"What is your problem?"
This is normal apparently. Caden is being a massive pain in the neck by pelting me right in my head with M&M's from Miss A's trail mix he's allowed to have for who knows what reason.
"Hey settle down you two! I'm sick of everyone in this room acting like this," Miss A. shouted, not noticing my glare. Our teacher's a tall, dark and blonde haired woman. She's nice enough, but she's a little worn-down from dealing with my classmates. I can get where she's coming from, between everyone else's social needs and the bus coming for the field trip in 4 minutes, it sounded even louder than normal somehow.
My school was built like the internet. If you have social skills, you're set, that's all you need. And if you don't, you fade into obscurity until you do something to get made fun of again. I rest somewhere nearing the bottom.
I was the only one at the bottom.
If you had something you could do, chances are, someone else did it too. The sporty guys formed a massive alliance mostly everyone else resented. Popular girls, nerdy kids, people who liked 'adult' jokes (Most of the guys), and even more niche ones like Brody, a kid with height to rival my own and the hair to match, who fit in and had friends simply because he could take a joke and everyone else sure could think of some. He replaced me as the weird kid at the merge two years ago.
Once we reached 6th grade, three of the biggest schools in the county joined together to form SHHS, which is much smaller than you'd think. The school offered a variety of physical activities, football, basketball, FFA, track, even golf. And the mental activities? No. None at all.
I had never been the type to enjoy physical stuff. Maybe that's why I couldn't deal with Caden, that blonde-haired jock who always wore the same red hooded sweatshirt. Then again I basically wear the same dark blue and red-striped hooded jacket and light gray sweatpants everyday. It's not like I had a knack for anything mental either. Or useful.
I tried stuff. Baseball didn't work, and that was pretty much the only one of the things I'll mention that I did voluntarily. I told my parents I could see from a mile away track that cross-country won't work, yet they won't listen. They claim I'll be good just because I've "got long legs." Same thing with basketball. They all assume I'll be good at it just because I'm tall. Now we just need sports where having short-minded people surrounding you and a screwed-up head are apparently all you need to succeed and I'll be set. Sure, people say I'm smart, and I'm smarter than I give myself credit for, but they only think that since I don't interact with others much. And that's why I felt the need to have something of my own.
BBRRRIIIIIIIIIIINNNGG
Out of time, I slowly started down with my lunch my mother had made in a rush while she was on the phone with our neighbor, Zach.
He was one of the reasons I settled on what I wanted to be. A brony. Him, and depression.
I had a feeling now me and him were the only ones in the entire state. While depression was a bit more... complex. When I first learned Zach was a brony, I didn't think much of it. Then I thought more and it began to make sense. My peers and even my own family were convinced I was depressed at this point, so maybe a happy-go-lucky show (excluding the apparent cult I had heard about from Zach) like Friendship Is Magic could help lift my spirits, the friendship part specifically as the only real social concept I had grasped so far was basic, general manipulation. It didn't.
Not to say it was bad, I enjoyed it, but it didn't really help. Really it made me more jealous than optimistic. Did I mention I'm depressed? I've accepted it at this point. Maybe it'll change after the scattered parts of the first two seasons I've seen, as I had barely made a dent in season three. I knew there would be a time I would tell someone about the decision I made about it a few months ago, but for now no one else knew.
"How d'you feel 'bout the field trip?" I looked over(and down) at Samuel, making eye contact with his short, brownish-blonde hair. I didn't need to think long about my answer.
"I think that, for our one field trip per year, we're a little old to spend it on a circus."
"You do?" Samuel asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.
"Well, only in age. Maturity-wise, you're perfect, " I said, getting a short chuckle as a response.
"Yeah, that makes sense," He responded. "So who are you paired up with for the ride? I'm with Payten."
"Firstly, it makes sense for all of you," I said. "Second of all, lucky you, I'm stuck with Caden," I added with a grunt.
"He's not too bad once you know him. And get past him kind of assaulting you back in the science room."
