The Monsters Without: Chapter 3.3

 [I strongly suggest that you go back and read the earlier parts if you haven't done that before.]

He jerked with surprise and looked around to find a tall, gangly kid looking over his shoulder. Gangly in the way that only too-tall white boys can be gangly, like their arms and legs are poorly attached with overly large joints. The boy was at least a foot taller than him, and he found himself looking up the kid’s nostrils rather than being able to see his face.

“Also, you don’t have enough money.” He said it matter-of-factly, in the same way you might say to someone, “This is my car.” Jeremiah wanted to say something sarcastic back, but his brain froze, and he just stared instead, though he did take a step away from the boy as he turned toward him, both so that he could actually see the kid’s face and because he was feeling crowded by the towering poles of arms and legs.

“Freshman, huh?” This, he said as a question, though it was clear he was stating a fact and not asking. The boys face was bony, too, as if he had over-sized joints in his cheeks, too -- not just his jawbones -- to match his elbows. The kid brushed his shaggy brown hair away from his brown eyes and added, “You’re very talkative.”

Jeremiah looked back down into his palm, which was still out with the three quarters in it, then looked back up and said, “I’m sorry. I just…” He trailed off as he shoved the quarters into his pocket.

The tall boy squinted at him, “Are you from out of state? What’s your name…?”

“Out of state?” The question confused Jeremiah. “No… Why would you think that?”

“You don’t really seem to know what you’re doing.”

“Well… I am a freshman.”

“Fair, but you seem a little more lost than most freshmen.” The kid gave him what felt like a piercing stare, “What did you say your name is?”

He suddenly felt uneasy, as if he were being interrogated, and felt like he shouldn’t tell the boy his name. In his head, he knew he was being paranoid and there was no good reason not to tell the kid, but his emotions were telling him to be paranoid. His experience told him that, mostly, you couldn’t trust people. “I didn’t say what my name is…”

The older boy gave his eyes a half roll and rattled his head slightly, just enough to convey exasperation without looking it. “Look, kid, I’m just trying to help you out. Most of us have been out of sorts at some point, and…,” he paused and dug around in his pocket, “…I just didn’t want you to feel like you didn’t have any friends. Or couldn’t have any friends.” He held out his clenched hand.

Jeremiah felt bad about being so suspicious, but he wasn’t used to people being nice to him, not without any reason, at any rate. Forcing himself to hold out his hand, the boy dropped two $1 bills into his hand. Jeremiah stared at the money a moment then said, “You don’t have to…”

“I know I don’t have to, but you seem like you need a friend or, at least, someone to help you out, and I’m just going to buy sodas with it, so I don’t really need it.”

The next bus pulled up, and the boy moved toward the door along with the new crowd of kids who had shown up while they were talking. Jeremiah hurried to catch up so as not to get left behind again. He fed the money into the machine at the top of the stairs and automatically looked to see where the tall kid had gone, which was toward the back of the bus, already joking and talking with some other guys, so Jeremiah dropped into the seat by the window behind the bus driver, usually the last seat anyone wanted to take, though he didn’t know that.

Staring vaguely out the window, he didn’t even glance over when someone sat down next to him, then the bus pulled away.

The Monsters Without: Chapter 3.2

And he wasn’t going to know anyone at this new school, Carver High, phone or no phone.

He walked slowly to the bus stop that first morning. Because, according to his mother, high school was old enough to ride the city bus alone. But, really, it was because the school was close enough for the bus to be convenient whereas the Stones would have required a three hour trip on the bus in the afternoon and wasn’t even available in the mornings because the bus wasn’t running at 4:00am.

He’d never been on a bus before except one time in first grade on a field trip, but that had been a school bus full of people he knew. This was… different. He hung around the outskirts of the crowd of students waiting for the bus when he got to the bus stop. There were so many of them, and he didn’t know how to fit in, so he just orbited the mass of teenagers as if he were an asteroid trying to decide whether to become a moon or go flying back out into space. He was leaning toward flying back off into space.

Most of them were showing each other videos on their phones, though there were a couple who were making first-day-of-school videos or something. Kids taking selfies together after not seeing each other all summer. He felt cold and alone, outside of all the camaraderie he was witnessing.

Then the bus pulled up, and everyone was filing into the bus, sliding their bus cards through the swiper. All he had was a handful of change and, when he looked, it wasn’t even enough. Evidently, his mother gave him money based on how much she remembered the bus being not because she’d looked up the cost. If he pooled the change he had for both trips, he could get to school, but he wouldn’t have enough money to get home.

While he was staring at the quarters in the palm of his hand, the door to the bus closed, it hissed that noise that only buses make, and drove away, leaving him and a few other kids behind. He looked up in bewilderment, still unsure of what to do about any of this.

A voice said close to his ear, “It was full.”