Chapter 2 - School Trip

The deafening sound the group of young students generated was getting on Marilyn's nerves. She had endured it for an hour already and there was no end to it in sight. The school bus was slowly progressing towards it's destination. If she hadn't been looking out of the window all along, she wouldn't even be sure of that. It was moving intermittently on the congestioned highway and they had at least 30 more minutes of heavy traffic ahead of them.

Their destination? A theme park. Marilyn hated theme parks. All of the attractions made her nauseous. She was afraid of heights, afraid of spinning, add a touch of claustrophobia. She brought a few books and would read them while the students had all the fun. After all, they were her students. They were old enough to visit amusement parks on their own but the school insisted that she, and all students from her class participate.

Near the middle of the bus, Sandra was mocking Jared, one of the biggest guys in the group. The scene was odd as she was one of the frailest - but prettiest - girls in the class. She compensated for it with her insolent personality. She would always pick on anyone who wasn't friend with her friends. If you weren't what she considered cool, she wouldn't miss a chance to humiliate you at the first opportunity.

Jared was her favorite target of mockery. The only times she left him alone was when his friend Beltz was around. Fortunately, he had skipped school again - even though it was a school trip - so she could do as she liked.

She was eating cookies and sharing them with Jared. More precisely, she dropped crumbs on his head. So Jared had to sit uncomfortably, looking at her just in case. He was sharing his Gameboy with his good friend Trevor, each trying to beat the other's score.

Sandra threw a cookie crumb at him.

"Will you quit that?!" he shouted
"Um, quit what?"

Jared knew he had to endure her for the rest of the trip. Fighting with girls wasn't well-seen at this school, even if you were justified. Besides, Sandra's boyfriend was sitting next to her and even if Jared was big, he had never fought anyone. Patrick would crush him if he hit his girlfriend or threw stuff back at her.

Someone threw a pencil at Jared - at least it seemed so - but it landed on Evelyn's head, who was sitting a few seats away from him..

"Hey, quit yelling at my friend!"

The person who threw the object was looking furiously at Jared. But the look was fake. Everyone around him was laughing, he wasn't to be taken seriously. It was Bryan Jenkins, the most well liked guy in the group. Jared got along just well with him because unlike Sandra, Bryan always mocked people in good fun. He didn't mind if you fought back - as long as you didn't cross a certain undetermined line.

Jared smiled. He looked into his schoolbag for an eraser and ripped off pieces which he accumulated in his left hand. Bryan was ignoring him now, thinking the joke was over.

Jared threw the whole bunch of eraser pieces at the back, hitting Bryan and his surrounding classmates.

"You're gonna fucking pay for that!" Bryan said.

They had a fight! Everyone in the back of the bus gathered various projectiles and threw them to the front of the bus.

Audacious as he was, Bryan started throwing larger projectiles at Jared who protected himself with his school bag. Then a loud voice killed the fun:

"Everyone, STOP IT!!!"

Marilyn walked toward the troublemakers at the back of the bus. They all sat quietly and looked down as the disciplinarian approached.

Bryan was hoping she hadn't seen him. He knew that his young teacher, despite her nice appearance, had seriously twisted ways of enforcing discipline.

Marilyn walked up to the last seat but looked right over Bryan's head. She stared at Christopher for a few seconds before talking.

"Are you crazy? Why did you start throwing things like that? Do you realize you could have caused an accident?"

The students around her chuckled.

"What kind of driver would have an accident at this speed? We're stuck in traffic if you haven't noticed!" - he rudely replied. After all, he had a point. But she couldn't let him talk to her like that so even though she wasn't sure who started this thing, she told him to pick up his bag and come sit at the front of the bus.

Christopher denied throwing things at all but there was no point to argue with this stupid bitch - he thought. He walked to the front of the bus and sat in the empty seat to the left of the teacher's.

The young group of students would be quiet for the rest of the trip. Marilyn sat, satisfied and started reading a book with a smile on her lips. She was even more relieved when the bus took an exit and entered a long tunnel. Sure it probably wasn't the shortest road to get to the theme park - in fact she wasn't even sure where this tunnel would take them! But so what, the bus was calm again and a refreshing current of air emerged from the bus' ventilation. She yawned and decided to rest a bit before they'd reach destination.

Oddly enough, every single student thought of the same thing and suddenly felt the need to take a cat nap.

Had they remained awake, they would probably have noticed the dozen of military vehicles that were now escorting the bus.