Pythagoreans believed that all things were measurable in terms of number and every number had its own meaning. According to them, six meant 'creation'. They also studied perfect numbers (a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper positive divisors), and six was the lowest. Some people, who aren't Pythagoreans, believe the number six represents luck, or family and love. Others think it symbolizes balance.
Isn't that interesting? Doesn't it seem as though the number six could have some pretty awesome properties?
The universe certainly thinks so.
Dan
7.43am
I don't know what drawing dicks on public property says about me as a person, thought Dan, but it's freaking hilarious. The entire bus was practically fraying at the edges and Dan could almost smell the winter of its life emanating from every surface, but miraculously the back of the seat he was looking at was a blank canvas with nothing doodled or scrawled on it; not a fuck or a phone number promising a good time in sight.
Popping the seat's metaphorical virginity, Dan finished his latest masterpiece with a smirk, inhaled an extra-long breath of his marker pen, and then got started on dick number two. Amanda, his step-mum, suddenly popped into his head, but he shook the image of her frowning at him away before it suffocated his creativity.
Dan glared at the obstacle in front of him. He'd drawn shafts on the sides of bridges and peckers high up on office blocks, but he'd never had an obstruction like the one in front of him now. Sat in the seat in front was a girl from his form, Kimberly Something, and each time he tried to get closer to his work of art, her huge hair tickled his skin and aggravated his acne.
He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, and glanced around at everyone else on the bus. Same old faces; nobody new, nobody interesting, apart from Mikaela, whose photos he'd had some special screen time with last night. He turned forwards in his seat and got back to ducking under Kimberly Something's massive hair to finish his objet d'art.
It did smell nice though. Kimberly Something's hair.
Kimberly
7.44am
Kimberly's Mum was from Grand Cayman and her Dad was from Ireland, which meant that Kimberly had a frizz of ginger curls with freckles to match. Nicole Kidman and Ed Sheeran may be worshiped in Hollywood, but in the real world being ginger meant you had a neon sign on your back that said Put on this earth for you to torment at your leisure - lesson time, break time, lunch time, whichever time you so desire. The colour of her hair, along with the fact that her chest was as flat as her back, she'd inherited her Dad's stocky frame, and her tendency to hunch down due to her generous height earned her uninspired nicknames such as Meatloaf (not even ginger) Brienne (which she kind of liked) and Notorious P.I.G. (which she didn't like one bit). There was also Kim Car-crash-ian which Kimberly thought was underused, considering how creative it was.
School had always been a daily serving of hell and self-loathing, but when her best friend, Natalie, had stopped replying to her texts and avoiding her at school, Kimberly's bus journey had become a taster of how she spent each day. Totally alone. Over a year had passed, and she still didn't know what she'd done to make Natalie ghost her. She'd seen Natalie surrounded by her new friends, all as pretty and perfect as she was, dancing around and laughing at Ryan's party at the weekend, the same one that the others on the bus had been at.
Seeing photos on Instagram isn't really the same as seeing real people at a real party, Kimberly, she thought.
There was movement behind her and Kimberly braced herself; that boy, Daniel, was making her nervous. She normally tried to sit away from him, away from everyone, but the bus was a lot smaller than normal. In fact, it was a lot older than normal. The windows didn't look as though they would open properly, and the seats were covered in a vile cream plastic. She hadn't noticed the bus's interior until she'd sat down, mostly because she generally walked around without taking her eyes of her own shoes.
Kimberly glanced at her watch. Only another eight hours until home time and she could talk to Andre in the privacy of her bedroom. It was the only thing getting her to the end of each day of her miserable, pathetic life.
Michaela
7.45am
Michaela got a whiff of marker pen and sat up so she could see what Daniel Vincent was drawing on the back of Kimberly's seat. She rolled her eyes and sat back down thinking that she should have guessed it would be a penis, because Daniel was a teenage boy and teenage boys were obsessed with what was hanging between their legs. She craned her neck again, part of her impressed at the accuracy of his drawing, then shuddered as it brought back the memory of the first time she'd seen one in real life. Urgh, she thought.
Michaela looked out of the clammy bus window, wondering if drama club would still go ahead, or if the studio roof be leaking again. She fiddled with her hair, tracing her fingers over the long extensions. They looked great, but were too long and she kept getting tangled on the hangers at work when her supervisor called her from the changing rooms and she'd spun round in response. She was thinking of getting them taken out, but her mum had said she liked them.
But her mum had said a lot of things.
Mikaela's eyes changed focus so she could see her reflection in the glass. Everyone told her how much she looked like her mum, like resembling her would make losing her easier, instead of slapping her in the face every time she looked in the mirror. It's what everyone kept saying, that and 'at least she's not suffering now'.
