Willow dragged her feet getting onto Bus #50. How it was one of the most difficult parts about going to Robert Kansas Elementary School. Because #50 was cruel to a fifth grader with tightly coiled hair that sprung out in all directions. It was cruel to a fifth grader who preferred a CD player to hopscotch with friends. And to a fifth grader who sat in her seat engrossed in word searches. It was cruel to a fifth grader who wore the same outfit every day or had once, just once, even peed in her pants at recess in front of everyone.
Bus #50 was a nightmare for Willow Thorpe.
Willow couldn’t go back on that bus. Not one more time. So she told her father about Bus #50. She told her strong, sturdy father. About the hair-pulling while having the word boing yelled in her ear. About the pointing at her favorite black T-shirt with the horseshoe while everyone laughed and laughed and said “she’s wearing it again.” About the tearing of her word search pages right when she was going to circle S-L-I-T-H-E-R on a backward diagonal. Willow’s voice crept over the lump in her throat as she told him.
But Willow was devastated when her father’s only suggestion was to fix it herself.
“Stop sitting near those kids, Willow,” he said nonchalantly. “Sit in the seat right behind the bus driver. He can help.”
Willow did her best to clear the lump in her throat once more to protest, but as usual her father was insistent and unwavering. Rex walked Willow all the way up into the bus, pointed at that green vinyl seat with the duct tape covering up a hole in the back and said, “Sit here, Willow.”
He said it in front of everybody. He was already making things worse.
“Sit, Willow,” the fifth graders, and even some fourth graders, mocked as they patted on their legs like they were talking to a dog.
Willow might have been even more upset if she didn’t think those fifth, and even some fourth, graders had it right in some ways. Her father did talk to her like she was a dog. A dog being trained. And not just this one time on the bus. All the time.
“Eat your broccoli.”
“Take your plate to the sink.”
“Finish your homework.”
“Make your bed.”
“Tie your shoes.”
“Help your brother.”
Her father said those things without a smile or a please or a morsel of warmth. Her father was firm and direct, and Willow didn’t like it. Not now on Bus #50. And not any day at his house.
In an effort to avoid eye contact with everybody else on that whole entire school bus, Willow turned her attention to the duct tape on the seat. She wished Asher didn’t have to take the designated kindergarten bus. She wished he was sitting right next to her. And as she wished, Willow picked at the sticky edges compulsively until she revealed the entire hole in the back of the seat. But when she looked into the hole, she saw something unusual in there. Willow reached her hand into that hole to see what it was.
Tucked inside the hole she discovered two grape-flavored Pixy Stix with a string tied around them and a typed note that said, “For Willow.”
For the first time all year, Willow smiled on Bus #50. She smiled to herself and sneakily stuck her secret candies into her backpack.
But then she took one right back out, ripped it open and poured the sugar into her mouth. She couldn’t hold out for even a second. She loved Pixy Stix. She loved the loving force that put them there. And Willow thought she knew exactly what, who, that loving force was. There was only one person in this town, on this earth, in this universe who loved Willow enough to surprise her with her favorite flavor Pixy Stix.
* * *
As Willow walked down the hallway with her remaining Pixy Stix in her bag, she almost forgot that the kids at Robert Kansas Elementary School were going to be so mean. She almost forgot they might put diapers in her cubby. She had almost forgotten about the first time she saw diapers in her first-grade cubby after she peed in her pants a few days after her parents told her about the divorce. The day of that big thunderstorm. That big, booming, terrifying thunderstorm. She had almost forgotten that she would have no one to sit with at lunch, and that everyone would avoid being her partner in gym class. That her teachers wouldn’t call on her even though she knew all the answers. That at some point during the day, she was inevitably going to trip and fall in front of everyone.
Gravity worked differently on Willow than it did on everybody else. It yanked her down randomly. It pulled her toward the earth whenever it wanted to. It gave a quick but firm tug on her knee, her elbow, her hip—and her body would buckle, leaving Willow in a contorted pile of bent skinny limbs on the ground. And while this often caused minor scrapes or bruises, Willow actually didn’t mind falling down like this. She thought that it made her special. She thought it made her distinct. The very idea that somewhere, sometimes, the world around her had singled her out. It singled her out and pulled her close to itself. Willow liked the idea that gravity was thinking of her from time to time. And she liked the idea that it would always let her know, with a tug on the knee, exactly when that time was.
When the lunch bell rang, Willow took her time retrieving her bagged lunch from her cubby and then took her time walking down the hallway to the cafeteria. It helped minimize the time in which she was sitting alone at her lunch table in the back. She put one foot slowly in front of the other and traced her finger along the green elementary school walls.
But before she even rounded the corner for the lunchroom, Willow could hear Amanda Rooney and Patricia Bleeker giggling even though she couldn’t see them. This was a trick Willow recognized from last year. Amanda and Patricia had waited for Willow to turn the corner, then they stuck out their clean white platform shoes, causing Willow to fall over right in the middle of the floor. They laughed, and then walked away with their arms linked at the elbows.
Today, Willow knew better than to fall into their trap a second time. So, she made a very wide turn and exposed Amanda and Patricia huddled together on the other side. They were both wearing big blue bows in their blond hair and had on pink-striped T-shirts. Willow could barely tell which one was which, given the way they were tangled up in each other’s matching outfits like that. Willow looked right at them, smiled only slightly and let her eyes tell them, You’re not going to trip me twice!
But just when Willow thought she had escaped the taunts, gravity yanked down on her so hard she fell all the way to the ground. First her right knee, then her right hip, then her right shoulder.
Amanda and Patricia squealed equally high-pitched squeals. And with the sound of their laughter ricocheting in her skull, Willow just stayed on the floor and closed her eyes tightly and hoped that she would hear Patricia’s and Amanda’s shrieks soften.
But their sounds only got louder.
And when Willow opened her eyes, the two blond-haired, blue-eyed girls were standing over her and dumping handfuls of pencil shavings all over her body, making sure to get them into her curly hair.
Willow just lay there watching as the apple from her lunch bag broke loose and rolled halfway down the hallway.
And then finally Patricia’s and Amanda’s voices trailed away as they left Willow to her bruised elbow and her bruised apple. To her messed-up lunch and her messed-up hair.
Willow got up and shook her head back and forth, expecting flakes of soft yellow wood to flutter out of her hair, but nothing did. The shavings hooked themselves so assiduously into her jagged curls that not a single one fell to the ground. Willow walked into the bathroom to find a mirror, thinking perhaps there would be enough time to pick out the pieces before lunch was over. But on the wall next to the mirror, in thick black Sharpie, it said, “Willow, Willow, hair like Brillo.” She wondered if someone had just added it here or whether it was left over from last year.
Either way, after the quick glance she got of herself in the mirror before turning around, Willow thought the yellow flecks looked sort of cool in there. They had that same jagged in-motion effect as the design on her Keith Haring T-shirt. Mom would like that. Plus, tonight was pizza night so she could show her then.