almost crying beside my dad who looked stern and angry, which I ignored. It was like falling in love, I think. I was falling in love with this memory that hasn’t even happened yet, which seemed crazy.
I smiled and waved at all of the older Heads as I passed them behind Baker and I noticed her stop in front of Austin, who looked a little bit petrified because Baker was just standing there. He opened his mouth to say something but he was quickly interrupted when Baker pounced on him- pushing herself onto her tippy toes and forcefully pressing her lips into his. Before he could push her away, she bounced away happily, stepping onto the bus without even one word of explanation.
I laughed softly and rolled my eyes at her random behavior, but it was expected in some weird way, her kissing my brother like that, with her having an undying crush on him and whatnot.
Instead of shaking my brothers’ hands like everyone else did, I hugged them anxiously. Austin was first in the line, since he was the last Belton to take his ride, and he hugged me tightly, obviously excited to see me off.
“It doesn’t matter what you do, just don’t get caught, kiddo,” He assured me as I pulled away.
I chuckled and nodded. “I’ll remember that,” I assured him as I hugged Ian and he returned my hug, also excited for this day.
“You better make this count, Alaina,” Ian warned me. “Make it count.”
I nodded in agreement. “I definitely plan on it.”
When I was hugging Chris, he told me that I should hide the alcohol under the seats and make sure that it doesn’t spill all over the place.
Garett reminded me that I needed to find my true love by kissing somebody on The Bus, although I didn’t plan on doing that, considering five out of the six guys on The Bus with me were my best friends and I would never do that. I mean, I did do that once and it was weird and dumb so I wouldn’t do it again. I dated Turner for like two weeks during junior year but it wasn’t a good idea because we were just better off as friends.
Anyway, I waved one last goodbye to my brothers before taking my first step onto The Bus. Being the Head, I got to drive first, even though we were all able to drive it. After I selected the eleven other riders, we all had to undergo classes to teach us how to handle a bus and we had to get certified and everything, so we could all drive it, but I got to drive it first. Well, Kenton was a last minute replacement, so he didn’t go to the classes or anything, so I didn’t know if he could drive or not, but I doubted it.
I counted all three steps as I padded up them and then I inspected the inside of the bus. Our luggage was already stored away under the seats and in the back where the last two rows of seats had been torn out and it left a completely empty back area where we put all of our suitcases and some food and stuff and then more luggage was stuffed under the seats with carry on stuff. There were two beds on the right side and four on the left, because forever ago, they rearranged the bus and took out some seats so that the seats faced each other and then they put mattresses down so that we could sleep. All six beds were covered in a plethora of pillows and blankets to sleep on and then on the right side, there was also three seats converted into a table. The seat in the middle was taken out and then the one in front was turned around so that it was like a bench seat with a table installed between the two seats. At the very front of the bus, there were original seats like in a normal bus. There were three on the right side and one on the left. The walls of The Bus were all written over with Sharpies and there were some pictures glued or taped to the walls and ceilings. It really looked like a memory on wheels. I could almost smell the amount of memories that this bus held.
“Are you ready?” Garett asked me as I stood in front of all eleven other people. I had to give a small speech before we really took off. Well, I didn’t have to, but I really wanted to. I’d actually prepared a speech in my mind, which is really saying something because I never really plan anything.
I nodded, swallowed a lump in my throat, and then looked up at all of the eager faces. “Okay,” I breathed. “Most of you know each other. We’ve been friends forever. But now, after this trip, we’re going to be so much more than friends- we’re going to be family. We’re going to find out things about each other that we never dreamed about. We’re going to share a countless amount of crazy memories and we’re going to force each other to do the most stupid, insane, brave, dumb and the most ridiculous things ever, because that’s what this trip is about. It’s about making friends into family. It’s about having something to remember about your four years in high school.
“Needless to say that this summer will be our legacy. Our legacy. How many people can say that they leave a legacy in this world? Not many, and ours might not be huge, but it’s something, and we’re incredibly special and lucky to be able to be part of something so special. This will be what you will be remembered by. This will be the story you tell your grandchildren about when you were in high school. We’re going to travel to places we never thought existed. We’re going to do things we never even thought were possible. Things that we never dreamed about doing, this is the summer.” I grinned and everybody cheered, including the people outside of the bus who were listening as well. I raised my hands in celebration, along with a small little dance of excitement before cheering one last thing. “This summer will be our legacy!”