Mikaela squeezed her eyes shut before the grief took hold, but another unwelcome thought popped in her head instead. Fucking nakeddream69. The profile name had Barney written all over it but Mikaela couldn't work out how he'd managed to take the photos at the same time as...she shook her head, cringing at the memory and the fact that he was sitting on the same bus as her.
She'd worked so hard to surround herself with the right people, and now all they would see was the girl in the photos. The girl who'd made the biggest mistake of her life and screwed things up with the one person who'd held the shards of Mikaela's broken heart together, splinters and all.
Barney
7.46am
Barney felt a stir in his pants as he stared at Mikaela. Man, she was a good kisser, but despite what he'd told the lads he couldn't rate her on anything else as she wasn't hammered enough to let him go any further. She'd not replied to any of his messages, probably embarrassed that she'd acted like such a slut. She's so full of herself, he thought, strutting around with those big folders and books, and marching around in the school play like she's so innocent, but all she wants is to get down and dirty like every other female on this planet.
Mirroring Mikaela, he turned to the window and checked his own brown hair. Perfectly styled, as always. He shuffled back in his seat, trying to get comfortable, but the seat in front of him was digging into his legs. What the fuck is this bus? he thought. Are they always this messed up? This one looks about fifty years old. Unfortunately this was his transport for the rest of term; his punishment for crashing his car into a herd of cows. Hilarious at the time but not so much when he realised how pissed off his Dad would be. So here I am, with the peasants, being driven by a weirdo who paints his nails and brings his dog to work. Freak, thought Barney, frowning at the back of the bus driver's head.
He hadn't realised Michaela got this bus though, so not all bad. Next time I'll sit so I've got a good view of her tits, he thought.
Chloe
7.47am
Chloe looked up from her book and blinked at her reflection, checking that the wings lined on either side of her eyes matched. She loved the cat flick look but it was tricky to get right, especially if you were rushing because you needed to escape your parent's suffocating silence, even if it meant you were waiting at the bus stop for twenty unnecessary minutes.
She turned from the window just in time to see Barney re-adjust himself, his hand lingering a few moments longer than was really acceptable in a public place. She shook her head, tucked her bobbed blond hair behind her ear and got back to her book, savouring her precious reading time before they were thrust into the daily torture that was also known as school. Best days of my life, my arse, she thought.
A memory of her family sitting at the dining table elbowed its way into the forefront of her mind and her eyes wandered from the pages of her book again. She'd been complaining about the amount of homework she had, and her dad boomed, "These are the best days of your lives, girls, you remember that". She looked at her sister, Ella, who rolled her eyes and said "If that's true, kill me now!" before her mum told her not to say such things, and to eat their chicken before it gets cold.
God, she missed her sister. It'd been a year since she'd gone. One whole year of Chloe walking around with a hole in her middle, an Ella shaped hole. How was Chloe supposed to plug that hole? Her parents pretended it wasn't there, looking straight through it if Chloe stood in front of them, desperate for them to acknowledge what had happened. Chloe just couldn't pretend.
She wouldn't pretend.
Ethan had messaged her on Sunday, just a catch up email as they were still just exchanging pleasantries (How are you? I'm fine, how are you? What are you doing this weekend?), asking whether she'd enjoyed Ryan's party. He'd convinced her to go, to pull herself out of her comfort zone (or off of her bed) and go and have conversations and interactions and laugh and do what sixteen year olds do. Ethan's encouragement and her desire to get away from her parents had driven her out of the house, and before she knew it she was avoiding puddles of sick and bundles of arms and legs making out with each other as she navigated around Ryan's party.
She'd hated every minute of it. Loathed it. Ethan could laugh at her all he wanted, but Chloe was happy to remain firmly inside her comfort zone and not cross the borders, not even to get a better WIFI signal.
Would Chloe tell Ethan about the photos of Mikaela? Was it a bit gossipy to share with him? Boys didn't like talking about that sort of thing, did they? It was so difficult to know since they only communicated online. However she decided to reply, she'd have to do it when she got to the school library. Her parents had found out about Ethan at the weekend and they'd confiscated Chloe's electronic life, leaving her completely disconnected.
Nav
7.48am
The door closed with a clunk, and Nav thanked the bus driver, raising an eyebrow at the small brown dog that was sitting by his feet. He turned to find a seat, pausing as he took in the interior of the school bus. It was so old. The usual blue seats and orange trimmings that assaulted your optic nerves the moment you stepped on the bus (especially if you'd had a bad night's sleep) were replaced with metal rails and handles that were in need of a good polish and seats that were covered in fake leather. Nav wiped his forehead. The layout of the bus seats and where the driver was sitting was all off, and trying to work out where everything should be made his brain ache and his eyelids feel heavy. And where was everyone? There were only six passengers, including himself. It wasn't a bank holiday again, was it? (He'd done that before.)
