A/N - I hadn't read Holes at the time I read this. Nor had I seen the movie at that time. Since then, however, my siblings insisted that I watch the movie, and it was with a small shock that I realized that the main character's last name is Yelnats. I must assure you that this is simply a coincidence.

Chapter Six - Strange Passengers

A teenage girl stood out in an open field. Looking around, to make sure she was alone, she opened a sack that hung around her shoulder. She pulled out a small pouch, and counted some coins. She stuck those in her pocket. Then, she pulled out a camera. She knelt down on the ground, and looked up through the camera. She saw nothing, and looked side to side. Something must have caught her attention, because she took a picture.

Holding her camera up to her face with her left hand, she stuck out her right hand and waved it in a circle. There was a loud bang! and a bright flash. Somehow, the girl was fast enough to take a picture during that time. Out of nowhere came a bright blue bus. In gold letters on the side were they words, The Day Bus.

The doors of the bus opened, and a man, in his early twenties, dressed in blue with gold trim, stepped out. "Hello, and welcome to the Day Bus. We can take you anywhere you want to go. I am Yelnats Shunpike, and I will be your conductor today."

He spotted the girl, standing all by herself. Yelnats cocked an eye at her. "Running away, are you?

The girl lowered her camera, and looked at her feet. "No, Sir," she said in a quiet voice.

The man chuckled, as though he didn't believe her. "Well, I'll play along. You can call me Nats. Where would you like to go?" He smiled at the girl, hoping that maybe he could at least make her short time away from home a nice one. He was, after all, not that much older than her, and there was something about her he liked.

Still looking at her feet, the girl replied, "Hogwarts, please, Sir."

"Hogwarts? Isn't it a bit early to be going there? Besides, somebody's bound to see you and turn you in." He chuckled to himself. Most runaways wanted to go to somewhere where they could blend in, and nobody would recognize them. This odd girl wanted to go to a school, which was odd in itself. But then, there was the fact that there would be no students there, so she would be spotted instantly.

"Yes, Sir." The girl's eyes were focusing on her shoelaces.

"There's no need to call me Sir. Just Nats is fine," he informed her. Getting back to the subject, he said, "Well, the trip to Hogwarts will be ten sickles. If you have that, come on aboard. Don't worry. I won't tell anybody that I saw you." Nats looked at the girl with a smile.

She didn't smile back. She pulled ten silver coins out of her pocket, and handed them to Nats. Acting professionally, he bowed slightly, and pointed the way to the door. The girl boarded, and he followed.

Inside the bus were large, blue seats. The were very comfortable, and Nats motioned for the girl to sit in one of the front seats. He sat in the seat opposite her. Even if she was odd, he seemed interested in her. "Is there anything else I can get you?" he asked as the bus jumped smoothly to a dirt road surrounded by rolling green hills with a flash and a bang.

"No, thank you, Sir," the girl replied. Nats sighed. There was obviously no getting through to the girl. He figured that if she wanted to act all formal, he might as well let her.

"So, what's your name?" Nats asked casually. It was a boring day, and he was looking for something to liven the day. It seemed that this girl was going to be the only source of liveliness for the time being.

The girl didn't answer. She had put her camera back to her face and was looking around at the other passengers.

Nats tried something else. "So, what did you run away for?"

The girl was still ignoring him. She had turned her attention to outside, where there was a flock of birds. Watching them intently, she moved slightly, and then took a picture. Satisfied, she put the camera down.

Nats seized the moment, and tried to continue the conversation. "Let me guess. Sibling rivalry?"

The girl shook her head. "No, Sir. To my knowledge, I have no siblings."

Nats was surprised that she had listened to him. "No siblings? I've got one. A twin, actually. We're identical. My brother, Stanley, was born first. My parents didn't know that they were having twins, and had so firmly settled on the name Stanley that when I was born, only a few minutes after Stan, they had no idea what to name me.

"They ended up naming me Yelnats, which is really just Stanley, spelled backwards. They even insisted that I take up Nats as a nickname, since my brother went by Stan." Stan wasn't sure if the girl was still listening to him, but he hoped she was. "Well, we may be twins, and we look alike, but personality wise, we're as different as night and day.

"Stan has usually been the dependent one. He depended on me for almost everything, and honestly, he still does. Even when I got this job, here with the Day Bus, he depended on me to help find him a job. Now, I thought it would be some creative symbolism if I got him working on the Knight Bus. After all, it would be two people, different as day and night, working on the Day and Knight Buses."

An older witch a few rows back laughed, but not the strange girl. Nats looked at the girl in desperation, wondering what he had to do to get her attention. The girl had gone back to her camera, and was looking out the window again. She took anther picture, although Nats couldn't see anything outside worth taking a picture of. The girl put the camera on her lap, and pulled out a small, plastic cylinder. She opened the back of her camera, and took out the film. Putting the film in its little container, she took out a new roll and loaded it into her camera.

Nats sighed. There was no way he would be able to have a normal conversation with the girl. He didn't speak for a while, until after they had dropped off the witch that laughed, and were on their way to delivering a very old wizard, and somebody signaled for the bus. Nats left and gave his speech, and let the awaiting man onto the bus.

"So, Sir, where can we take you today?" Nats asked the man.

The man responded in a gruff voice, that sounded almost constrained, as if he was trying to disguise his voice. "Hogwarts."

