I walk onto the bus and, sadly, it is crowded. That never really happens on my bus.

“Well, okay, fine. I’ll just sit in the back,” I think to myself.

So I go and sit in the only open seat there is, near the back in front of some loud annoying boys that every bus would not be complete without. Backpack bulging with text books and an abnormal amount of homework tonight, I shrug it off into my seat. Since both my friends who ride my bus are staying after school for one reason or another today, I just grab my iPod, slip my writing notebooks into the big pocket, and take out my Bible.

I only use one ear bud today to listen to my music so that I won’t sink too deep into the story that I am reading and miss my stop, which I would be likely to do if I was listening to music completely instead of three-way multi-tasking like I was doing now. When I read, listen to music, and listen to other people talking in the background, it’s impossible to stay focused enough to miss anything anyway. I can hear the boys saying something behind me, but naturally I ignore them as I always do to the annoying boys.

When we get to the first stop sign the bus driver looks in the mirror at the boys behind me and says, “Do you want to get off this bus,” in a harsh, angry voice. That is weird for my bus driver, since he rarely ever talks, much less scolds anyone on the bus. Generally he’s a really nice guy. It made me wonder a little what was so bad that the boys where doing that made him scold them. But then I decided to ignore it and go on with my reading.

Basically the rest of the bus ride was normal. Well, except for the boys all whispering and mumbling things that I couldn’t hear, but hey, it was my first time sitting in the back, what can I expect, right? I mean, yeah, sometimes I heard them calling my name to try and get my attention, but I didn’t hear them really because I was more involved in my Bible and music; and yeah they seemed to be trying to talk to me, but I don’t like those boys, they’ve always kind of made fun of me before, and I didn’t need that in the good mood I was in at the moment. Sure, I did hear one of them mumble the word “b****,” but there are a lot of those in my school, I figure I don’t need to worry about anything.

I keep getting a distracted and looking out the window and it really kind of bugs me that they guys are mumbling and I can’t hear what they’re saying, but it’s like whatever, you know?

The bus stop before my friend Sarah usually gets off one of the boys, Blake, stands up to leave. Before he walks down the row of seats he pauses and says, “Bye Em-ma,” in loud, mocking syllables. His tone catches me.

It’s a tone I know well from this kid that I’ve known since maybe first or second grade.

He uses that tone of voice when he makes fun of people. People like me.


The next stop I got off the bus and just walked home from there. I don’t need to listen to that kind of stuff, and I don’t really want to find out what they said about me.

Now I’m wondering; what were they talking about all the way home? Were they making fun of me? Okay, little doubt there. The question was, why? Why would someone make fun of me on the bus just because? I don’t get it. Was it because of my Bible? Or was it because I sat in the back? People can be so cruel.

Some day I am going to change that. I can start… right now. I think I will.