All Aboard

Part One

Pythagoreans believed that all things were measurable in terms of number and every number had its own meaning. According to them, six meant 'creation'. They also studied perfect numbers (a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper positive divisors), and six was the lowest. Some people, who aren't Pythagoreans, believe the number six represents luck, or family and love. Others think it symbolizes balance.

Isn't that interesting? Doesn't it seem as though the number six could have some pretty awesome properties?

The universe certainly thinks so.

Dan

7.43am

I don't know what drawing dicks on public property says about me as a person, thought Dan, but it's freaking hilarious. The entire bus was practically fraying at the edges and Dan could almost smell the winter of its life emanating from every surface, but miraculously the back of the seat he was looking at was a blank canvas with nothing doodled or scrawled on it; not a fuck or a phone number promising a good time in sight.

Popping the seat's metaphorical virginity, Dan finished his latest masterpiece with a smirk, inhaled an extra-long breath of his marker pen, and then got started on dick number two. Amanda, his step-mum, suddenly popped into his head, but he shook the image of her frowning at him away before it suffocated his creativity.

Dan glared at the obstacle in front of him. He'd drawn shafts on the sides of bridges and peckers high up on office blocks, but he'd never had an obstruction like the one in front of him now. Sat in the seat in front was a girl from his form, Kimberly Something, and each time he tried to get closer to his work of art, her huge hair tickled his skin and aggravated his acne.

He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, and glanced around at everyone else on the bus. Same old faces; nobody new, nobody interesting, apart from Mikaela, whose photos he'd had some special screen time with last night. He turned forwards in his seat and got back to ducking under Kimberly Something's massive hair to finish his objet d'art.

It did smell nice though. Kimberly Something's hair.

Kimberly

7.44am

Kimberly's Mum was from Grand Cayman and her Dad was from Ireland, which meant that Kimberly had a frizz of ginger curls with freckles to match. Nicole Kidman and Ed Sheeran may be worshiped in Hollywood, but in the real world being ginger meant you had a neon sign on your back that said Put on this earth for you to torment at your leisure - lesson time, break time, lunch time, whichever time you so desire. The colour of her hair, along with the fact that her chest was as flat as her back, she'd inherited her Dad's stocky frame, and her tendency to hunch down due to her generous height earned her uninspired nicknames such as Meatloaf (not even ginger) Brienne (which she kind of liked) and Notorious P.I.G. (which she didn't like one bit). There was also Kim Car-crash-ian which Kimberly thought was underused, considering how creative it was.

School had always been a daily serving of hell and self-loathing, but when her best friend, Natalie, had stopped replying to her texts and avoiding her at school, Kimberly's bus journey had become a taster of how she spent each day. Totally alone. Over a year had passed, and she still didn't know what she'd done to make Natalie ghost her. She'd seen Natalie surrounded by her new friends, all as pretty and perfect as she was, dancing around and laughing at Ryan's party at the weekend, the same one that the others on the bus had been at.

Seeing photos on Instagram isn't really the same as seeing real people at a real party, Kimberly, she thought.

There was movement behind her and Kimberly braced herself; that boy, Daniel, was making her nervous. She normally tried to sit away from him, away from everyone, but the bus was a lot smaller than normal. In fact, it was a lot older than normal. The windows didn't look as though they would open properly, and the seats were covered in a vile cream plastic. She hadn't noticed the bus's interior until she'd sat down, mostly because she generally walked around without taking her eyes of her own shoes.