Nats consulted a small, color coded map. "Funny you should ask that. We already have a passenger going to Hogwarts." Nats motioned towards the girl, who was looking out the window when he turned. "From here to Hogwarts will be fifteen sickles." The man nodded and paid. When nobody was looking at her, the girl looked at the new passenger.

The man was wearing a hooded cloak, so that none of the other passengers could see his face. His cloak, although rather plain, had silver fastenings. This caught the girl's interest. When Nats sat the man down in the seat behind her, she silently thanked him. Leaning back on her seat, and looking into the window with her camera, she could see his reflection in the window. All she had to do was wait.

The girl was no stranger to waiting. She often had to wait for the perfect picture to arise. Fortunately, she was patient, but ready to act the moment she could, in case the window for the picture was limited. The man soon shifted his head, to look out the window. The girl shifted herself a little bit, and then, when she could see his face, she took a picture. Putting down the camera, she looked at the face she could see in the window. She was shocked.

Hiding under the hooded cloak was none other than Cornelius Fudge, the British Minister of Magic. She had no plans to reveal who he was, but she wanted to ask him what he was doing. She knew better, of course.

She wondered why he was using public transportation. If he wanted to go to Hogwarts, he could just apparate to the grounds, and go in. The girl had read "Hogwarts, A History" enough to know that people couldn't apparate or disapparate in the actual building, but there seemed to be no restrictions on the grounds. But, it wasn't her place to be asking questions, especially to the Minister of Magic.

The girl spent the rest of the ride looking for something to take a picture of. She found nothing spectacular, except a tree trying to jump out of the way as the driver swerved to avoid a cat crossing the road. The picture contained the cat, the driver, and the tree, and if it turned out right, it would have their various expressions, all so similar, and yet so different.

Nats was finding himself at a loss. First, the girl wouldn't speak to him, because she was absorbed with her camera. He thought she was a bit on the weird side, but she was more interesting than everybody else on the bus. The only other interesting person on the bus was the mysterious guy who wanted to go to Hogwarts. But, the guy was trying to avoid talking, or so it seemed.

Nats sighed, wishing he got some of the company his brother, Stan, did. The Knight Bus was much more popular, even if the driver was a maniac. Two years ago, they picked up Harry Potter, not too long after Sirius Black had escaped. Harry was hiding his identity, but Stan actually got to talk to the boy. Nats never got anyone that important on his bus.

Nats, having nothing better to do, started reflecting on his own life. It seemed like, no matter what he did, Stan was always better off. His parents were always quite fond of Stan, and would flaunt Stan's abilities and good points in Nats's face. "Why can't you be more like Stan?" they would ask. Nats could never seem to compare to his brother, in his parents' eyes.

Finally, the Day Bus arrived at Hogwarts, and Nats said goodbye to his only interesting, and yet totally uninteresting, passengers. The girl got off without a word, but handed Nats a sickle. He assumed it was a tip, although most people didn't give tips to conductors. The man got off without a word, and without a tip.

The girl held her camera, and took a few pictures of the grounds, and the castle. Since there seemed to be nothing else to do, she began the long walk to the front doors. The man, on the other hand, was dallying back, as though waiting for the girl to go away. She didn't notice, and was taking pictures as she walked.

When she got to the front doors, she didn't know what to do. If she was at her own home, she would enter through the back, the servants' door. She didn't really go anywhere else, except for her old school. And then, she would enter with the rest of the students.

She didn't want to draw attention to herself, but there was nothing else she could do. She reached out and knocked on the door four times. One loud knock, to get someone's attention, and three quiet knocks, to show that she knew her place. She didn't really expect someone to answer, so she was surprised when the doors opened.

A mean-looking man, with a cat at his feet, opened the doors. "Oh, it's you," he said. Most students would probably have taken offence at that remark, but not this girl. The man turned and walked off, and she simply followed him. He walked up stairs and through corridors until he reached a statue of a gargoyle. Approaching it, he said, "Cauldron Cake." The gargoyle came to life, and moved to the side.

The man motioned for her to get on a spiral staircase, which was spiraling upward. At the top was a giant, oak door, which was open. There was nobody in the office, so the girl assumed that she would have to wait. She used her time alone to take pictures of the odd room.

When she reached into her bag to get her camera, her hands fell on a fist-sized stone. She pulled it out, and remembered that she had a task. She looked at the stone, which was an indigo crystal. She looked into the crystal, and she could see the room inside it, complete with her in it. The girl in the crystal extensively hid the crystal-within-a-crystal. Watching closely, the girl outside the crystal did the same.

After completing her small task, the girl looked around through her camera. Her eyes fell upon a phoenix. It was about the size of a swan, with scarlet and gold feathers. Its long tail extended down quite some bit, and it sat on a gold perch. The odd bird seemed in interest the girl.

She walked around the phoenix, taking its picture from several different angles. When she reached its head again, it looked at her. It cocked its head, and uttered a small note, as if to say, "What are you doing?"

The girl almost laughed at her odd interpretation of the bird, but decided that she might as well answer the question. "I'm taking your picture," she said, "because you're a very pretty bird."

The bird cooed, as though to say, "Thank you."

Just then, an old wizard with a very long beard and bright blue eyes walked in the door. He took one look at the girl, and smiled. She didn't return the smile. Instead, she dropped her eyes.

"Ah, yes," the old man said. "Our transfer student. There are a few things I would like to explain to you."

Special thanks…

Um, well, nobody has reviewed my last chapter, so I don't have anybody to thank.