School’s back on Monday. The Thanksgiving holiday is almost over and the family Roberts will be returning once more to their educational facility. The Roberts’s had an extended vacation, at least from the school bus. Seven out of nine Robert’s kids were barred from riding the bus for the week prior to Thanksgiving, due to illegal activities that included fighting and creating a mass disturbance, that resulted in the bus returning its load of kids to their school, rather than the homes and welcoming parents who expected them.
Not that the other kids on the bus are total innocents. Nicholas Lilly, a third-grade, suffered a blacked eye only last week when his best friend, Quinton Long, suddenly decided he was no longer Nicholas’s friend, and laid into him with vigor. The resulting bruises earned Quinton a three day bus suspension and a threat from his irate Mom to “black more than your eye if you ever do that again.”
The last time Quinton had a bus suspension was when he uttered a four letter word. It all happened in a vain attempt to make his brother shut up. I felt sympathy for Quinton on that occasion. Brother Malcolm, nowhere near the voice-breaking stage, is prone to long outbursts of high-pitched gibberish, vaguely passing for what is usually some explanation of a minor infringement of his rights by another student on the bus. By the time anyone has managed to interpret Malcolm’s frequent, long-winded and ear-piercing complaints, we’ve all forgotten who he was originally attempting to incriminate.
Nevertheless, Quinton’s ‘F-word’ eruption earned him a ‘bus referral’, later followed by a mouthful of Dove soap, forcefully inserted by his Mom in an effort to cleanse her eight-year-old of his unsavory taste in language.
Oakley Canton will be on the bus Monday, complete with her over-abundance of hormones. Fifth-grade girls can be a problem, particularly when fifth and sixth-grade boys are riding the yellow school bus. Oakley’s a nice enough girl, but like most on Bus 13, she hails from the poorer areas of the town. Consequently, her fashion sense – something never terribly mature among young, black female, minors – lacks a certain sophistication. Oakley’s tight skirt and high heels don’t assist her to mount the three steps onto the bus with any degree of alacrity. Once inside, she’ll sway one way, then the other, on her way down the aisle to her seat, ensuring any eligible young male receives a portion of her ample backside in his face as she passes by.
The most startling aspect of eleven year old Oakley’s appearance is not her enormous gold earrings, or the six inch heels on which she teeters precariously to her seat. Neither is it the hip length mini-skirt, or multitude of brightly-colored plastic dangly bits hanging from a hair-style whose creation must surely have kept her up all night. Oakley’s piece de resistance is her brassiere, a work of art that must surely contain the innards of at least three of her mother’s settee cushions. Oakley stands out in true Marilyn Munroe fashion, though sadly it could all shrink alarmingly if her mother ever demands her cushions back.
The latest male to light Oakley’s hormonal fire is one of the Roberts’ boys. Cordell Roberts, blinded to all but Oakley’s buttocks swirling past his face, was quick to plant a punch on his younger brother, Jethro, when the poor lad happened to call her a “stupid bitch”, after one of Oakley’s six inch heels mangled his toe as she sashayed past him on the way to her seat last Monday.
The resulting melee caused the irate bus driver to divert from his route and return the bus load of punch-drunk, pre-pubescent, hooligans to the school they had recently vacated. Consequently, the Principal had an apoplectic fit, and banned all the Robert’s boys from riding the bus for the remainder of the week.
Peace returned to Bus 13, though Quinton Long still looked daggers at Nicholas Lilly from across the aisle, and Oakley Canton, no interest in any other males, sat and stared out the window with an air of total boredom, her bosoms sagging somewhat with the lateness of the day.
Still, nothing lasts forever, and the family Roberts will be back on Monday.
Filed under: School bus