He shrugged it off (he had more important things to worry about other than the council's lack of funding for school transport) and headed to the back, ducking down as he went but still skimming his head on the ceiling.
Nav smiled and nodded at the others like he did every morning, even though none of them really responded. He held his breath as he got closer to Chloe, and his stomach did a little flip when she actually looked up from her book for once and almost smiled back at him. His overt friendliness towards everyone else probably didn't scream 'hey, I like you. How about it?' to the object of his affection, but he'd heard what'd happened with her sister so he figured now wasn't the best time to make a move. He would though, one day. It wasn't as if he had time for dating, anyway.
Barney had raised his hand for Nav the moment he'd stepped on the bus (Doesn't he realise he looks like a Nazi, sitting like that? thought Nav), and Nav slapped it reluctantly, ignoring Barney's waggling eyebrows and obscene hand gestures towards Mikaela. Nav had been at Ryan's party on Friday, and he'd seen Barney and Mikaela coming down the stairs together, Mikaela peeling his arms from around her waist like she was wrestling a boa constrictor, so he already knew they'd hooked up without Barney having to act the big man about it. Getting it on with the drunkest girl at the party wasn't exactly something to be proud of. I should tell him to leave it out, thought Nav. Maybe I'll say something to him at football later.
He sat down and exhaled, glad not to be lurching down the bus like an Indian BFG and wiped the sweat from his forehead again. What if my pits are sweaty, too? he thought rubbing his side, his eyes widening as his fingers came into contact with an unmistakable warm dampness. Please don't let Chloe have seen my sweaty pits. Oh shit, what if she'd smelled them. Do I smell of BO?
There had been so much to do that morning that he nearly missed the bus. It was an easy sprint from the front door to the bus stop, although his coach would have bollocked him for not warming up first. He'd just have to make sure he'd do everything in plenty of time tomorrow, and then everything would be okay, and he wouldn't be a sweaty blob when he joined everyone (especially Chloe) on the bus.
Lazlo
7.49am
Lazlo Lenora Loxley watched the Indian boy walk to the back of the bus in the rear view mirror, a couple of the kids reacting to his silent greeting, the rest of them so trapped inside a maelstrom of heavy thoughts that they couldn't connect with what was in front of their eyes.
The Indian boy sat down, his smile sliding off of his face as he adopted the same expression as the rest of the passengers and stared out of the window. Lazlo checked his watch, then looked at the bus dashboard. Had his passengers taken a moment to have a good look inside the driver's cab before they traipsed to their seats, they would have seen something that more resembled an aeroplane cockpit than a rickety old bus.
Lights flashed on the brushed metal dashboard, blinking and twinkling and strobing beneath Lazlo, lighting him from his chin upwards as his eyes and fingers danced across the spectrum of buttons and bulbs. Silver dials and switches were scattered between the lights, so many more controls than one would expect on a school bus.
So many controls, including one red plastic button cover.
Lazlo checked his watch (the dashboard had everything apart from a clock; they wouldn't need the time where they were going), then, as he flicked up the red cover to reveal a green button, he looked down at his cocker spaniel, Desmond.
'It's time,' he said.
Desmond nodded, and Lazlo pushed the button.
Then everything went heels over head.
***
Lazlo, in one guise or another, had been driving these kids to school on a daily basis for the last year, and he was astonished by the disunion between them. All the same age, trudging up the bus steps and down the aisle to sit alone, like they had the weight of the universe pressing down on their young shoulders. Didn't their adults see what pain they were in, how they felt the need to isolate themselves and their problems? He just couldn't take seeing them like this.
Lazlo glanced at Desmond as he wedged his furry little body in between Lazlo's legs, bracing himself for the detour they were about to take. A one-time only life detour.
As was expected when one presses the green button, the bus accelerated like a rollercoaster shooting towards the top of a loop. Lazlo adjusted the rear view mirror and saw a cluster of wide eyes staring back at him. Some of them managed to lift their hands and grip hold of the seats in front of them, their knuckles so white that it seemed their bones would pop through the skin on their fingers.
The bus reached eighty miles an hour, then ninety, and then at one hundred miles an hour all of the passengers were screaming, all of them except the ginger one who closed her eyes and hunched down into her seat. Lazlo weaved the old bus around the cars on the road with the laid back attitude of a gondolier, smiling as they screamed, and turned left at the crossroads towards the town bridge.
They careened down the high street where early morning shoppers looked right before they crossed the road, oblivious to the blur of the bus as it flew past them. Drivers sat like zombies inside their people carriers, listening to local news and traffic reports, unaware of the stealthy bus zipping between them.
Lazlo changed gear and pushed the accelerator down even further. Entering the bridge, he yanked the steering wheel to the left, aiming the bus at an old lady who was walking her dog. He was an excellent driver and knew the old lady would remain unscathed, but Lazlo started screaming along with the rest of his passengers just for the excitement of it all. Even Desmond joined in and began to howl.
