The bus shows up around 6:45 a.m. every morning. Most of the time, we make it to the bus in time. If we don’t, we are left at home without a ride, and I know this means when I do return to school the following day, I will be visited by our school social worker, Ms. Thrift. Ms. Thrift looks as if she has never stepped foot into a Goodwill Store, praying to find a pair of Lululemon leggings in her size, and she has never missed a meal. Ms. Thrift throws another Cheeto into her mouth and smacks awkwardly, while I try to make up a story about why we missed the bus and fight back the urge to ask if she could stop smacking so she can hear what I say. Ms. Thrift licks the Cheeto stains off of her fingers and offers the same reply every time I miss a day of school, “Well, hun, you got to do better. You know how to set the alarm on your phone, don’t you?”
Trying to avoid another visit with Ms. Thrift, I wake up an hour earlier than I usually do, so that I can get myself ready before waking up my siblings and getting them ready for school. I usually have to make our breakfast, because all we have in the fridge is a dozen eggs and a loaf of Great Value bread. I then brush Lucy’s unrelenting auburn hair and make sure she finds two matching shoes. Lucy reminds me of our father. She has the same dimpled chin and nonchalant air about her. Our one-bedroom apartment could be on fire, but still, Lucy would go to the front door to escape the flames.
Then, I wake Sammy up, wipe his face, and comb over his glossy jade black hair. Sammy is our mother, hard-headed, and never takes no for an answer. Before mom leaves for work she always has a cup of coffee. If I get lucky, she has left a sip in the pot, and I finish it off before we get on the bus.
Once the bus arrives, I do my best to push Sammy and Lucy up the bus steps and into their seats in the front. I pray that the driver keeps them in separate seats to prevent a fistfight. I remind them in a forceful whisper that we can not afford to get kicked off the bus again. After I get them settled in, I make myself at home in my very back seat and pull my well-used iPod out of my backpack. I press shuffle and put an earbud in my right ear. I know better than to put both earbuds in at one time, because I always need to be sure to hear anything said to Sammy or Lucy, and Jen could come out of nowhere at any second. Jen is the quintessential bully. If there was an Oscar award for bullies, Jen would win. Jen stands two inches shorter than me but makes up for it with her quick wit. Her tongue whips anyone stupid enough to look in her direction. Hoping to avoid another run-in with Jen, I pull out the Jane Austen book in my backpack and open it to the page where I left off. We have forty-five minutes on this ride, so I get plenty of time to escape into another time and another place. Elinor tells of her family’s fall from grace and life in poverty. I start to feel sorry for her, but she hasn’t mentioned hunger pains, so I doubt they’re that bad off.
The bus pulls in front of the elementary school. To the side of the small, brick building is a tired, worn-out playground that looks more like a cemetery. In second grade, I fell off a swing and broke my wrist. My teacher forced everyone in my class to sign my cast; I felt special. When the doctor removed the cast, I returned to be invisible and my classmates no longer remembered my name. Sammy and Lucy scramble down the bus stairs and follow the other little kids into the front door of the school. Sammy’s backpack is barely hanging onto his shoulder, and Lucy’s shoelace is untied. When they get into the building, a wave of relief hits me. I did it, I tell myself. I got them here all by myself again.
Dad left about four years ago. Lucy was two, and our mom was pregnant with Sammy. I love my mom, and I try my best to do what I can to help her. She works two jobs, one as a waitress at the Country Corner on Thirty-fourth Street, and another as a housekeeper at the Pine Valley Hotel. It’s hard to have family time because she works nights and sleeps during the day. Some mornings when she doesn’t come home, I convince myself that she is working overtime.
Finally, the bus pulls up to the High School and everyone gathers their things and files off. I’m the last in the line and the last one off.
“Have a good day,” Miss Tendle, the bus driver, says with her sweet grin.
Walking into the entrance I notice Jessie Parker and his posse of jocks. He is perfectly toned wearing his letterman jacket and his golden hair flows flawlessly to one side. I stare so long at Jesse that a drool begins to form in the corner of my mouth. What would Elinor say? No guy, especially Jesse, deserved my time. I wipe the corner of my mouth and snap back into reality heading to my first period, Calculus. Mr. McCalender is the last person that I want to start my day with. He stands in front of the class yapping his jaws about politics with the only guy in our class that entertains his arrogance. He is the actual definition of toxic masculinity. I wonder what Elinor would say if she were in Mr. McCalendar’s class.
Every hour is a repeat of the day before. Every hour drags into another painful hour. I remind myself to enjoy this quiet time to myself. I remind myself that each day I learn from the long hours taking care of my siblings and those days are often full of setbacks but I am growing and becoming someone better.
By the seventh hour, I had already planned our evening. Our Dishnet is shut off, but I figured I would let them each pick a DVD to watch before bed. Sammy has a spelling test that we need to study for, and hopefully, Lucy won’t get into trouble at school. I will sign both of their planners in the place of Mom. After they lay down for the night, I will get to open up my book again and fall into the imaginary world of the Dashwoods. My eyelids battle to stay open so that I can finish another page, and I re-read a line in my book three times before I decide to go to sleep.
“It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”
I like the way those words sound and I drift to sleep without thinking about the next day and everything else that will come with it.
