Running For the Bus

I was feeling my usual level of anxiety about catching my flight, and decided to do a little time traveling to explore it. It's always about catching the school bus.

Here we are, the four Elwood girls in a line, braiding each others' hair, gulping down overboiled oatmeal on a frosty morning. There's a brother too, but not braiding hair until much later. For some reason there's always a terrific hurry. In twelve years of riding the school bus, I don't remember ever missing it on the way to school. But if we had, it felt as if the consequences would be dire.

So here I am galloping across the little park called the Schoolyard, for an old school which used to be there, my red fourth-hand tights down to my knees by the time I'm halfway to the bus stop, and I haven't even passed the Black Dog yet. The line at the Bus Stop has a Lord of the Flies aura of disorder and confusion without adult supervision. People with clout can take cuts. I usually go for the back of the line.

Right up the hill from the stop is a stair-step family of Mormons with a collie dog they are forever trying to send home. "Go home, Goldie, Goldie, Goldie." They show up last because they are right there by the stop. And here is the bus.

I step on. Suddenly, forty years later, I can smell it. It doesn't smell horrible, but it is a distinctive odor. I've caught the bus. Where to sit? The first day of school I actually engaged in conversation. I hated sardines. I had never even seen a sardine. I became Arlene Sardine.

I used to have Borrowers-sized people rafting down the water in the ditches. Welcome to my world.