The Bus Plan (NaNoWriMo 2013)

2

Nov. 5- 1,095 words

Total: 3,106

~Harrison Vandenberg~

You'd think they would get used to it. Substitutes and students alike! It wasn't my fault I had a long lineage who loved family names. Trust me, those standardized tests, where you bubble your name in? Those things were the worst. I leaned back in my chair during English. Miss Scottish Grammar Nazi had me covered as far as Mrs. Siren was concerned. Historically speaking, there wouldn't be a Scottish Nazi, a fact I've pointed out many times, and many times Alissa has firmly refuted it. The bell rings, but I didn't really hear it. I was busy daydreaming about a world where I could write history essays for-

"Mr. Vandenberg." I glanced up at the tiny woman standing by my desk. Her mousy brown hair was in a bun, and she had on too much makeup, but she was fairly young, and... had a nice figure. She also posessed a wit like a double-bladed sword, and a tongue that was even sharper, especially if you got on her bad side. I didn’t like it there; on her bad side, I mean. Once I kept popping gum in class, trying to keep myself awake, but ended up making her more and more mad. Eventually, she did forgive me, when I helped her out one bright school morning with some boring paperwork about what she’d covered in class that week. My memory was sometimes better than a record of what occurred, and she was done with that paper in mere seconds, with my help.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Shoo. This is my planning time, and I think you have a class as well."

"Not a useful one," I grumbled. "This school is just too easy!" Mrs. Siren blinked rapidly.

"This is the highest-ranking selectively public magnet high school in America," she said slowly, like I was thick.

"And I'm the highest-ranking history student in the world," I answered flatly, no pride in my words. She leaned on my desk, tapping perfect, unpainted nails on the desk. 

"I expect if you're so smart, you can conceive a plan to alleviate this...problem," she said with a hint of a smile. She stood straight again, and walked back to her desk, heels clicking on the floor with each step. "What did I say, Mr. Harrison?"

"I'm going, I'm going!" I acknowledged, stuffing my sweater into my book bag and hurrying out of the room, when something caught my eye out the window. Cat had mentioned at lunch that she had seen some athletic team pull out this morning, and here it was, gold-painted sides gleaming in the sun, with Cloud Valley High printed in bold black letters on the side. It struck me very suddenly how very efficient a bus was. How very little knowledge students have about a bus.

And how to cure our boredom.

~Rebecca Andrews~

I leaned on the back two legs of the wooden chair, absently fiddling with the charms on my necklace.

"Can we please start this secret meeting or whatever it is now?" Alissa groaned. We were stationed around Harry's kitchen table, which is round, and, not surprisingly, littered with pictures of knights in shining armor, horses in gleaming metal outfits, and long pointy sticks that are probably more dangerous than they look in the pictures. I suppose the pictures are for Harry, and his love of history. Knights of the Round Table, and all that.

"Actually, it is a secret meeting," Harry replied. Cat looked up from her calculator, and I put all four chair legs back on the ground. He had captured  our interest.

"What's this all about?" I asked suspiciously. Harry looked at each of us in turn, and clears his throat.

"Well, I'll keep my preaching short, but the bottom line is that we're bored. School is too easy. No challenges. Hoemowrk takes all of five minutes to finish. Classes are a waste of time reviewing what we've known for years. I think it's time we changed that."

"Are you suggesting that we start a revolution and found our own school?" Alissa said in a bored tone.

"No, don't be silly," Harry snapped. "I had a better idea. We're going to steal a bus."

"Steal?" I shrieked incredulously.

"We?" Cat said, one eyebrow raised.

"Bus?" Alissa replied in disgust. "Why a bus? Can't we get, you know, a Mazzerati or something?"

"No, we're stealing the school bus."

"Stealing is against my moral principles," I said firmly.

"And I don't know about you, but I'd rather not spend time in detention. That's even more boring," Cat pointed out.

"But just think!" Harry cried in protest. "We could go anywhere! The Smithsonians! Jamestown! Hollywood! Cat, Cat, you could go to a college of mathematics! And, you, Alissa, we could take you to, uh, a Scottish folk festival. Or get you bagpipe lessons!"

"And goodness knows she needs them," Cat muttered, earning a glare from Alissa, these looks not so teasing as usual.

"Rebecca! Just think, you could go to Chinatown!” Harry continued, like he had never been interrupted. There was a sort of fire in his dark blue eyes, and somehow I get the feeling that anything I do or say won’t talk him out of this insane plan. “Germantown! Find people who know another language!!" I raised one eyebrow and glanced at Cat and Alissa. They look pretty unsure about this plan.

"No," I said firmly, and stood up from the table. "Surely there's something else we can do to alleviate boredom."

"I'm with Rebecca. Let's try a safer alternative first," Cat backed me up, also standing from her seat at Harry's kitchen table, her chair scraping back on the tile floors.

"I'd say do it," Alissa said with an indifferent shrug. "Even if it is a stinky old school bus."

"No, we aren't taking any stinky old school bus," Harry responded indignantly. "We're stealing the athletic bus,” he corrected her, almost dreamily.

"Even stinkier!" she cried in mock outrage.

"And we aren't stealing anything!" Cat asserted, her face gaining two bright pink patches from her anger, her eyes flashing violently, as if with lightning, from behind the lenses of her glasses.

"I'm going home," I announced at last, my voice toneless, exasperated by Harry at last.

Two chairs scrape on the floor as they returned to their places under the table, and Cat and I walked out together, heads held high and blood pounding furiously in our veins.

"Don't worry. They'll see," Harry’s voice said in complete confidence, the arrogance of having a rich family and an advanced brain. Then Alissa's reply, her recently learned and applied, yet very realistic, Scottish lilt, clear in her every word.

"Aye, me laddie, we'll make them see."