Bulletin Board description/ explanation
Trouble On The Bus
by Troy Crawford
Read by Zoe Tseng
Ugh! School already?! It felt like I only got 15 minutes of sleep! As usual, I forgot all about my bunnies.
“Please. Mom, I don’t want to go to school!”
“Too bad. Get out of bed.”
“Fine!” I said. I really didn’t get why my mom wouldn’t let me stay home. It was only one day.
“Dad, Mom won’t let me stay home. It’s snowing anyway, plus it’s almost my birthday!”
“Snow can’t stop you from going to school,” he said.
“But it will make me slip.”
“Just go!” he said.
I told him I would fall, but no, he wouldn’t listen. When I say something bad will happen to me, it really happens.
"Oww!" As I got on the bus, I fell. I felt so embarrassed. As the bus ride went on in complete silence, the second-most annoying person got on the bus. Gardell. To be honest, he talked too much, and when he didn’t like something, he quickly changed the subject.
“So what do you want to talk abou—” said Gardell.
“Please stop talking. I was perfectly fine before you came,” I yelled.
“Fine. You don’t have to yell,” said Gardell. “Ha ha ha ha…”
“Oh shut up!” I yelled.
“You can’t make me! Ha ha ha ha h—” Gardell laughed.
“Stop.”
“Fine.”
“I told you to stop,” I said.
A while later, another person got on the bus.
“No no NO! Jamie’s here!” said Gardell.
“For the last time Gardell, we do not have a plan to avoid Jamie.”
“Yes we do!” said Gardell.
“NO!!!” I said.
“Raise your hand if you’re annoyed by Jamie!” Gardell said. Everybody raised their hand.
“See! People are annoyed by you because you talk too much,” said Gardell.
“No I don’t,” said Jamie.
“YES, YOU DO!” said everybody but me all at once.
Just then, Gardell threw his phone out the window. “No, wahhh!” he said.
“Gardell, I know you don’t want Jamie to come on the bus…”
“No, I’m crying because I threw my phone out the window! But why DOES she have to be on the bus?”
“That's it!! Stop bullying Jamie,” the bus driver said.
“We’re not bullying Jamie, she’s just annoying,” I said.
Jamie said, “I just like to make people laugh.”
The bus monitor said, “You shouldn’t bully people because you wouldn’t want to be bullied.” The bus ride went on in complete silence. We didn’t want to get in trouble. We decided to stop bullying Jamie.
We finally reached school. Wait, I thought. This is NOT school!
“Where are we?” I asked. “New York?”
“Dubai?” said someone else. “Jupiter?”
“Okay this is going nowhere. Gardell, where are we?” I asked.
“Dubai,” he said.
I said, “What?!?!”
Gardell said, “Wait, no—we're in Manhattan.”
I like Manhattan. We decided to get off the bus, but boy, should we have stayed on!
“Ow, stop pushing!!!” said Gardell.
There were too many people in NYC. We decided to head back to the bus. But right when we were about to get back on the bus, the bus got towed!
“Noooo!” said the bus monitor, Yashanni. “How are we going to get back to Boston?”
“How am I supposed to know?!?!?!” I said.
“Because you have a bag that says, ‘I know everything’,” said Yashanni.
“I bought this at Burlington, okay?!” I replied.
We found the bus at the junkyard.
“Can I get the bus back?” asked the bus driver.
“Okay. But that will be $200, please,” replied the junkyard worker.
“$200?!?!” the bus driver yelled.
“Look, I work at a junkyard and hardly get paid, so deal with it. Does anyone have money?”
“NO!” said the bus driver rudely.
“Hey, I'm trying to help,” said the junkyard worker.
“Well, you're not helping!” I said. “I’ll just order an Uber ride.” Two and a half minutes later, an Uber arrived.
“Okay, can you take me to Boston, Massachusetts?” I asked.
“$1,000, please,” said the Uber driver.
“What?!?!?!?!?!” I shouted. “Nevermind! I’ll just order a Lyft.”
Four minutes later, the Lyft arrived. “Take me to Boston,” I said.
“That will be $5 please,” said the Lyft driver.
“Wow! That’s cheap,” I said.
“Only you?” the Lyft driver asked.
“No, there are ten more people.”
“Oh, that will be $500 then.”
“Fine. Come on guys,” I said.
“Thanks, Troy,” Gardell said.
“You can thank me by giving me the $500 I wasted on Lyft!” I said.
Four hours later, we arrived in Boston. My parents asked me why the teacher called to say that I missed all my classes.
“Uhhhh, delay?” I lied, because I thought my parents would never believe me.
“You're grounded!!” My mom yelled.
“What! That's not fair.”
Troy is 10 years old.