Midnight Wonders

2.1.2. The Station in the Greenwood

A hand landed on his arm, and he blinked. He lost his balance as the bus jerked forward, and he grabbed onto the nearest pole for support as the grip on his arm tightened. He fell back into his seat.

Luc looked to his right to see a woman sitting beside him, eyes wide. "Are you all right?"

He blinked again. Had he been dreaming? "Oh," he said, faintly. She was still staring at him. "I'm all right. Sorry about that." Luc stole another glance out the window. More trees, more hills. There was no station. The bus hadn't even stopped.

"You were about to fall over," she said.

He had fallen over; she'd just caught him. He laughed a little. "I'm a sleepwalker. I must have gotten up to go...heaven knows where."

"Ah," she said. "Long night?"

Long morning, it had been. Long days, it was. But Luc just nodded. His bag had fallen into the empty seat next to him, and he picked it up, rearranging it so the contents inside were even. He placed it neatly on his lap, then glanced at the woman, wondering if she still wanted to make conversation, but she had, and he was somewhat grateful for it, turned away from him.

There was something oddly familiar about her. Chestnut brown hair, smooth and shiny, probably curled that morning. It wasn't naturally curly, at least not in the way it was now; the ringlets appeared to have been shaped around a flat iron. She had a distinct face, too, small and round, with a strong, pointed nose that was all the more prominent compared to her softer features.

She was taking the bus too, but he couldn't remember her being a regular on his commute. But he couldn't exactly remember what his regular commute was. He only noticed when something was different, and this, noticing her, was different. She might have sat beside him every day for those two years and he might never have noticed her until now. Who could say?

Luc was noticing her now. He noticed her take her cell phone out of her pocket and tap away at the screen with nails painted an ivory white. He noticed her play with her curled hair, pulling at the ends so they gradually loosened and the ringlets fell apart. He noticed when the bus stopped at a station just outside the hills and she stood to leave, smoothing down her long brown skirts as she did. He hadn't meant to stare. He hoped he hadn't made her uncomfortable. But she'd avoided eye contact with him since catching him, so he thought that must have been a false hope by now. He would wait until tomorrow. If he saw her again, he might realize that she had been a regular on the bus with him all along. And he would apologize to her, and hopefully she wouldn't think him perverted or inappropriate or trying to make a move on her.

He wondered if that happened often. It had happened to Cora before, when she had taken the bus by herself. Back when she had been able to. It had made Luc want to go with her everywhere, but it would have been doubly patronizing, he thought, considering their ages and how Cora hadn't actually seemed at all upset about it, merely commenting on her admirer on the bus as if he'd been another interesting bird in a tree, and in any case, Cora had stopped going anywhere soon after that. And it made Luc's desire to go with her everywhere a necessity.

The bus stopped at his station, and he thanked the bus driver as he always did. He was careful down the steps and checked that he was still holding his bag, then walked the rest of the five or so minutes to his workplace.

Luc worked at the local school, the closest one there was to his house. It was not quite local in that it was rather the commute away, but local in how public schools tend to be, or how they ought to be, with all the students from the surrounding neighborhoods, and it was ought to be that way, but if a cousin happened to live with the family a half-afternoon once a week, who was to deny their dear cousin the address of their home? The young children of Luc's neighbors attended this school, which had made for a convenient excuse to get to them when he and Cora had first moved there seven years ago. Cora had no excuse to be friendly; she had only a reason, and that reason was to be friendly.

His classroom was in the D hall, where all the third-grade classrooms were. He was very happy with his classroom, and the other teachers in the D hall, Mr. Gao and Mrs. Torres, were very happy with his classroom as well, because it was the smallest in the hall and it was not theirs. Luc was told that the architects had not meant to make the room smaller, but they had miscalculated the size of the hall, and Luc would rather they had purposely made the room as small as it was, because he did not like to think that the roof over their heads had been designed by architects who could not measure a hallway.

Luc's classroom was littered with the remnants of the students who had passed through it. His collection was not so large as Mr. Gao's nor Mrs. Torres's as to be as carefully curated as theirs, as only one class of twenty had made their way into fourth grade under him, but he had faith that he would one day reach the level of the other third-grade teachers. He was glad, though, that he still had much space on the walls in between the taped-up illustrations of his students. The hands of third-graders were very curious indeed; they were still young enough to draw whatever they wanted with little self-criticism, but old enough to be aware of what a good illustration ought to be

Luc's personal favorite was by one of his current students, and it was of a very tall stick figure with a fabulous bow tie pulling a furry blob with eyes out of a dangerously large top hat. It was colored entirely in red, of course. The assignment had been a beginning-of-the-year introduction, for the students to draw what they wanted to be when they were older. Luc supposed this one meant that the student wished to be very tall and well-dressed as an adult, who worked as a magician with a pet blob instead of a pet rabbit.

Luc deposited his things onto his desk as he did every morning, then went to the whiteboard to write the current date, the week's homework, and the Student of the Day, who had to assist in cleanup duties at the end of class. Then, as the clock neared eight, he opened his door and stood just outside it to wait for the children to arrive.

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