Bus

Twice a year, we have bus evacuations. One at the beginning, and one at the start of the second semester.

First of all, let me tell you that it’s completely random when they tell us we gotta do it. It takes place in the morning, and they literally tell the drivers the afternoon before it happens. So the next morning when we’re driving our kids to school and they’re being animals all over the damn place, the news doesn’t really go over well with them.

Trust me on that.

I reach for the microphone as we pull into the school, bracing myself. “We got something special today,” I speak grudgingly to them all. “We’re doing bus evacuations.”

Everybody on the bus goes silent. Completely, absolutely, silent.

Finally, one kid in the back stands up and flips me off in clear daylight. “I fuckin’ hate bus evacuation!”

And soon enough, everyone else joins along, cheering “Yeah!” and “Why?!” with the kid who started it, some scrawny Asian kid who never takes off his hat. Biting my lip, I squeeze the steering wheel even harder and pull up to the curb of the bus loop. I can’t say I didn’t expect this.

This time, when we stop, I don’t open the doors to let them off. Instead, a staff member of the school walks up to the double doors with a walkie-talkie in hand and I let him on. He’s a coach for one of the gym classes, some buff guy who’s got gray hair and angry-looking eyebrows. I don’t know his name. Then again, I don’t really care. In fact, I hate him right now. I hate bus evacuations as much as these kids do.

He steps up the stairs and stands in the walkway, projecting his voice to the junior high schoolers anxiously shuffling their backpacks together.

“You guys know the drill, right?” he asks.

Nobody answers.

“Well, you’ll be jumping out the back exit this time,” he explains, “so leave your stuff on the bus. In case of a real emergency, you’ll leave your backpacks on the bus as well. Don’t worry about it.”

Simultaneously, everybody dropped their bookbags on command.

The coach rolls his eyes and sighs. “And don’t make a show out of jumping out, either,” he groans. “Just drop down. Nobody cares if you can do a backflip out of the back of a bus. Okay? Got it?”

That kind of stuff actually happens? He can’t see it, but I give him a funny look.

“I’ll need two big guys to help kids out of the exit. How about…” he trails off, rubbing his chin while countless seventh graders leap up, wanting to be volunteers. None of them, however, meet his criteria.

I step in. “Cadence, Hector, you do it,” I command, pointing to two eighth grader boys who are probably the tallest ones on the bus. Cadence, a skinny white kid who doesn’t really do anything other than smile and skateboard, stands up and opens the backdoor. And while he does that, Hector, this dude who I’m pretty sure is on the baseball team, follows him out the back.

The coach leaves and I step in the aisle where he stood. “Alright, you all should know what to do. Now get out. We’re being timed.”

The thing about bus evacuation is that it goes a lot faster than I normally think it’s gonna go. All they have to do is jump three feet off the ground and not break any bones. It sounds simple. I remember when I was a kid, it was scary being that high off the ground. I always thought I was gonna faceplant and crack my nose open on the pavement, while my peers formed a circle around me and laughed at my misery. That’s just how I thought, though.

Well, yes. It sounds simple. But when you’ve got tweens filing out the back while you’re getting timed for something that only wastes time, nothing is ever that easy.

While they’re busy leaping, I get off from the front entrance and watch. By this point about half of the kids are off and buzzing with conversation about stuff that has absolute jack shit to do with what had just happened, and Cadence and Hector aren’t really doing anything other than standing there by the door.

Hector shoots a look at me with his eyebrows pinched together like he doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to be doing. I don’t think he’s ever said a word to me. That’s cool, though. He’s a nice kid from what I hear. (He’s also the only person who’s allowed to listen to his SkyPod on the bus, but nobody notices that.) I just wouldn’t wanna get in a fight with him.

Cadence, on the other hand, is busy laughing with this chick who I swear is, like, attached to him or something. She’s an eighth grader too and won’t keep her damn hands and head in the window, even when I tell her to get ‘em in. Cadence once told her to blow a condom up and throw it out the window, and she did. (I wrote referrals for both of them for that, just so you know.)

The last kid is up. He’s wiry and bony with black hair that never lies flat on his head, which goes great with his creepy smile and beady little eyes. I don’t know his name but he once told me his parents are circus folks. Well, anyways, he’s perched at the back with his hands in the doorway, licking his lips. He hesitates before taking the plunge, and then he does it.

He jumps out with his limbs all flying everywhere, looking like he’s trying to fly. He flies about as well as a chicken, though, ‘cause almost as soon as he descends, he lands on his stomach.

He lies still on the pavement for ten seconds. Cadence kicks him while everybody else just circles around the mess; I push through the crowds. God knows I don’t need to be sued.

His body is covered in dirt and scratches, and I see blood dripping from the palms of his hands. Hector flips him over – his knees are even more badly beaten. Even I think he’s dead for a minute.

“Holy crap,” Cadence snickered. “Mikey’s dead, man.”

The boy’s face twitches and he wrinkles his nose up, wiggling his eyebrows before finally opening his eyes. Relief flushes through my veins.

“You okay?” I ask him.

Mikey sits up. “I’m a bug…I’m a bug,” he mumbles, smiling so damn creepily.

Instinctively, I step backward.

He catches sight of his knees and shins, which are all torn up from the fall. “Ooh, wow. I’m bleeding, right?”

I don’t know what to say, so I just nod.

“Well,” he coughs, struggling to stand up. “I should go to the clinic, eh, Geronimo?”

“Uh…yeah…”

He limps away, not even bothering to get his backpack back from the bus.

All of us look on in crazy intrigue as he leaves, and when he’s out of earshot, the chick who was talking to Cadence snaps her gum and laughs.

“That kid’s crazy,” she smiles, rolling her eyes.