Rusty Summer (35 page)

“ 'Cuz they are stupid. I was, like, why are they sharpening their pencils so much, and then after the bell I stood up and all this pencil shaving fell out of my hair & clothes. xx.”

“Very stupid!! Ugggghhh! Did the wee rotters get in trouble? xx.”

“NO!!!!!!!
x.”

“That's mental, Rylee! Why?!! Tell your mum!!!!”

“I have. Over other things. She yelled.”

“Good on her—& you!! How is it now?”

“It didn't help except now they make fun of her TOO. It SUCKS
!!!!!!!”

“Poor YOU!
I HATE your bloody school! xxx.”

“ME TOO! I SODDING BLOODY HATE MY BEASTLY SCHOOL!!!!!”

Which sounds so poser, when I say it like the Brits do. But I recharge. I really do. Sharon is awesome. I post again:

“Lol! Thanks, Shazzie! That helps!! I feel better! xxx.”

“Never fear! One of these days I'll meet you in Glasgow for chai! Winnie too!
xx.”

“And scones! Count on it!!! I'll be there with bells on!
xx.”

How demented is my life that someone I consider about my closest friend in the world lives on the other side of the earth and could walk right by me and not know me? Or worse. Shaz and Winnie asked me to post a picture of myself, but I am too cautious a young woman by now. If they laughed or something I don't know what I'd do. I don't think I could stand it.

I don't even think they would—it's just I won't risk it anymore.

But that's par now; it's just one of many things I won't risk—like driving to school regularly. I learned to avoid risks a lot. I got my license and am in the process of saving for my own car. My mom's is a minivan, and it's a toss-up which is worse, driving that to school or riding the bus. I usually opt for the bus; they keyed “soooy” into the side of the van the first (and last) time I drove it to school. I'm
thinking
it was meant to be a hog call. But, hey, it could be a soy lover with a drawl....

You see, I can still jest. Smiley face. Ha-ha-ha. Lol.

 

That afternoon, New Dude Beau rode the same bus as me. Moving through the menagerie, amid the inevitable chorus of oinking and lowing and barking and other noises the swill feel necessary to utter when first I draw near; I spot an empty seat, thank gawd, and squeeze in.

Luckily it's a seat neither too far nor too close to the front.... I pull out my book. I always have a book. It makes for a huge “no trespassing” wall (and also reading is fundamental, right?). I can stare right through the red faces trying to hurt me.

My mom says, “Ignore them!” She says, “
They're
the ones oinking like pigs.” She says I need to “grow a thicker skin.” Sometimes I come home and I go straight to my room and I feel like I can't even get to the bed before I lose strength and fall. I would grow a thicker skin if I knew how. She says, “Stand up to them,” that I'm smarter than all of them put together. Which is true, but when I stood up for myself in middle school, it only increased the cruelties, all very cat and mouse; oh well, if she's not quite dead yet—let us mess with her some more, even.

So instead I grew thicker books. I've read
The Grapes of Wrath
twice, then
Gone with the Wind
. Then
Uncle Tom's Cabin,
then
Anna Karenina
. I've read all of Jane Austen and most of Charles Dickens. I love
David Copperfield
. No, not the magician.

Jeez, look it up. . . .

But today was different. New Guy got on my bus. He hadn't been there in the morning, so it was unexpected. The extremely loud rabbling and noise stopped for a second when he got on. Then grew immediately back to its usual deafening roar. New Guy walked by me and sat about three quarters of the way back, which, if you're not part of the acknowledged too-cool-for-school group of academics that ride that region of the bus, is just askin' fer trubble, partner.

Which came . . . I wasn't reading: I was listening while pretending to read, something at which I have grown expert. I watched from the corner of my eye. They started low and slow, just kind of testing the waters....

I hadn't heard the dawn of the chorus in a long time. I listen, fascinated.

“Hey, Blue Shirt! Hey—what do you think this is, the Gay Pride Parade?”

And of course—the fatal mistake: Turning calmly and looking at them, he says, like a normal human:

“Yeah, my name is Beau. Hi.” He pronounced it “Bow,” like “bow and arrow.”

And with that he sealed his fate with the baboon colony.

He has that androgynous way of speaking that some guys do. It's just the way they talk. Whether they are gay or not.

The pack circled, smelling blood. One hyena alone cannot take down the prey, but an entire craven pack....

They explode into laughter, which, as they say, is only one letter away from slaughter, and it's
on
.

Only they're not saying “effin'.”

Beau turns back around, but he's in throwing proximity, and so small but increasingly large and heavy things start to be thrown at him. They're up to pencils, which, as I well know, freaking
hurt,
when he turns back around. Narrowly avoiding one in the eye, he says:

“Why are you doing this?”

I'm shaken. He is so
calm.

And of course, the monkeys went bananas! They were so happy to have something else to take their minds off the freaking tragedy of being themselves! They howl and grunt, and I'm sure if they knew how to dress themselves, they would have flung their own poo, but thank gawd for buttons, right?

So goes the entire bus ride. Beau turns back around and ignores them, and I'm feeling amazed that we were almost to my stop without one comment about me from the douche bag patrol. I'm actually a little
verklempt
that someone else has taken the heat, but, while grateful, I'm not about to make one peep to save him in case the attention of the pack is diverted back to me again. If they could just tag team one of us every
other
day, it would be such a blessed relief.

When it's Beau's stop, I watch with great interest. If the hyena pack gets off the bus with him, someone should call the cops.

Beau gets off, and they look after him with great interest. It was grunt-discussed whether they should “effin' follow him,” but they wanted to get over to one of the suck-up middle hyena's house before his spawners arrived home and drink up the beer laid in for Skidmark Fest, or whatever these grubby little dorks do. They saw
me
looking, however, and thus was Beau forgotten.

 

See, I would have thought that Beau's handsome face and skinniness would have protected him.