Main event: Keith has an "accident"

POV: Ellis

Time frame: In the 1990s, when Keith and Ellis were in the 5th grade.

Did I ever tell you about the time that Keith had a run in with the bus driver? He'd had the flu and spent a week out of school and wasn't able to keep fluids down. By the time he got better, he was really dehydrated. So he decided that he needed to spend all day at school rehydrating, but he chose to do it with apple drink instead of water. He drank a whole two liter bottle of it and by the time we were on the bus going home, he was really startin to feel the effect.

See that specific brand of apple drink came from Mexico and he wasn't used to it, so he looks over at me with like five miles to his house and he was like, "Ellis, I gotta crap."

Of course I didn't know what to do so I was gonna ask the bus driver to pull over but Keith got all embarrassed and told me not to. He was gonna try to just play it cool for the rest of the trip but I think we both knew he wasn't gonna make it that long. He was startin to panic and I was startin to scoot toward the aisle.

He looks over at me and says, "El, if you let me use your backpack as a toilet, I promise I will buy you a new one." He was serious but I laughed at him and said no. I was like, "Buddy, my homework is in there. I don't think Ms. Wells is gonna excuse me just because I have crap on everything." Eventually I just told him to get off at my bus stop with me because my house was closer.

He managed to hang on that long and when we got outside, the bus driver was like, "Keith this isn't your stop" but there's no way Keith is gonna get back on the bus. He makes a break for it and the bus driver panics.

But when he panicked, he let his foot up off the foot break just for a split second and ran Keith's foot over. I don't know why he was runnin away so damn close to the edge of the bus, but that was the last straw.

Long story short, I had to crutch a person that smelled like human waste all the way home. In summer. Keith's dad thought I was the greatest person to ever live. He was like, "I woulda left him, in all honesty."

BUT there is a silver lining to this story. The school district had to give Keith's family a bunch of money because of all the broken bones in his foot. That settlement lasted a long time and only me and Keith and his family knew anything about the grossness of that accident.