"Mommy, I'm scared!" Mugetsu cried, clinging onto Faye's arm. She shook him off and he squeaked. Faye took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew smoke away from us.
"Mr. Harrison said that the bus would be here to pick you kids up right outside the door at 8:00 in the morning. You're all here and you've got your lunch money. Anything else you need to know?"
"Can I have a hug, Mommy?" Mugetsu squeaked. We all piled on top of our mother and hugged her. She screamed and threw us off. I stuck my thumb through the belt loop that usually held my lightsaber. Mr. Harrison had made it clear that there were to be no weapons at school. Mom had us all dressed up in our "best clothes", and of course that meant basically the same things we wore every day. But today was special because I was wearing my khaki pants! Oh joy!
"Give that to me! You can't take it away! I need it!" I heard Nicholas cry from behind me. I turned to see Theoden trying to take his cross away from him.
"It's considered a weapon, Nicholas. It can't be taken to school with you!"
"I'm nothing without my cross! Please, I won't even take it off the bus!"
"No means no, young man! I am your father and you will obey my requests. Now set the cross down!" Defeated, my brother sighed and set the cross on the ground by his feet. Theoden patted him on the back. "Don't worry, Nicholas, it will still be here when you return."
The oddest last minute story had been Knuckles' story. It was about his knuckles of course. Mr. Harrison told him to take the metal diggers off, but was appalled to find that there were sharp knuckles underneath. As Mr. Harrison said: They will have to be filed down for school. Knuckles threatened Mr. Harrison, saying that if they took his knuckles, he would take something just as important to the truancy officer as his knuckles were to him. Of course we strapped my brother down and filed off the points of the dangerous yet amusing knuckles. Maybe it was just because we wanted to see what he would do to Harrison.
With our cheery little backpacks strapped onto us and our clothes ironed to the point of being hard as a rock and flat as a pancake, we stood outside the double doors to wait for our bus. I tried to unbutton my orange plaid jacket to reveal my "evil face" shirt, but it seemed like the buttons were glued into place. Tetsuo growled lightly as he knocked on the front of his white shirt, creating a hollow thudding noise. He was ticked off because Mom put his hair down and took away his cape. But he'd find a way. He was Tetsuo!
Ed soon became restless. She bobbed up and down, swayed side to side and hummed a tune we had never heard before. It repeated five notes over and over monotonously. But it was strangely catchy. My foot tapped to the beat and Aragorn began nodding his head. Ed began making up a little dance while she hummed. Roy started humming along, followed by Tails. I began humming a harmony with Nicholas joining in with the harmony as well. People began snapping their fingers and drumming on their backpacks as we all started humming the five notes. Ed stood out in front of us, clapping her hands to the beat.
"Go-ing to school now! Go-ing to school now!" She started singing the five syllables to the tune that we were all humming. Eowyn, with her beautiful voice, sang the harmony to "go-ing to school now". We all suddenly burst out singing and dancing. Eomer grabbed Shadow, threw him up in the air, and caught him gracefully. I took Tetsuo by the arm and we started swing dancing. Kuwabara played air guitar as the bus pulled around the corner, its horn punctuating on every second beat. Tetsuo threw me up onto his shoulders, where I stood, singing the harmony to Ed's song. I jumped off Tetsuo's shoulders and landed on my knees with my hands raised victoriously above my head.
The bus stopped with a squealing noise, and we all became very quiet. The great yellow monster loomed over us, the great red stop sign flashing its bright lights at us. I stood as if entranced. Ghan-buri-Ghan was the first to dare to walk toward it. I stuck my fist in my mouth to keep from crying out as he disappeared into the bowels of the yellow beast. Leah was suddenly by my side, levitating as she usually did. Behind her were Auron, Vash, and Spike.
"They're my body guards." She told me. "My bestest bro-bro Tetsuo told me to make sure I am protected." She started levitating toward the place where Ghan-buri-Ghan had disappeared. She, along with her husbands/bodyguards, vanished as well. Kuwabara came up behind me, squeezing my shoulder.
"Well, here goes nothin'." He said quietly. He walked away. My eyes filled with tears.
"NO! NOT KUWABARA! TAKE ME, NOT HIM!!" I cried, dashing into the bright flashing lights. I heard Nicholas yell after me.
"Don't do it, Erin! He's not worth it! Erin!!" I heard someone running after me. The smoke coming from the end of the huge monster enveloped me. I coughed loudly, and my eyes watered from all the smoke. I tried to feel my way out of the choking cloud, but I didn't know which way was out. I held myself to calm down. Tears slid down my cheeks and I became frightened.
