As for Yanuva, her father doesn’t have a very good reputation around town and she tends to have to deal with what it rubs off on her. Her father runs a borderline bus in town. The city buses stop running after eleven PM and he takes advantage of this by running an old, repainted, school bus around town. He doesn’t have a license as a bus driver or a taxi or anything but gets around this by never asking a fare, just a tip. This of course adds up to be about the same thing but it made a legal loophole for him to operate in, at least until the city council decides to do something about him. People call his bus Widow Maker because they say they never know if they will get home alive, between the shady people who ride, and the beat up condition of the bus.
Our forth club meeting Yanuva suddenly stood up and declared that she had had enough, that she was bored, and that we should stop meeting like this. We all stared at her in amazement. Like I said, she isn’t the sort to give up one of her ideas.
“After all that work?” I asked her skeptically. “Do you want Shizu to have to join the trading card game club?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “I meant that we need to find a more interesting place to meet, or some sort of purpose. Tell you what; you guys should sleep over with me next week instead of meeting in this boring old room.”
“You mean at your house?” asked Shizu.
“No, I never sleep in the house on Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights I sleep on the bus while father makes the rounds. I’m saying you guys should come along for the ride, it’ll be fun.”
“My parents would kill me,” said Shizu bluntly. This got me thinking about what my mother would say if she knew such a thing had even been suggested.
“I don’t think my mother would approve either,” I said, which was a bit of an understatement. As usual Onani didn’t say anything. He just watched us argue.
“That’s why you don’t have to tell them that you’re going to be sleeping on the bus. Just tell them that you are spending the night with me, that we’re having a club slumber party. It will be true too. And you don’t have to worry about anything happening, father will be there to make sure we stay safe.”
Yanuva always gets her way, eventually. This time was no exception. She is truly the driving force behind the club and both Shizu and I caved. Onani had long since made it clear he didn’t care what his parents thought, he did as he pleased. I don’t think that there was a single one of us who wasn’t affected by the sense of adventure that came with Yanuva’s suggestion.
I won’t say that it was easy for Shizu or me to manage to convince our parents to let us go on a sleep over on a school night. Despite being high school students, both of us had problems leaving the house over night without parental permission. Shizu in particular had a hard time of course, but some how she managed. If Onani had any difficulties getting away we would never hear about it. I doubt he did though, he seemed to do what ever he liked; I doubt he even told his parents he was leaving the house for the night. Yanuva of course had it the easiest; she did this every Tuesday night.
Still we all managed to meet at the appointed time at the informal bus stop where Yanuva’s father would pick us up. Yanuva had told us not to bother bringing anything. It wasn’t like we were going to be changing into pajamas or brushing our teeth on the bus she pointed out. And she said she would take care of the snacks.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment