We had just gotten done walking to the bus stop after waving at my friend from the side, she looked up at me with a flicker of happiness. I got onto the bus waiting for my sister to follow behind me, I hated school and getting on the bus in general. For one, school buses were always overcrowded and extremely dirty. That however is not the reason, why I hated getting on this school bus every morning, it was the constant bullying from my peers. Hell, there were older kids I didn’t even know joining in to bully me just because they thought it was funny, I saw my sister look over to me as a boy in the front snickered at me and pointed toward the back of the bus. I rolled my eyes and began my walk of shame looking for either two empty seats or just a space to rest crushed between other kids. As I walked, I heard kids yelling and patronizing one another there weren’t any spaces left open for me not that I could see from my vantage point. My sister had found a spot next to one of her friends and left me alone like she was known to do. I felt a little wiggle of sadness trickle into my stomach, but I kept searching until I reached the back of the bus where a corner was left empty, I hadn’t seen it from the front, but I got excited and jumped over the kid in the middle seat to claim it as fast as possible.
The middle-seat kid looked over at me with a snarl on his face and rolled his eyes at me, I rolled mines back and sat looking out of the window trying to not make myself known to anyone around. It was better to not be seen, that way you would blend in with everyone else and no one would try to harass you. I saw some kid in the front throw a water bottle towards the back of the bus it landed on top of another kid’s head with a crash, and he grabbed it and threw it with all of his might right back. Then water was drizzling from the rooftop as another kid in the front opened another water bottle and sprayed it onto everyone in his vicinity, I rolled my eyes trying to get more comfortable placing my head on the probably dirty window.
That’s when I heard the kid next to me whisper to the other kid that he thought I stunk, hearing that made me slump just that much more into my spot with a sinking feeling in my gut. Finally, the bus that led to hell, began to move, which meant all the rest of the devilish children had gotten onto the bus. Soon we were all in our homeroom classes with the same tasteless people that we got to see the day before. I sighed at my drawing on the math work that I was supposed to be doing. Then out of nowhere, a kid who bullied me but also thought we were friends nudged me on the side; I looked over to her to see her directing my attention toward the teacher, who was staring into the depths of my soul. “What?” I whispered still not processing that the teacher was asking me to answer the question that she had asked. “What is the reciprocal?” She tapped some numbers on the board with her stick pointer, I looked around for an answer on the board and saw some things that made some sense “umm I don’t know” I grumbled out then I heard some kid next to me giggle into his hand, and someone else whispering behind me to another kid “dumb”. The teacher shook her head and called on another student I went back to doodling on the math work that I hated with a passion wishing I were anywhere else than where I was right at that moment.
We were sent out for recess I walked towards the girl’s bathroom by the long hallway, that was the spot where I hung out every single day. I walked into the bathroom to see kids playing Bloody Mary in the bathroom, as per usual, I rolled my eyes and went into a stall to use “recreationally”. While I sat hearing the gang of girls chanting over the running water I started to doodle into my notebook. No, I wasn’t actually using the bathroom I never did it was just a place to be alone and safe. Except all of the chaos happening outside of the bathroom wasn’t really helping my safe factor as of right now. Then out of nowhere, I heard a large bang to the right of me and some stalls opened to the left side of me, all the girls went running and screaming wildly outside. I had half a mind to be scared, but just not as overreactive as those other kids were I got up and walked out of the stall seeing that the ones next to me were indeed open, which made no sense I didn’t see anyone pass my stall to go towards those other stalls to scare those girls. I walked towards where I heard the bang which was a panel on the wall that held all the tubing for the bathroom water pumps and where the water heater was supposed to be sitting, I guessed that was the thing that made the noise and the vibration made all of those stall doors open.
The only reason I found this slightly weird was because during all my time at this school and in this bathroom, I hadn’t ever heard that noise before and I stayed in this bathroom every day during recess. I shook my head as I was about to head out, I heard a high-heel clicking noise in the empty stalls I had just looked at, now mind you, I was the only person in the bathroom at the time. I felt my heart speed up as I backed out of the bathroom in a daze. Once I was outside, I continued to the other side of the wall where the water fountains were. I could still hear soft vibrating high-heel clicking noises, then the screams of girls came back into my hearing. I looked over to see a group of seven girls and a janitor walking over. They were all rambling about the ‘Bloody Mary’ story at the same time and the man was trying to get one of them to speak at a time that way he could understand what they wanted him to check.
They told him about the bang and the door stalls, the man walked in and he began checking the tubing, later on, that day I heard two of the girls talking about the situation and they said that the janitor found nothing wrong. I looked over but quickly looked away when I realized I was staring for too long and one of the girls glared at me. Then the end of the day came the bell rang and we all clambered back onto the crappy bus ready for home. My sister sat on the opposite side of the bus with her friends, and I sat at the back again with a window seat. That’s when it happened, at first, I heard three kids yelling “LOOK! LOOK!” I looked over to see them pointing out the window towards a levee. I looked over towards the same levee I see every day on this bus, the one that me and my dad go fishing on all of the time and where we were almost caught and eaten by an alligator. There it was the most mind-numbing world-bending thing I’ve ever seen, a man’s head of hair flowing in the wind as he ran, long and brown, with a horse body clamping at the fastest of speeds down the levee side towards the neighboring houses, towards my neighborhood. I was stalled in shock I felt myself getting smushed up against the window as more and more kids tried to see what we were seeing. They were yelling “senator man” or “what’s that thing?” I couldn’t catch my breath, though that probably had more to do with the lack of space and oxygen with all of the kids clambering over me. Everyone including me was in awe most of the older kids didn’t get to see the ‘senator man?’ but as it passed, and screams of excitement and mind-numbing shrieks of enchantment were heard I was still in disbelief.
Had I just seen a fictional being? In real life? I’m old enough to know those creatures don’t exist what was that? The kids were talking about it for weeks after until suddenly they all stopped it was like nobody remembered anymore or maybe they did? it was only my bus and my side of the bus that got to even glimpse the creature. So, few of us had gotten the privilege of seeing him so maybe no one else believed us and that’s why all the hype died down I have a question. should I go back and check that levee out? What if he left some mystical thing behind, where was he running to? Why was he running at all? P.S my sister doesn’t even believe me she was there, and she was trying to climb over to our side of the bus to see what everyone else was yelling about but she kept getting shoved to the back. Am I crazy?