Episode 2

Mikey said. ‘I always thought you were

Mexican.’

‘Shit, Mikey,’ Steve said, ‘you’re such a

fucking racist.’

‘She’s not Chinese,’ Tina said. ‘She’s

Korean.’

‘Who is?’ Steve asked.

‘Park’s mom.’

Park’s mom had been cutting Tina’s hair

since grade school. They both had the exact same

hairstyle, long spiral perms with tall, feathered

bangs.

‘She’s fucking hot is what she is,’ Steve said,

cracking himself up. ‘No offense, Park.’

Park managed another smile and slunk back

into his seat, putting his headphones back on and

cranking up the volume. He could still hear Steve

and Mikey, four seats behind him.

‘But what’s the fucking point?’ Mikey asked.

‘Dude, would you want to fight a drunk monkey? They’re fucking huge. Like Every Which

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Way But Loose, man. Imagine that bastard losing

his shit on you.’

Park noticed the new girl at about the same

time everybody else did. She was standing at the

front of the bus, next to the first available seat.

There was a kid sitting there by himself, a

freshman. He put his bag down on the seat beside

him, then looked the other way. All down the aisle, anybody who was sitting alone moved to

the edge of their seat. Park heard Tina snicker;

she lived for this stuff.

The new girl took a deep breath and stepped

farther down the aisle. Nobody would look at her.

Park tried not to, but it was kind of a train wreck/

eclipse situation.

The girl just looked like exactly the sort of

person this would happen to.

Not just new – but big and awkward. With

crazy hair, bright red on top of curly. And she

was dressed like … like she wanted people to

look at her. Or maybe like she didn’t get what a

mess she was. She had on a plaid shirt, a man’s

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shirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging

around her neck and scarves wrapped around her

wrists. She reminded Park of a scarecrow or one

of the trouble dolls his mom kept on her dresser.

Like something that wouldn’t survive in the wild.

The bus stopped again, and a bunch more

kids got on. They pushed past the girl, knocking

into her, and dropped into their own seats.

That was the thing – everybody on the bus

already had a seat. They’d all claimed one on the

first day of school. People like Park who were

lucky enough to have a whole seat to themselves

weren’t going to give that up now. Especially not

for someone like this.

Park looked back up at the girl. She was just

standing there.

‘Hey, you,’ the bus driver yelled, ‘sit down.’

The girl started moving toward the back of

the bus. Right into the belly of the beast. God,

Park thought, stop. Turn around. He could feel

Steve and Mikey licking their chops as she got

closer. He tried again to look away.

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Then the girl spotted an empty seat just

across from Park. Her face lit with relief, and she

hurried toward it.

‘Hey,’ Tina said sharply.

The girl kept moving.

‘Hey,’ Tina said, ‘Bozo.’

Steve started laughing. His friends fell in a

few seconds behind him.

‘You can’t sit there,’ Tina said. ‘That’s

Mikayla’s seat.’

The girl stopped and looked up at Tina, then

looked back at the empty seat.

‘Sit down,’ the driver bellowed from the

front.

‘I have to sit somewhere,’ the girl said to

Tina in a firm, calm voice.

‘Not my problem,’ Tina snapped. The bus

lurched, and the girl rocked back to keep from

falling. Park tried to turn the volume up on his

Walkman, but it was already all the way up. He

looked back at the girl; it looked like she was

starting to cry.

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Before he’d even decided to do it, Park

scooted toward the window.

‘Sit down,’ he said. It came out angrily. The

girl turned to him, like she couldn’t tell whether

he was another jerk or what. ‘Jesus-****,’ Park

said softly, nodding to the space next to him,

‘just sit down.’

The girl sat down. She didn’t say anything –

thank God, she didn’t thank him – and she left

six inches of space on the seat between them.

Park turned toward the Plexiglas window and

waited for a world of suck to hit the fan.

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