The bus ride was pretty much the same as year’s prior. BCS might have been a fancy private parochial school with uniforms and a view, but they still had yellow school busses with brown seats and not enough supervision. They had the same bullies as other schools too – perhaps just a little more entitled. She recognized a lot of familiar faces but for some reason, she didn’t get a lot of smiles back as she walked the long aisle to the back third of the bus. Jordan sat down and her knees touched the seat back in front of her.
That’s new, she thought.
“OW!!! Watch what you’re doing with those things, Lanky!” Laughter sprinkled throughout the surrounding seats. The girl in front of Jordan poked her head over the top of the vinyl seat glaring and rubbing her back. Although with uniforms it was a little more difficult to identify social standing and ‘coolness’, telltale indicators of status were always available: the tiffany bracelet around her wrist, the stylish layered bob haircut with highlights reminiscent of Jennifer Anniston. She had the perfect teeth, skin, nails…everything.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to,” said Jordan.
More than a few kids were watching to see what would happen between the lowly seventh-grade giant and Amber, one of the most popular 8th graders in school.
“Well keep ‘em under control would ya’ trees?” Kids laughed at the name.
“Sure.” Jordan slumped into her seat angling her legs sideways.
Please don’t let this be this kind of year. Please. God please. I’ll do anything. I just need a break. One small break. Why did you have to make me so tall – and why THIS YEAR? Why now? A tear started forming in the corner of her left eye.
Glancing over the seat Amber took the bait, “Oh look, the giraffe’s crying now!! Boo hoo hoo hoo!!! Little baby giraffe needs to go home and be with her mommy.” Everyone was watching. Jordan just tried to melt into the brown textured vinyl. “How’d you get so tall anyways giraffe? Eat lots of twigs and sticks and branches? You got some stuck in those chompers?” Amber reached over and flipped her finger on Jordan’s lips playfully yet deviously. “You like leaves? Yum, yum, yum, giraffe.” The gorgeous green trees outside couldn’t fly by fast enough for Jordan – but no one was coming to her rescue. Alex was on a different bus and yet again she was all alone. “I bet she’s got a black tongue everything too.” Kids younger and older, many rows to the front and back were eating up Ambers theatrics; she was in the zone. With Jordan’s eyes closed, the first thing she felt was the end of a pencil eraser pushing into her mouth.
What the hell? Is she trying to pry my mouth open or something?
“Open up!!!” Amber said like she was a friendly dental hygienist, “Let us see that stinky black tongue of yours!”
“STOP IT!!! Leave me ALONE!!!” Jordan stood up. “I’m not a giraffe. I’m not smelly. I don’t have a black tongue.”
The kids got quiet. “I don’t eat leaves. STOP IT you…you…”
Just then the bus hit a bump and Jordan lost her balance and clumsily tripped over those long legs and ended up in a heap partially on her seat and partially on the floor. The entire bus erupted in laughter. Of course she was beyond mortified – in tears – and terrified about what the rest of the day (let alone the year) had in store for her.