The honking of the bus is what wakes me up in the morning.
It's hard work, pushing myself up out of bed. The covers create this greenhouse effect, perfectly warming every inch of me. I have to convince myself to get up, and even when I'm finally sitting up, I spend five minutes staring at my feet hanging off the side of the bed, trying to convince myself to start getting ready for school.
Then the bus's horns blow, and I whirl around to look at the clock.
7:15 A.M.
Holy freaking crap.
I bolt off the bed, throw my closet door open, and grab the first white polo and purple skirt combination I can find. I toss them on the bed and wriggle out of my PJ's as fast as I can, looking looking looking at that freaking traitor of a clock that didn't go off on time. I yank on the shirt, pulling the small hole over my head and buttoning them up. I literally jump into the skirt, hopping on one foot while trying to shove the bottom of my polo into the waistband.
7:19 A.M.
Slamming the closet door shut, I glance at my hair in the mirror. My gosh, a mouse or a bird or something inhabited my hair last night. I make a mad grab for my brush and yank the knots out of my hair until it look semi-presentable. Jerking the handles of my sock drawer, I pull it open and grab a pair of knee-high socks, which I think are ridiculous but are also included in the school's dress code. When I finally tug them both on, I drop to the floor, reach under my bed, and pull out my shoes. Shoving toes into them, I grab for my backpack and throw on my jacket and bolt out the door into the bathroom.
7:24 A.M.
Running my toothbrush under the faucett, I grab the toothpaste. While trying to get some on the bristles, I accidentally squeeze the tube too hard, and toothpaste goes everywhere. Hissing under my breath, I shake my hand out in the water and roll the toothbrush around in my mouth. I brush back and forth once and spit, then wipe my hand across my mouth and slam the door to the bathroom shut on my way out.
7:28 A.M.
I fly down the stairs, leaping all the way down to the bottom, and start running. My parents are idly chittchatting in the kitchen, and I yell out a "Bye Love You Gotta Go" so they know that I am in fact alive and on my way to school.
Mom calls back, "Chihiro? Honey, toast!"
Mom, in the past few years, has learned the fine art of chucking Ziploc baggies filled with various forms of breakfast foods across eighteen feet of living room. I, luckily, catch it on my way out, shouting back, "Thanks Mom Gotta Go Bye!"
The bus is just passing my driveway when I get out the front door. I scream, "Wait! Wait, no, crap! Hold up!" I break out into a dead sprint and bolt toward the bus. "Hey! Hey, wait!"
The driver, a sensible man of forty years or so, must see me in the rearview mirror, for he begins to speed up. Dramatically.
"No! No! . . . Dang it, you . . . butthole!" I scream, wanting to say worse but not doing so because the neighbors' four-year-old is waddling around in their yard. "No! Stop! Please, stop!"
The bus starts down the long, steep hill connecting the top from the bottom, and as it gets further and further away, I start losing speed.
"No!" I wail, stuck in the middle of the road as the bus gets smaller and smaller. I stamp my foot on the ground and yell, "Come ON!"
I swing my leg around and start back toward my street. Cursing under my breath, I start considering my options.
The school bus, after all, is not the only bus in the area.
I grimace. Time to catch me some public transportation.
The public bus driver, Mr. Hayashi, grimaces sympathetically when he stops in front of me.
"Hey, Chihiro," Mr. Hayashi says. "Late again?"
"As I have been every day for the past two years," I mutter, which is not entirely true, but not entirely un-true either.
"What's for breakfast?"
"Toast," I reply. "Two slices. Want some?"
I take one of two pieces of bread out of the bag and handing the bag-half to him. Mr. Hayashi grins and says, "You're awesome, kid." He and I have something of an understanding. Here in front of me sits one of the only three or so adults in the world who actually seem to help me out.
As I start making my way back, Mr. Hiyashi calls out, "Sixth stop! Don't forget! Four more to go!"
"Got it!" I tell him, pushing through the large crowd of people to my usual spot.
I have to struggle for a place holding onto the handrail. Squeezing in-between a rumpled old man and a polished young woman, I grip the handrail with all the strength my hand posseses. I take a bite of toast, then hold on for dear life as the bus starts moving again.
7:30 A.M.'s kind of a busy time for the world, it seems. Everyone crams onto this one small bus that makes its way through the city, depositing people off at their destinations. Which doesn't sound so bad, until you get to the part where you admit that Mr. Hayashi, despite being a very nice and caring person, isn't exactly all that great of a driver, and there are too many hills and rough roads and shortcuts in this town to count. Those fortunate enough to get a seat hold on to the undersides so tightly that their knuckles turned stark white, and those, like me, who are always running late, get the privilege of hanging on to the overhead rails, being thrown into one another and jostled around until we can't remember which stop's ours.
Mine, though, I know, and will never forget: I get off at the sixth stop. The high school's always the sixth stop on the bus's route, and I'm always waiting, always ready, bouncing on the balls of my feet when it comes around. It's like I've been on this trek before, a long time ago, a shaded figure to my side and a friend on my shoulder, repeating the destination over and over and over in my head so there was no chance I'd forget . . .
I blink and shake my head. Shaded figures and friends on shoulders? I glance down at the now half-eaten piece of toast. Is there some kind of drug hidden in the butter or something?
WHAM! The bus stops abruptly, and I slam into that old man standing in front of me, letting out a loud, "Ooompfh!"
The man shoots me a glare, and I try to give him a nice-ish smile, trying to sound sincere, saying, "Sorry!"
But, really, I'm not in the mood.
