I found my usual empty seat on the school bus and stared out the window at all the other high schoolers milling about, saying goodbye to their friends. Everybody seemed to have somebody. Except me. I didn’t have any friends. No matter how hard I prayed for one. The driver pulled the door closed.
I felt someone plop down in the seat beside me. A boy had his hand out for me to shake. “Hey!” he said. “My name’s Jack. I’m new. Mind if I sit here?” I looked around to see if this happy guy was making a scene, but nobody seemed to notice us, or care.
“I guess you sit here every day,” he said. I’d never seen him before, and I was always the first student on the bus. I wouldn’t have missed him getting on.
Jack talked a blue streak till he got off next to Saint Michael’s Church. All that week, we rode together and had a grand time.
The next week, my friend wasn’t on the bus. But by then, I was used to making conversation. I looked at the other kids. Talk to them. Valentina, a girl who got off at Jack’s stop, was a good start.
“Have you seen Jack today?” I asked her. She looked confused. “The loud boy who sits with me? He gets off at your stop.”
“I don’t know who you could be talking about,” she said. While Valentina and I tried to solve the mystery, she and I eventually became friends. None of the other kids at the St. Michael’s stop knew of Jack either. Only me.
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