"Nicholas!" I cried. No one answered. "Kuwabara!" My face was wet with tears. I fell to my knees and stuck my face in my hands. The warm cloud closed in on me, helpless to do anything. Suddenly, something burst into the cloud and pulled me to my feet. I grabbed him and cried into his shirt. Merrill comforted me. He picked me up and carried me past the smoke, to the other side of the yellow beast.
"There, you're okay now, right?" He asked, setting me back on my feet. I wiped my eyes clear of tears and nodded, trying to smile. We both walked up the foreboding stairs into the inside to the ominous machine monster. Hell, but once we got in there, it wasn't so bad. There were two rows of big seats with an isle down the middle. Some of my family, most of which had passed me up while I was lost in the smoke, were already seated near the back of the beast. Leah waved wildly and Kuwabara motioned for us to come back and sit with him. I fairly skipped down the isle and plopped down in the seat with my brother Kuwabara. Merrill sat in the seat across from us. I grabbed Kuwabara's arm in anguish.
"It was so scary! I couldn't see anything! Merrill was so brave!!" I squeezed his arm tighter, and he winced.
"Blood kinda needs to get to my arm, baby sister…" He told me. I let go of his arm, and he rubbed it to get the circulation of blood flowing again. Merrill smiled and leaned back in his seat.
"Hey, this isn't that bad. The seats are comfy!" After almost half an hour, all of my family was seated on the bus. Even with two to a seat, it was very crowded. It seemed that the only person that had a seat to himself was Merrill. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a cigarette. He made a dome around his mouth with his hands and lit it, throwing the used match out of the window. He leaned back against the window, stretching his feet out into the isle. The bus driver swiveled around in her seat and glared at him.
"No smoking on the bus!" she yelled at him. He looked up and rolled his eyes. I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, after taking one more puff, and held it up so she could see that he had complied with her orders. She nodded violently and turned back around. He winked over at me and flicked the cigarette, still burning, at her. It landed neatly on top of the bun in her hair. My face turned red from trying to hold in my laughter. Kuwabara leaned over so he could give Merrill a high five. Just as the bus got moving, Tetsuo stuck his arm out the bus window and Nicholas's cross along with Tetsuo's red cape came levitating toward us. Tetsuo grabbed his cape while he strapped the cross to the top of the bus. Through the back window, I could see Theoden and Faye yelling at us. I acted like I didn't know what was going on and waved goodbye to them.
The bus moved down the gravel path, shaking violently like a monster was chewing on it. I grabbed onto the seat in front of me but still I bounced across the seat. I only hoped the ride would get better before it got worse. I could see Zim at the front of the bus being tossed from seat to seat in an effort to stay in one place. Thomas fell into the isle, his feet flying up to kick Ford under the chin. Ford grabbed Thomas's leg and threw him back into his seat, slapping him upside the head for his insolence. It was about then that the bus driver discovered that smoke was billowing from her hair. The bus swerved wildly and people flew everywhere. I was sent airborne and landed in Merrill's face. He yelled and sat up, seeing as he had fallen asleep. Soon, the cigarette had been tossed out the window and we found a real road. The ride was smooth from then on, and I clambered off of Merrill to sit back in my seat.
The bus was quiet. No one spoke. No one knew what to talk about. That was all changed very quickly. I heard something that I had been longing to hear all morning. They had decided to come! I looked out the back window and jumped out of my seat in joy. In doing so, I hit my head on the emergency door hatch. The back door swung open and the alarm buzzed. My head hung out of the opened doorway and I looked out to see three motorcycles zooming toward the bus. The bus driver was yelling incoherently at me to shut the door, but my eyes were fixed on the riding forms of Kaneda, Kai and Yamagata. Kuwabara got out of his seat and he helped me stand. I waved enthusiastically to Kaneda and the others. Yamagata made a very rude gesture with one of his fingers, but I knew that he was just messing with me. Then I saw Kaneda stand up on his bike as Kai grabbed onto it with one of his hands. Yamagata grabbed the other side of the bike. They revved up the engines and moved closer to the open doorway. I stuck my hand out, and Kaneda stretched his out as well. He made a final leap and out fingers intertwined. His feet almost scraped the pavement flying below the bus, but they grabbed a hold at the bottom of the door and I pulled him onto the bus.
By now, the bus driver was in hysterics and all my family aboard the bus were giving raucous applause. Kaneda and I looked around for a moment, then he bowed. I followed his motion as Nicholas pulled the back door shut. Yamagata and Kai pulled off to the side, where I could see them beginning to cover up Kaneda's bike.
We stood from our bows, and the bus driver screamed her head off telling us to find a seat. I sat back down with Kuwabara, who was smiling widely, while Kaneda sat across from me with Merrill. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. I blushed again, my face burning. Ee! He touched my hand!! I smiled like an idiot. He looked over at me.
"You all right?" He asked. I held my hands up to my face quickly to hide that I was blushing. I peeked through my fingers to answer him.
"I'm good, I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm nice, I'm dandy, I'm happy, I'm perfect, I'm…heh." I smiled like an idiot again. He gave me a very concerned look, and smiled back. He then went back to sitting, looking out the window past the snoring Merrill. I sighed quietly, and Kuwabara glanced over at me. I was grinning stupidly, my face brick red. He nudged me in the side, and I screamed, leaping out of my seat. All eyes turned to look at me. Leah's evil eyes fixed onto my red face, noting that one of her boyfriends was sitting across from me. I stared at her for a moment, then shrunk back, falling to my knees.
"DON'T LOOK AT ME!!" I cried, covering my face. Leah seemed to grow as she levitated toward me. Her vampire fangs were inches from my face, and she proceeded to yell at me.
"STAY AWAY FROM MY PRETTY KANEDA! HE'S MINE! MY OWN! MY PRECIOUSSS!!" I shrunk back so my back was against the emergency door. Kaneda raised his hand.
"Do I have a say in this…?"
"NO! YOU ARE MY KANEDA!" Hugging him tightly, Leah made an evil face at me and stalked away. I breathed hard as the bus pulled to a stop. Everyone was quiet. No one moved. We didn't know what to do. The bus driver stood and looked at all of us. Her eyes stopped on me, sitting in the isle, looking as if I had been confronted by a vampire, which had, of course, happened.
"Well? Are you gonna get off?" she asked loudly. All at once, we filed off the bus quickly, not daring to glance at the enraged bus driver. I was the last one to get off, and I felt the bus driver burning a hole in my back with her eyes. I was met by Nicholas and Tetsuo as I stepped off the last step. Nicholas had unloaded his cross and Tetsuo had his cape on and hair spiked up. I smiled at both of them. But it was quickly wiped off my face as I looked beyond them to see the…. SCHOOL!
"Mr. Harrison said that the bus would be here to pick you kids up right outside the door at 8:00 in the morning. You're all here and you've got your lunch money. Anything else you need to know?"
"Can I have a hug, Mommy?" Mugetsu squeaked. We all piled on top of our mother and hugged her. She screamed and threw us off. I stuck my thumb through the belt loop that usually held my lightsaber. Mr. Harrison had made it clear that there were to be no weapons at school. Mom had us all dressed up in our "best clothes", and of course that meant basically the same things we wore every day. But today was special because I was wearing my khaki pants! Oh joy!
"Give that to me! You can't take it away! I need it!" I heard Nicholas cry from behind me. I turned to see Theoden trying to take his cross away from him.
"It's considered a weapon, Nicholas. It can't be taken to school with you!"
"I'm nothing without my cross! Please, I won't even take it off the bus!"
"No means no, young man! I am your father and you will obey my requests. Now set the cross down!" Defeated, my brother sighed and set the cross on the ground by his feet. Theoden patted him on the back. "Don't worry, Nicholas, it will still be here when you return."
The oddest last minute story had been Knuckles' story. It was about his knuckles of course. Mr. Harrison told him to take the metal diggers off, but was appalled to find that there were sharp knuckles underneath. As Mr. Harrison said: They will have to be filed down for school. Knuckles threatened Mr. Harrison, saying that if they took his knuckles, he would take something just as important to the truancy officer as his knuckles were to him. Of course we strapped my brother down and filed off the points of the dangerous yet amusing knuckles. Maybe it was just because we wanted to see what he would do to Harrison.
With our cheery little backpacks strapped onto us and our clothes ironed to the point of being hard as a rock and flat as a pancake, we stood outside the double doors to wait for our bus. I tried to unbutton my orange plaid jacket to reveal my "evil face" shirt, but it seemed like the buttons were glued into place. Tetsuo growled lightly as he knocked on the front of his white shirt, creating a hollow thudding noise. He was ticked off because Mom put his hair down and took away his cape. But he'd find a way. He was Tetsuo!
