Tales of Mystery and Intrigue

School Bus Graveyard

AN: This was the third story that I wrote for my project, and it was inspired by the story School Bus Graveyard, a webtoon by the creator Red.

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Ashlyn rushed through the door and onto the yellow school bus waiting for her in front of her house. Grasping the flask full of coffee in her hand as she looked around the bus full of people, she realized that it was too full. There was only one seat left.
With a sigh, Ashlyn sat down on the worn out leather seat, adjusting her noise-reducing earbuds to make all the noises in the crowded bus at least a little bit more bearable for her sensitive ears. However, there was one guy behind her that just wouldn't shut up. His voice was loud and annoying, yet there was a somewhat pleasant tone to it. Ashlyn hadn't seen him or the guy he was sitting next to before, so they must have been new. As the bus started moving, the ginger-haired girl could see the more energetic one of the two new boys take a look at the many school buses that stood in her yard, with the words “school bus graveyard” spray painted onto the wall facing the road.
Ashlyn sighed internally when she felt a tap on her shoulder from behind her. She could already tell that today was not going to be her day, and just that small tap on the shoulder was enough social interactions for today for her standards. But she was never one to complain, so she turned around to face the energetic tan boy, raising an eyebrow in the process.
“You live there?” The blond boy asked with a cheeky grin, his crimson eyes staring right into Ashlyn's green ones. The ginger girl nodded, wanting to talk as little as possible during the whole interaction to hopefully let the boy know that she wasn't interested in keeping the conversation long. At least the other boy, who was a brunette, noticeably taller and more well-built, kept to himself; he was just looking out the window while listening to music, obviously not one to talk much, either. Ashlyn already liked the brunette more than the energetic blonde.
“What's up with the whole ‘school bus graveyard’?” The crimson eyed boy was somehow hanging on Ashlyn's seat, with one of his arms going around the side of the seat and the other over it, and his legs scrunched up against the seat. It was a wonder how he stayed up like that, but the guy besides him didn't even bat an eye.
“It's just a bunch of old school buses that my parents got along with the house.” Ashlyn didn't waste a breath and just gave the boy a straightforward and short answer, which the blonde seemed a bit disappointed at, but quickly just brushed it off and shrugged.
“I was expecting a cool story or something, but alright. What's your name? I'm Aiden, and this,” he points towards the taller boy beside him, “is my cousin, Ben. We just moved here. Our house is just before yours.” Ashlyn sighed internally at the boy again. The fact that Aiden had asked for her name meant that he was most likely planning on speaking to her again, since he didn't really seem to be the type of person to ask for someone's name out of politeness.
“Ashlyn,” the girl answered with a clearly annoyed voice, though the boy still didn't seem to get the fact that she wasn't really fond of him and his talking, as he kept telling her about random things, such as his wealthy family and his and Ben's old school the whole bus ride, and even when the newly formed trio stepped into the school hallways.

As Ashlyn stepped back to her room and threw herself onto her bed, she couldn't help but sigh while thinking back to her day. Just why did her new teacher need to give the whole class a huge group project as soon as they stepped into the room? Ashlyn was never a fan of socializing, just like her parents, and yet they still insisted that she at least tried to make friends, and it seemed that her new teacher had the same mindset. She had asked him if she could do the project on her own, but much to her disdain, she was told that unless she had an actual reason to not do the group project as a, well, group project, then she had to go back to her group. It wasn't like she had a real reason, so she couldn't say anything, either; she simply didn't like people. So, without saying another word, she had headed back to the rest of her group, where Aiden kept bugging her again, since they had somehow ended up in the same group.
The rest of her group didn't seem as bad as Aiden, thankfully. They were a group of six, and with Ashlyn, Aiden and Ben, there were also two Hispanic twins, Taylor and Tyler, and also an almost-typical-nerd-looking blond guy, Logan. He and Ben seemed the most bearable for Ashlyn, as the others were all either really energetic or would probably try to attack her if she gave an answer that wasn't word-for-word what they had been expecting. She wasn't naming anyone in particular, though (it was Tyler). It wasn't like any of them seemed like necessarily bad people, though – they would just take a lot of time to get used to.
Of course, the worst part of the project wasn't the fact that it was necessary to communicate, but rather how the teacher had also decided to make an overnight class trip to Savannah, the city of which's history the whole project was even about, and of course it was one of those trips that gave you almost all the info you needed, which you usually had to search for hours for, so Ashlyn didn't really have any other choice but to go. She now could just hope that everything would go without casualties on the trip, even though she knew that that was basically impossible. She just hoped that the two days on the oncoming trip would go by like a breeze.