Same Old Sky | Chapter Eight

When I woke up it was only because Trisha was shaking me, hard.

It was still dark outside and as I sat up memories of last night came flooding back. I rubbed my eyes.

The glaring red numbers of my alarm clock read 4:59 and then 5:00 as it started to beep wildly. I yanked out the cord and wedged it into my bag.

Ali was already gone. "She had to take an earlier bus," explained Trisha.

I nodded and stretched my legs and tugged at my tshirt in a vain attempt to un-wrinkle it.

"Come on!" hissed Trisha from the doorway. "I don't want to miss the bus!"

I grabbed my bag and we stumbled down the stairs.

We got to the benches in the middle of a large crowd of the '5o'clockers' as Trisha called them.

Trisha spotted Mitch and we waved. then the bus driver told us to 'arrange ourselves into some sort of pattern' and get into the bus.

We all did, the girls only slightly more organised than the boys.

When we were all in, Trisha pulled out an ipod and handed me an earbud.

We wrote notes, discussing pointless things, talked about almost everything, and exchanged adresses.

I doodled a picture of a tree that was the cover of the album of the song we were listening to.

After what seemed like hours, we arrived at a walmart where Trisha, me, three girls and two boys got off the bus.

Trisha and I did our secret handshake as quickly as possible and reshouldered out bags, trotting our different ways.

I fingered Trisha's address in my hoodie pocket.. It was still cold.

As I reached the car the trunk flew open and a young girl with short hair bobbed over the seats. My little sister Sylvia.

It hunked my bag into the trunk and opened the passenger door.

My small, mildly obese maltese ran around in circles on the seat, yipping and yapping.

I scooped him up and rolled my eyes, shut the door, and buckled my seat belt.

It wasn't an extremely talkative fifteen minutes home.

When we got there it was eleven, and I said hi to my dad, and dragged my bags back to my room, Sylvia following.

I shut the bedroom door and turned on the shower water, Sylvia excitedly told me that we were having brunch and disappeared.

Once I got out of the shower I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt, shoved a notebook in my back pocket and a pencil in my hair.

I stopped by sylvia bathroom door, knocked once, then pushed it open.

Inside, sylvia was making baby noises at her latest pet -- a tank full of rainbow colored fish.

There was a fake gold dragon and one daring little fish was swimmng in and out of the dragon's mouth.

I laughed and made an exit.