Ed soon became restless. She bobbed up and down, swayed side to side and hummed a tune we had never heard before. It repeated five notes over and over monotonously. But it was strangely catchy. My foot tapped to the beat and Aragorn began nodding his head. Ed began making up a little dance while she hummed. Roy started humming along, followed by Tails. I began humming a harmony with Nicholas joining in with the harmony as well. People began snapping their fingers and drumming on their backpacks as we all started humming the five notes. Ed stood out in front of us, clapping her hands to the beat.
"Go-ing to school now! Go-ing to school now!" She started singing the five syllables to the tune that we were all humming. Eowyn, with her beautiful voice, sang the harmony to "go-ing to school now". We all suddenly burst out singing and dancing. Eomer grabbed Shadow, threw him up in the air, and caught him gracefully. I took Tetsuo by the arm and we started swing dancing. Kuwabara played air guitar as the bus pulled around the corner, its horn punctuating on every second beat. Tetsuo threw me up onto his shoulders, where I stood, singing the harmony to Ed's song. I jumped off Tetsuo's shoulders and landed on my knees with my hands raised victoriously above my head.
The bus stopped with a squealing noise, and we all became very quiet. The great yellow monster loomed over us, the great red stop sign flashing its bright lights at us. I stood as if entranced. Ghan-buri-Ghan was the first to dare to walk toward it. I stuck my fist in my mouth to keep from crying out as he disappeared into the bowels of the yellow beast. Leah was suddenly by my side, levitating as she usually did. Behind her were Auron, Vash, and Spike.
"They're my body guards." She told me. "My bestest bro-bro Tetsuo told me to make sure I am protected." She started levitating toward the place where Ghan-buri-Ghan had disappeared. She, along with her husbands/bodyguards, vanished as well. Kuwabara came up behind me, squeezing my shoulder.
"Well, here goes nothin'." He said quietly. He walked away. My eyes filled with tears.
"NO! NOT KUWABARA! TAKE ME, NOT HIM!!" I cried, dashing into the bright flashing lights. I heard Nicholas yell after me.
"Don't do it, Erin! He's not worth it! Erin!!" I heard someone running after me. The smoke coming from the end of the huge monster enveloped me. I coughed loudly, and my eyes watered from all the smoke. I tried to feel my way out of the choking cloud, but I didn't know which way was out. I held myself to calm down. Tears slid down my cheeks and I became frightened.
"Nicholas!" I cried. No one answered. "Kuwabara!" My face was wet with tears. I fell to my knees and stuck my face in my hands. The warm cloud closed in on me, helpless to do anything. Suddenly, something burst into the cloud and pulled me to my feet. I grabbed him and cried into his shirt. Merrill comforted me. He picked me up and carried me past the smoke, to the other side of the yellow beast.
"There, you're okay now, right?" He asked, setting me back on my feet. I wiped my eyes clear of tears and nodded, trying to smile. We both walked up the foreboding stairs into the inside to the ominous machine monster. Hell, but once we got in there, it wasn't so bad. There were two rows of big seats with an isle down the middle. Some of my family, most of which had passed me up while I was lost in the smoke, were already seated near the back of the beast. Leah waved wildly and Kuwabara motioned for us to come back and sit with him. I fairly skipped down the isle and plopped down in the seat with my brother Kuwabara. Merrill sat in the seat across from us. I grabbed Kuwabara's arm in anguish.
"It was so scary! I couldn't see anything! Merrill was so brave!!" I squeezed his arm tighter, and he winced.
"Blood kinda needs to get to my arm, baby sister…" He told me. I let go of his arm, and he rubbed it to get the circulation of blood flowing again. Merrill smiled and leaned back in his seat.
"Hey, this isn't that bad. The seats are comfy!" After almost half an hour, all of my family was seated on the bus. Even with two to a seat, it was very crowded. It seemed that the only person that had a seat to himself was Merrill. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a cigarette. He made a dome around his mouth with his hands and lit it, throwing the used match out of the window. He leaned back against the window, stretching his feet out into the isle. The bus driver swiveled around in her seat and glared at him.
"No smoking on the bus!" she yelled at him. He looked up and rolled his eyes. I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, after taking one more puff, and held it up so she could see that he had complied with her orders. She nodded violently and turned back around. He winked over at me and flicked the cigarette, still burning, at her. It landed neatly on top of the bun in her hair. My face turned red from trying to hold in my laughter. Kuwabara leaned over so he could give Merrill a high five. Just as the bus got moving, Tetsuo stuck his arm out the bus window and Nicholas's cross along with Tetsuo's red cape came levitating toward us. Tetsuo grabbed his cape while he strapped the cross to the top of the bus. Through the back window, I could see Theoden and Faye yelling at us. I acted like I didn't know what was going on and waved goodbye to them.
