Tell me a story...

[island gurl]

Everyone has their stories that they tell time after time. They always seem to pop out in the conversation, you use it as an icebreaker at a dinner party when the in-laws start fighting - again, or your Mum/Dad/Grandma/Aunty says "Tell such and such about the time when...."

I don't think there is anyone I know well who hasn't heard either the story about when I was 7 and I ran out in front of a bus (Why does mum have to keep mentioning that?), the time I cut a girls hair at school, the time i cut my finger almost off so it was hanging by a thread and had to wear a full length cast to fix it coz it was a critical place where I cut, or the time I got caught in a shopping centre in malaysia with 9 armes gunmen shooting at people near me and I had to hide in the pizza hut kitchen.

I have managed to tell you almost all of mine. So I was wondering......what's your story?

[Sara]

[size=1]My first day of kindergarten, I got on the wrong bus.

I'm a nervous, excited five year old--my stomache's turning somersaults because it's my first day of school. My bus stop is a block away from my house, and my mom walks down there with me. (I love her.)

I have on a cute "first day of school" outfit, and my backpack is full of art supplies--gluesticks, markers, crayons. I have purple gluesticks; they are supposed to turn clear when they dry. I haven't tried them yet. (Will they let me use purple gluesticks in school?)

I run down the sidewalk ahead of my mom--I've got so much energy, this is so cool, oh [i]wow[/i], I'm going to school! I'm scared to death about it. Words run through my mind--Mom and Dad drilled them into me last night. I know my address, I know my last name, and my parent's first names, I know the name of the school I'm going to, and I know my bus.

This is the important bit. [i]I know my bus.[/i] The Blue Duck. Blue duck, blue duck, blue duck. I've been repeating it to myself all the way down the block. [i]Blue Duck. It will have a sign in the window with a blue duck. That's my bus. Blue, blue, blue, blue...[/i]

I get to the corner--there's a chubby boy and his mom standing on the corner across the street. I am suddenly alarmed. I know my bus (the Blue Duck!) will stop at this intersection, but it had never occured to me that there were [i]four[/i] corners at the intersection.

I don't look at the boy standing there--I run back and tag up with my mom. A few seconds later we're both at the corner. I concentrate on not looking at the boy across the street. [i]Blue Duck...Blue...Green--no, [b]blue![/b][/i]!

A bus turns onto the street, a block away. It thunders to a stop at the corner where Mom and I are standing. The door swings open.

"Is this the Blue Duck?" my mom asks the bus driver. She has to yell; the kids and the bus are making so much noise.

The busdriver grunts an affirmative. Terrified, I climb the steps of the bus. It starts moving before I've found an empty seat, and I fall into the nearest unoccupied place. There are no seatbelts.

Every time the bus slows down, I crane my neck, checking to see if I need to get off yet. I've been to my school once before--Mom and Dad took me, to make sure I knew what I was doing.

Eventually, the bus comes to a school, and stops. Everyone else gets off. I do not. I know what my school looks like--and [i]this isn't it.[/i]

The busdriver says to get off the bus.

I say it isn't my school.

He says to get off, anyway.

I do.

All around me, kids are going places. Not standing still, not wandering around--[i]going[/i] somewhere. I don't know where--I'm not even supposed to be here. I go up to a grown-up.

"This isn't my school," I say.

She glances at a notepad and asks me for my name. I tell her. She asks who my teacher is. I don't remember. She's not even here, anyway!

"This [i]isn't my school,[/i] I say again.

She blinks, and looks at me. "You don't go here?"

"No!" I'm getting frustrated, now. Didn't I just tell her that, [i]twice[/i]?

The woman took me somewhere and deposited me with another grown-up, who questioned me further. I told them where I was supposed to be--Jefferson, not Prairie. Phone calls were made--I might have talked with my parents--and eventually I was told people were coming to pick me up.

Mom and Dad showed up, as did a lady from my (real!) school. Her name was Peggy Redfern, and she had reddish hair. I thought that was clever. She drove me to the right place.

When I finally got to the correct building and room, my class was already seated on the floor, learning about letters. I had to duck into class in the middle of a story about Mr. C, which seemed to involve a cotton-candy cloud. It didn't make sense coming in halfway through, and I never did learn the whole story.

So that was how I was late to my first day of school.

(Anyone else remember the [url=http://www.geocities.com/letterfolks/lp_stickers.jpg]letter people[/url]?)[/size]

[island gurl]

haha what did you do? Did you just stay at that school or sumfin? I would've been hell scared