The dreaded transportation of despair and chaos. The horrid, menacing vehicle of death and sorrow: The bus. Okay so maybe I was exaggerating just a bit. But the moment I stepped onto the bus, the smell of sweaty teenagers and overpowering cologne struck my nose. I nearly gagged, but somehow made it to the back, climbed easily over kids' legs sticking out into the aisle; who knew weather they purposely intended to trip me or not?
I waved to Peter as I past him, eventually throwing myself down towards the back, Rebecca sitting next to me. Emily sat across from us with her earbuds in, finally joining us.
"So how was the first day of school?" I was shocked when Emily spoke to us.
Rebecca didn't hesitate. "Well, I can already tell Chemistry is going to be tough but I think I already made a friend in that class and the lunch was okay, a lot better than middle school..."
While she was ranting, I may have zoned out just a bit. The past couple days' events were warrying me just thinking about them. The move to a big city, the spider bite, the weird abilities, the horrible homework and-
I forgot to ask about the internship!
I facepalmed internally.
"Trish!"
I jumped.
"What!?"
"Did you hear me?"
"Uh..."
"How was your day?"
"Oh...Uh...Good."
I already felt rotten for not telling her about the whole, "I have freakish abilities," thing. Now I just felt empty not being able to express myself on how horrible a day I was having.
"You want to be more specific or?..."
"Nope. I'm good. Same old back to school routine."
There was no way she was buying it. I could tell by how she raised one eyebrow and pursed her lips in thought, staring straight into my eyes as if this were an interrogation. But she eventually looked away and instead buried her face in a comic.
And then my head buzzed and I panicked, jolting out of my seat. I make some pretty dumb decisions sometimes. Okay, a lot of times.
A loud pop rang through my ears and the bus screeched sideways, veering towards-I couldn't see where it was veering towards, having already been knocked off my feet and lying on the ground with a fat lip.
Screams and high-pitched banshee shrieks pierced the air; it must have been the sopranos from choir.
We jolted to a stop, my face taking another blow to the seat I lay on the ground by.
And this is why the seats are soft; because there are idiots like me who stand up when they are alerted ahead of time to danger.
I suppose I use sarcasm to cope with panic.
I clutched onto the seat and pulled myself up to see the front end of the bus jutting out over the end of the road, having made a large gap in the railing that was supposed to prevent this exact thing from happening.
Buses.
It seems the panic and hysteria was mainly in the portion of the bus currently getting a great view of the highway below.
I whipped around to see one of my sisters had taken out her headphones for once. And the other was curled into herself on the seat.
I was about to go try and comfort her when she stood.
"Spider-Man!"
Where did he come from!?
She wasn't blind. Spider-Man was suddenly in the bus.
"Hey, it's alright, everyone! Just calm down! I mean you've been on worse bus rides, am I right?" Instead of laughter, he was met with more panicked squeals. "Tough crowd." Rebecca's eyes were almost as wide as the universe. "Everyone to the back of the bus!"
Teens started clamouring to the back, headed right for me. My life flashed before my eyes. And then the bus creaked and swayed, and my life flashed before my eyes again.
Spider-Man was outside, tugging at the exterior of the bus, trying to get it to stop moving.
"He's not strong enough," Rebecca breathed, watching through the window. "There's too many of us."
And then there was that moment. Maybe it's that moment that the main character of any superhero movie gets when they realise what they have to do. It's thrown right in their face, and they choose to accept their fate. I guess something like that happened to me, except a lot less dramatically and not in slow motion at all.
The chaos of the back of the bus provided me an escape. I slipped under all of the seats, gagging whenever I felt some hardened gum scrape along my leg. It was in these adventurous seconds that I realised my lip was bleeding. After reaching the end of the crowd, I pulled myself out from under the seats and looked around to make sure no one was paying me any attention. Then I hopped on top of the seats and exited through the hatch in the roof called the emergency exit. I think this counted as an emergency.
I slid off the bus as quietly as possible. I snuck to the front of the bus, staying hidden. I didn't think, I just grabbed the bus and started pulling.
My arms screamed with pain and effort and my feet slid along the pavement until the bus was finally back on the road.
And then I had that one other moment in all the movies. I heaved a sigh in exhaustion, gazing down at my hands in amazement.
I looked around. Students started piling out of the bus in a frenzy. I quickly joined the frazzled group and put on my best, "I am panicking because our bus nearly fell off a cliff," look.
The police finally got there. I saw Rebecca call after Spider-Man as he swung away, then I hurriedly rushed over to her.
Hope you enjoyed! You won't have to wait very long for the next chapter! :)