The bus hit the bridge railings and missed the old lady's stockinged ankle by a whisker. There was a toe curling scrape of metal as the bus broke through the railings like they were tin foil, and Lazlo watched the Indian boy trying to yank open the emergency exit door at the back of the bus. The ginger girl had grabbed the blonde girl's wrist and was trying to pull her up; and the white boy with all the zits around his mouth was kicking the pretty black girl's bag under her chair as she tried to climb over it. The handsome white boy's face had turned the colour of milk.
Down they went, until the wheels of the bus were no longer in contact with the ground, and they were flying through the air, not in slow motion like they were in an action movie, but fast, fast like in real life. The front of the bus hit the murky water, and they all froze, their screaming mouths wide open and their eyes squeezed shut. Lazlo picked up Desmond and they turned to watch the teenagers through the scratched glass of the driver's compartment. Lazlo smiled as the white boy with zits opened one eye, then the other, and looked around wondering why the bus hadn't started to fill with water. He grabbed the black girls shoulder and shook her, shaking her eyes open so he could get confirmation of what he was seeing.
They both took a seat, climbing up on them so they were standing on their knees, their hands pressed against the windows of the bus like toddlers on a train for the first time. The green colour of the water remained, but the river had stopped rushing past them. A kaleidoscope of images faded in and out and collided with each other as the bus roared on. The other teenagers opened their eyes, and they all adopted the same positon on a seat of their own, their hands splayed on the glass as their lives flashed before their eyes.
Satisfied that he had their attention, Lazlo turned back to the bus dashboard and flicked up another red cover, this one revealing a blue button. Desmond nodded and Lazlo pressed it down.
They broke through the green images like they were made of wet paper, and emerged from a fluffy cloud, miles up in the air and began to fall, fast and hard, like a safe from the top of a skyscraper. Lazlo took off his seatbelt, stood up and stepped out of the driver's compartment, plopping Desmond down onto the seat in his place. He pulled the seatbelt around the dog and (with surprising grace due to the speed at which they were flying through the air) closed the small door and walked to the front seat so he could see all six of his passengers.
The bus skimmed the top of a sycamore tree, and as it was about to hit the green grass of the local park, a hole materialised, like a mouth getting wider and wider in surprise or fear, or maybe both. It was just big enough for a bus to fit through and Lazlo watched as Desmond landed in the entrance of the hole and steered them down a tunnel that was consumed by whispering shadows. Lazlo turned himself around to address them all.
The internal lights of the bus made them look paler than they probably were, but with the trip they'd just taken, it was hard to tell. They were all staring at him now, watching him as he stood steady on his feet, his slender hands clasped together in front of him. The good looking boy was the first one to speak.
'Who's driving the fucking bus?!'
'Never mind that, what the actual fuck just happened?' said the black girl.
'Is everyone ok?' the Indian boy looked around at everyone, his eyes lingering on the white girl with the blonde hair.
Lazlo raised his hands. 'Before we begin, I need to know all of your names. I can't carry on like this, referring to you as black girl, white boy, ginger mixed race girl with a smattering of freckles. It's too impersonal.'
They all stared at him, their mouths nearly as wide as the hole they'd just driven through.
'Come on,' Lazlo said, retrieving a spiral bound notebook and his favourite quill pen (a beautiful left wing feather discarded from a barn owl) from inside his jacket. 'Who wants to start?'
The ginger girl sank down in her seat, terrified she was going to have to go first, but Lazlo would never do that to her.
'You.' Lazlo pointed his quill at the good looking boy. 'What's your name?'
'Barney,' he said, glancing at the others.
Lazlo looked down for a moment as the quill swirled and bobbed over his notepad. He smiled at Barney. 'Okay, thanks, Barney. Who next?'
'What are you writing about me?' Barney asked.
'Just making a note of your names, if that's okay with you?' Lazlo waited for an answer, and continued when Barney didn't give him one. 'Next please.'
'I'm Navdeep. Call me Nav, though.'
'Lovely, thank you, Nav,' nodded Lazlo.
'Daniel. Dan.'
'Dan, great,' said Lazlo, looking from Dan's face to his notepad.
'Chloe.'
'Michaela.'
'Kimberly.'
Lazlo smiled at them all in turn, then tucked his notepad and quill pen back inside his jacket.
'So, now I know all of you, it's time for me to introduce myself. My name is Lazlo Lenora Loxley,' Lazlo gripped his fingers around the lapels of his standard issue blue jacket, then pulled them downwards until they tore from his body like a pair of those tracksuit bottoms that athletes (or strippers) wear. He balled up the suit and tossed it onto the floor, opening his arms wide and doing a twirl to give them full view of the incredible red and white striped suit he was wearing. 'And I am your Conductor.'