Brave Brain

Hallie

"That's enough mom" my little brother protests and squirms as Mom put another layer of sunscreen on him. He pushes her hands away and begins to whimper. Typical behaviour for children of a dermatologist. The first day of school and we were the only kids that looked like we had been locked inside all summer.

"Henry, stop moving or it will get in your eyes" Mom says trying to hold him still. She pumps another glob of Banana Boat into her palms and rubs them together before slathering the string bean legs of her 7 year old son.

I sling my backpack over my shoulder and go closer to the sidewalk to wait for the bus. I glare at my watch: 8:40am. The bus should be here any minute. I play with a stone with my purple Converse while I rub my own sunscreen into my face. I take both of my hands and spread them over my face one more time just to make sure everything is soaked up. Walking into a high school looking like a pale face was a little bit different than walking into an elementary school. Sure kids would still make fun of you but it was different in high school. The kids would judge you more and think you were weird. I pull my schedule out of my backpack to give it another look so I know exactly where I am going. HI302-RM 122. Grade 11 History. Room 122. I see the bus begin to appear over the hill. By this point, Henry has tears streaming down his face. My mom puts his Paw Patrol backpack on him and gives him a kiss on the cheek. She begins to walk backwards towards her car and blows me a kiss.

"Hallie, text me when you are home. Have a good first day back. I love you!" she shouts.

"Yep. I will. Love you too" I wave at her.

The bus pulls up and Henry steps on first, wiping the tears off of his face.

"Are you ok little dude?" I ask him as he sits in his seat.

"Ya, I hate sunscreen" he admits sitting down in the first seat to the left. He still has his backpack on. A Hot Wheels car is locked in his fist.

I hold on to the grey plastic seats as the bus begins to move and help Henry take his backpack off. I give him a hug and make my way to the back of the bus. Our busses in the county were shared between the elementary schools and the high school. This meant our bus made a stop first at the elementary school and then made its way to the high school up the road.

I pick out a seat close to the middle. All of the seats at the back were reserved for senior students. I steady myself as the bus makes another stop. I see Maryam pulling her big curly hair up into a scrunchie. She had been my best friend since Kindergarten. I remember her coming into class wearing a beautiful red ribbon in her big hair. When I went home that night I begged my parents to take me shopping for red ribbon so I could have hair like Maryam. Her hair was her most sacred part of herself. She loved brushing it, styling it, and trying out new hairstyles on other people. On more than one occasion she would just grab my hair in class and start braiding it. She always had an endless supply of scrunchies. She had a pink one for Valentine's Day. A green one for St. Patrick's Day. A green and red for Christmas spirit days. An orange one for Halloween. Some of them even had little designs on them if you looked carefully. She had a sewing machine in her room and probably had over 200 handmade scrunchies in her inventory. She even had an Instagram page for them. Some people even bought them from her. She called herself a young entrepreneur. If I ever forgot a hair tie for gym I knew Maryam would have me covered. She even had a large supply of them in her locker.

"Hey Hal" she waves at me and taps the open spot beside her. I sit down and set my backpack on my lap. I let out a sigh and turn to face her. She looked like the same Maryam I had said goodbye to at the end of June. Her face had more freckles and it looked like she was wearing some makeup.

"So how was summer vacation?" she asks finishing the last loop around her ponytail.

"It was good. We went to the beach a few times. My parents worked a lot. But it was ok" I smile.

"Cool. Same. Not much happened with me. We went to my dad's for most of it. It sucked to see him with his new wife but it's whatever" she admits. Her parents had been divorced since we were in Grade 5. I remember Maryam coming to school crying that day. That whole year she was just really sad. Her dad lived in Alberta with his new family so that meant I didn't see her for the whole summer. When she was at her mom's house she was only a few blocks away. I missed seeing her when she visited her dad.

"Ya that would be difficult" I try and imagine my parents being broken up but I just can't. Our family would feel broken. There would always be that empty spot. A void feeling.

Maryam had a little brother close to Henry's age. He was only a little bit older than him-around 10. It must have been hard for them both. I can see his blonde hair at the front of the bus and it makes me sad to think about it.

Our bus pulls us to the little school and lets all of the elementary students off of the bus. I slide over to the left side of the bus and wave at Henry. I can tell through the window his face is still red from crying about the sunscreen. I smile at him as he runs into the school playground and finds a friend. I slide over again and plop myself down next to Maryam.

"At least you have each other though" I tell her and give her a small pat on the back.

She lets out a small smile, looks down and plays with the yellow scrunchie on her wrist.

"Oh so a new family moved in beside me" she states. "And I think they have a son."

I roll my eyes at her. She had always been boy crazy. After she kissed her first boyfriend in Grade 1 she made our whole class have a wedding for them at recess. I was a flower girl and had the honor of collecting daisies from the school yard for all of our bouquets. We still talked about it at sleepovers.

"Have you introduced yourself" I ask her.

"No, I haven't even seen them really. I just saw the movers carrying in a bunch of boy looking furniture so I am going off of assumptions here" she elbows me.

"Well good luck with that. I thought you were seeing someone in Alberta. Like a cowboy?" I question.

"No Hallie, he just had a horse. He wasn't a cowboy. It didn't work out. I can't do long distance" she tosses her pony tail behind her and scoffs.

I laugh at her and turn my feet into the aisle. Our bus slowly pulls up and everyone is already starting to get antsy. Some kids are standing up before the bus has even stopped. Others are still asleep with their earbuds in. It was day 1 at the jungle again.