"Trust me, I know him well enough already," I told him, slightly grimacing as I did so.
We had finally reached the commons and with it the exit to the school. Shifting my black backpack of random stuff for the 4 hours on the bus, I looked around for my assigned partner. Finding him with his usual friend group that I obviously wasn't a part of and probably had a good ten people in it, I walked over.
"Alright everyone!" Everyone's eyes shifted over to the source of the announcement. "We're about to start getting people on the bus, and then we'll be on our way," came from Mr. Peterson, our high school's principal.
"Yeah, on our way after we've been ready for ten minutes." I turned around and met Edward, who looked quite a bit like me.
"At least you'll be spending the 4 hours on the bus with Zackary," I retorted to one of the more tolerable people here.
"Sorry you have to be with Caden," he told me. I think he was just feeling sorry for me, seeing how grumpy I was acting (And usually acted). But it was kind of hard to focus on that when light was glinting off parts of his dull green coat.
"It's fine," I replied uncomfortably. Unsure of why Samuel or Edward had talked to me in the first place, I was glad to hear kids being escorted to the 3 or 4 buses outside. I had never done well with social interactions, not like I was shy. I just didn't like the way it often worked out for me. Or doing it in general. At least Edward and Zackary I could put up with, as I could tell they were in a similar situation. Only vaguely.
With that out of the way, the only thing to do was actually get on the bus. We headed out the front doors and turned right past a small bronze statue that had nothing to do with our school in particular, not even our mascot. Just two kids on a bench while one of them reads. I would have preferred another actual bench. Our school was filled with this kind of stuff, murals, trophy cases, photographs, the works. You'd never see me in any of it.
Slowly we found ourselves gradually filing into the third and final bus. They looked exactly the same as every other school bus you might have seen in a movie, just sitting there in the cold you would normally find in late November. Good thing I brought my toque.
Caden managed to separate himself from his amalgamation of a friend group and made his way over to me. We shared the look on our faces that roughly translated to, "Alright, let's get this over with."
"Alright, let's get this over with," Caden confirmed. Once we got there, he was just going to go and hold hands with Amelia or whatever people do in a romantic relationship.
"You said it," I returned. Now all we had to figure out was where we were actually going to go. It doesn't really do us a lot of good to stick with an assigned partner if we aren't assigned anywhere.
Our school does this sometimes. They'll do something, but won't actually give a good reason for doing it. I doubt they have one most of the time. Change for the sake of change, I guess.
The inside of the bus was exactly as you would expect from looking at the outside, average and boring. The only real thing to do was talk with friends (I'm sorry, who?) or do something with your own stuff. Luckily I had my own stuff to spend the time on. Inside my backpack were a few things to spend the time on, all of which collectively felt like they weigh more than they probably should. A small puzzle made of a string of cubes, a couple of books, and a small music player with earbuds.
I had only gotten that last one recently for my birthday a few months ago. On it was a bunch of songs no one here would easily recognize, either because I have different tastes in music, or because it's from MLP. They'd certainly recognize where it's from though.
As it turns out, Edward was right. There was little to do while the bus driver did... something. Might as well start reading these books. Rather do that than listen to swears being repeated over and over. Finally, we started moving.
After we were actually going I quickly found myself struggling to find a way to keep myself occupied. I finished my books in twenty minutes, and the puzzle wore out it's welcome in two. I figured the music should be enough to keep me company. More than the guy on my right at least.
10 more minutes of staring out the window and I felt Chaos King was getting a bit old, so I looked down at the device to see what I had put on it next.
'This Day Aria'. Ah yes, a classic. One of the main reasons I got into things was it's music. Same is true for MLP. It's not my favorite style, but I've gotta give credit where it's due...
"Whatcha' listenin' to?"
My head jerked up. I tried to do something, but all I could do was watch Caden pull the music box out of my hand.
"Wai-"
RUMBLE
The earth felt like it jerked to the left two feet, leaving the bus behind. I felt a slight tilt.
And then nothing.