The bus moved down the gravel path, shaking violently like a monster was chewing on it. I grabbed onto the seat in front of me but still I bounced across the seat. I only hoped the ride would get better before it got worse. I could see Zim at the front of the bus being tossed from seat to seat in an effort to stay in one place. Thomas fell into the isle, his feet flying up to kick Ford under the chin. Ford grabbed Thomas's leg and threw him back into his seat, slapping him upside the head for his insolence. It was about then that the bus driver discovered that smoke was billowing from her hair. The bus swerved wildly and people flew everywhere. I was sent airborne and landed in Merrill's face. He yelled and sat up, seeing as he had fallen asleep. Soon, the cigarette had been tossed out the window and we found a real road. The ride was smooth from then on, and I clambered off of Merrill to sit back in my seat.
The bus was quiet. No one spoke. No one knew what to talk about. That was all changed very quickly. I heard something that I had been longing to hear all morning. They had decided to come! I looked out the back window and jumped out of my seat in joy. In doing so, I hit my head on the emergency door hatch. The back door swung open and the alarm buzzed. My head hung out of the opened doorway and I looked out to see three motorcycles zooming toward the bus. The bus driver was yelling incoherently at me to shut the door, but my eyes were fixed on the riding forms of Kaneda, Kai and Yamagata. Kuwabara got out of his seat and he helped me stand. I waved enthusiastically to Kaneda and the others. Yamagata made a very rude gesture with one of his fingers, but I knew that he was just messing with me. Then I saw Kaneda stand up on his bike as Kai grabbed onto it with one of his hands. Yamagata grabbed the other side of the bike. They revved up the engines and moved closer to the open doorway. I stuck my hand out, and Kaneda stretched his out as well. He made a final leap and out fingers intertwined. His feet almost scraped the pavement flying below the bus, but they grabbed a hold at the bottom of the door and I pulled him onto the bus.
By now, the bus driver was in hysterics and all my family aboard the bus were giving raucous applause. Kaneda and I looked around for a moment, then he bowed. I followed his motion as Nicholas pulled the back door shut. Yamagata and Kai pulled off to the side, where I could see them beginning to cover up Kaneda's bike.
We stood from our bows, and the bus driver screamed her head off telling us to find a seat. I sat back down with Kuwabara, who was smiling widely, while Kaneda sat across from me with Merrill. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. I blushed again, my face burning. Ee! He touched my hand!! I smiled like an idiot. He looked over at me.
"You all right?" He asked. I held my hands up to my face quickly to hide that I was blushing. I peeked through my fingers to answer him.
"I'm good, I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm nice, I'm dandy, I'm happy, I'm perfect, I'm…heh." I smiled like an idiot again. He gave me a very concerned look, and smiled back. He then went back to sitting, looking out the window past the snoring Merrill. I sighed quietly, and Kuwabara glanced over at me. I was grinning stupidly, my face brick red. He nudged me in the side, and I screamed, leaping out of my seat. All eyes turned to look at me. Leah's evil eyes fixed onto my red face, noting that one of her boyfriends was sitting across from me. I stared at her for a moment, then shrunk back, falling to my knees.
"DON'T LOOK AT ME!!" I cried, covering my face. Leah seemed to grow as she levitated toward me. Her vampire fangs were inches from my face, and she proceeded to yell at me.
"STAY AWAY FROM MY PRETTY KANEDA! HE'S MINE! MY OWN! MY PRECIOUSSS!!" I shrunk back so my back was against the emergency door. Kaneda raised his hand.
"Do I have a say in this…?"
"NO! YOU ARE MY KANEDA!" Hugging him tightly, Leah made an evil face at me and stalked away. I breathed hard as the bus pulled to a stop. Everyone was quiet. No one moved. We didn't know what to do. The bus driver stood and looked at all of us. Her eyes stopped on me, sitting in the isle, looking as if I had been confronted by a vampire, which had, of course, happened.
"Well? Are you gonna get off?" she asked loudly. All at once, we filed off the bus quickly, not daring to glance at the enraged bus driver. I was the last one to get off, and I felt the bus driver burning a hole in my back with her eyes. I was met by Nicholas and Tetsuo as I stepped off the last step. Nicholas had unloaded his cross and Tetsuo had his cape on and hair spiked up. I smiled at both of them. But it was quickly wiped off my face as I looked beyond them to see the…. SCHOOL!