The bus picks back up again, and this time I go backwards, my shoulders slamming into something hard and rough behind me. I whirl around, grasping for the handrail with one hand, looking for the source of whatever that was. But there's only a woman standing behind me, her clothes perfectly pressed and button and zipped, saying, "Could you hold on any tighter?"
My heart slows, finally. I thought I felt something like . . . scales. "I'm sorry. The road is just so rough."
"Tell me about it," the woman mutters to herself, looking out the window with bright brown eyes. Her long brown hair and nasal voice remind me . . . of someone I know . . . "Listen, kid, I have a very important interview in about twenty minutes, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't completely mess up my clothes with your constant ramming into other people."
"Yes, ma'am," I say, quickly, turning around to face the front. "Can do, no problem."
"Good," the woman says, behind me, and I just know I know her voice from somewhere. I would turn around and ask her what her name is if it wasn't for my best friend hobbling down the aisle toward me.
"Chihiro!" Mei calls out, pushing through the crowd of grumbling adults to get to me. "Got any room over there?"
"Sure!" I call out to her, and everyone around me groans. Apparently, the thought of two klutzes ramming into people at every turn and every abrupt stop is a lot worse than just one.
"Hey," Mei says when she finally gets to me. She's a regular on the public transportation system, like me, except my reason for riding the bus is that I'm always late and hers is that she is "too fabulous for the commoners." Her long, raven-colored hair is pulled back into an elaborate braid thrown over one shoulder, and her uniform is crisp and perfect, a lot like the woman's before I was thrown into her. Her shiny shoes clack against the floor, and her book bag rests perfectly in the crook of her shoulder. Meaning, she looks exactly not like me.
I mean, when you spend exactly ten or so minutes in the morning getting ready, you're bound to look like something of a hot mess. My choppy brown hair is always in disarray, my bangs falling into my eyes, the different pieces' lengths making them fall over one another and stick up in weird places. Glancing down at my shirt, I notice that I've accidentally buttoned four buttons in the wrong hole and that one sock is pulled up a lot higher than the other. I pull my jacket closed so no one notices (for now) and kind of nonchalantly fix my socks.
"Hi," I answer, tucking my hair absentmindedly behind my ears. "What's up?"
Mei rolls her eyes at me and says, "Come on. Hand me your special hair thingy."
I look down at my wrist and pull off the purple-and-pink sparkly hair ribbon I've had for years. I spin around and allow Mei to take hold of my hair and spin it up into its usual ponytail. The woman behind me raises an eyebrow as I wait for Mei to finish and hold onto the rail with the opposite hand. I just smile sweetly at her.
The bus stops yet again, and everyone falls onto one another. Mei groans in frustration, saying, "Hold on. Now I have to start over." Finally, she finishes, my bangs and a few strands of hair left out to frame my face. I turn back around, away from the woman's analyzing stare, and face Mei.
"Better," she says, lifting a hand to grip the handrail. "Much better. This is definitely the wrong day to show up to school with bad hair."
"What do you mean?" I ask, trying to keep on my feet as the bus starts again.
Mei glances out the window, then back at me, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Supposedly, there's some new guy at school."
I raise my eyebrows. "Really?" The town doesn't generally get new arrivals. I, myself, moved here seven years ago, and until just reever cently have I been seriously accepted into the society. (Admittedly, it might've been because of the crazy ideas I had about the place and things I'd seen when I first got here, but you get the point.) Only two other families I know of moved here in the past seven years. New students at the high school, especially, are uncommon.
"Yeah," Mei says, and then drops her voice even lower. "And apparently he's super hot."
I roll my eyes. "So you'll know every single thing about him within the hour?"
Mei laughs. "Naturally."
Mei and the posse of girls I kind of am half-friends with are all what you could call "boy-crazy." Me, I've never been that gaga over having a boyfriend and all that. Some part of me keeps waiting on someone, someone I'll just know, someone I've known before, to show up. Maybe it's crazy, but I know that the bright green eyes in my dreams come from somewhere, and I can always feel love radiating from them. And, I guess, just that's always been enough for me.
Recently, though, I've started to feel further and further away from the little group of friends I hang around because of this issue. They all have boyfriends and crushes and whatnot, and I'm chasing after fantasies I don't even know exist. I mean, of course, something about me has always been off ever since my first day here, but I really never felt how apart I am from the rest of the world until recently.
So I pretend to be interested.
Mr. Hayashi slams on the breaks, and I fall into Mei who falls into the old man. A vein throbs in the old man's neck, but he doesn't say anything for once. Mei huffs and fixes her immaculate skirt. "I hate the bus."
"You said it," I tell her, shoving my hands down into my pockets and looking outside.
It's a really clear day, for once. The sky is bright, deep blue, and the clouds dot the skies like puffs of smoke. The sun shines down on the world, which feels like an oxymoron, because this seems like the beginning of a really awful day. Suddenly, my vision goes blurry, and I think I see everything covered in water like we're in the middle of an ocean, but then it changes back and the world is right again.
". . . Chihiro?" Mei asks. "You listening?"
I whip my head back to her, saying, "Hmm?"
Mei sighs. "You're hopeless."
The bus slams to a stop one final time, and it's our stop. The sixth stop. Mei and I push our way back through the crowd, preparing to face the day.
"Bye, Mr. Hayashi," I say on the way out, and he waves back at me.
When we're standing on the ground, looking up at the high school, Mei says, "This feels weird."
"What?"
"This day," she replies. "It's like something important's going to happen today."
The first bell rings, and I sigh and give her a lenient smile.
"There's only one way to find out, right?" I ask.