High School War Zone

2. First Day Back And I Have Math

It was officially the first day of eleventh grade, and Logan was ecstatic.

He hurriedly grabbed an apple and slipped on his thin blue jacket. He tugged on his shoes and threw on his backpack, "Bye Mom! Bye sis!"

His mother waved and Jéssica ignored him as he climbed onto the school bus. Logan would drive, but Jéssica was using their Toyota to drive to the hospital (and his mom did errands with that car too), and his dad had obviously needed his Lexus to get to work.

Logan was absolutely fine with taking the school bus, because he got to ride with his best friend. It was always weird finding seats on the first day, because there would be new people and people missing, and Logan's whole map of the kids in the interior would be flipped out of whack. But his usual spot was empty. He sat in it and saved the spot next to it for Cyrus.

Two girls his age around his age from the same neighborhood hopped onto the bus, and once the bus peeled off he realized one of them was probably his new neighbor.

When the bus stopped again, Cyrus scrambled up the stairs, his Yankees baseball cap nearly falling off. Cyrus was an interesting guy because he only liked certain, specific things. He likes broccoli, but not vegetables; he likes apples, but not fruit; snickers, but not chocolate, soccer, but not sports.

Wait, were you paying attention?

Yes, Cyrus doesn't like any sport but soccer. He only has a Yankee cap because he likes how the hat looks, even though he doesn't like the color blue.

Because that makes absolute sense.

His best friend greeted him with a salute the moment he stepped into the aisle, "Hey there Rodriguez."

Logan saluted back, "Hey Cy."

He'd had saved the window seat for him, but Cyrus slammed into him and pushed him against the window. His friend settled himself into the aisle seat. "More...room for my legs," he explained haltingly, like he'd had no idea what he was about to say when he started saying it.

Logan shot him a deadpan look. "My legs are longer than yours."

Cyrus waved him off to ask the real questions, "Anything interesting happen of late?"

When Cyrus asks this question, it's because he had something interesting happen of late, and wanted to tell Logan about it.

Logan loved to hinder him by actually answering, "Yeah, you know the house near mine? Across the street, one house to the right? It's been on sale for years and it was finally sold last week. My mom says it's a girl my age."

Cyrus looked torn between telling his own story and asking questions about Logan's. "Did she get on this bus?" he asked finally.

"I wasn't paying attention, to be honest. But there is one girl who got on at my stop that I didn't recognize. It was probably her." He lowered his voice, "She's the one sitting in front of us."

Cyrus took a peek for a few seconds, because finally bursting out with his own story. "Right, well, I talked to Coach."

Logan stared at him, "When? Did you meet him at the supermarket or something?"

Cyrus elbowed him, "Let me finish. Okay fine, yes, I did. I was getting the groceries like a good boy."

Logan snorted.

Cyrus went on, "I asked if he knew it any new students were interested in joining the soccer team. He said he knew of one, from Canada."

That made him sit up, "Canada? With the hockey players and maple syrup and moose?"