The School Bus

Ngọc Anh hid inside a bathroom stall and locked the door. Her heart hammered so hard it felt ready to give out. Her breathing came in ragged bursts she could no longer control.

The first day of school was not supposed to go like this...

Her stomach clenched. Sourness flooded her mouth, and she bent over the toilet and threw up everything she had.

This couldn't be real.

The bathroom door creaked open. Ngọc Anh stopped breathing. Slow footsteps crossed the wet tiles and came to a halt outside her stall. The only thing between her and that monster was one flimsy wooden door.

A shrill scrape dragged across the other side, like claws raking over thin wood. Ngọc Anh buried her face in both hands and waited for whatever came next. A flat voice came through the door.

“Hey, Ngọc Anh. Are you afraid of me?”

It was the voice of the first friend she had made at this school. And that friend was probably about to kill her.

...

The early-morning cold of Bình Minh City made Ngọc Anh tuck her chin deeper into her coat. The sky was still pitch-black. Rows of shops stood shuttered and silent, as if the whole city had decided it was far too early to wake up.

Only a few distant engines broke the quiet, along with the dry scrape of leaves across the road. By day, Bình Minh was noisy and crowded. Right now, it was still fast asleep.

And yet here Ngọc Anh was, sitting at a bus stop and losing one battle after another against a chain of yawns.

Her grandpa waited beside her on his old motorbike. He was past sixty now. Most of his hair had gone gray, but it was still thick and neatly trimmed. His square face was lightly weathered, with fine wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes.

Today was her first day at boarding school, so he had insisted on seeing her off himself. Grandma had wanted to come too, but her eyesight had gotten too poor. In the end, she had to stay home.

The bus stop had a roof, a route board buried under advertisements and graffiti, and what could only generously be called seats. They were really just a few freezing U-shaped metal bars bolted into the ground.

According to the notice on Ngọc Anh's phone, the school bus would arrive around four in the morning. Grandma, of course, had ordered them to get there half an hour early “just in case”. Arguing was pointless, so grandpa and granddaughter obeyed. They arrived exactly thirty minutes early, not a second less.

Grandma had also wrapped both of them up as if they were going to war with the cold. Grandpa wore a thick, faded brown coat zipped to his neck with neatly pressed dark-gray trousers. Ngọc Anh had a coat too, except hers was too big. The pale fabric hung almost halfway down her skirt, and the sleeves swallowed her wrists until she rolled them up.

It was one of grandma's old coats. Still perfectly usable, as grandma would say. Underneath was the uniform of Minh Anh - Quang Uy High School, the school Ngọc Anh was about to attend. At the moment, though, she looked less like a high-school girl and more like a child wrapped in a blanket.

A large purple suitcase sat by her feet. It was big enough that she could probably curl up inside it herself. There was, of course, no high-school girl packed in there. Just uniforms and everything else grandma thought a boarding-school student might need. Grandma had packed the whole thing the night before with such care that Ngọc Anh herself no longer knew what was inside.

And that wasn't all. Grandma had shoved a wad of money into Ngọc Anh's hands. It was so thick that Ngọc Anh almost ask whether they had found themselves a new granddaughter. She was coming home this weekend, thank you very much!

Besides, she really didn't need that much pocket money. She had entered the school on a full scholarship. Tuition, transportation, meals, lodging, everything was covered from beginning to end.

She had researched the scholarship carefully online. It fit her circumstances almost perfectly. The only real downside was the distance from home. Still, no matter how hard she argued about the money, grandma won.

The conversation had gone something like this.

“I already have a scholarship. I don’t need extra money.”

“But what if something unexpected happens?”

“I’ll be inside the school... What could I possibly need it for?”

“Well, how would you know until something comes up?”

“If I never spend it, carrying that much around would just be pointless!”

“Then bring it home if you don’t use it. Money doesn’t disappear by itself, does it?”

That was the end of that.

By some miracle, grandma won every argument in the house. Naturally, whatever she said, grandpa and Ngọc Anh eventually obeyed.

“Keep it for emergencies,” Grandma had told her, pressing the money into her hand. “If you don't spend it, buy something for your friends.”

Ngọc Anh accepted it with a sigh. Her grandparents should have been spending that money on themselves. They counted every penny they used, so she hated the idea of them being this generous with her, much less with friends she hadn't even met yet.

A rough cough pulled her out of the memory.

Grandma kept saying grandpa only caught little colds because of his age, and that a bit of medicine would fix him right up. But lately he never seemed to recover completely. The cough still worried her. She hurried over and rested a hand on his back.

“Are you okay, grandpa? Why don't you go home first? I can wait by myself.”

Her phone read 3:51 a.m. The bus should be here soon. Grandpa raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "With you, I'll only relax once I see you get on. Otherwise you'll probably board the wrong bus."

Ngọc Anh laughed. "Hehe, I'm not a little kid anymore. I'm a high-school student now, you know."

“Can't trust you. There's only a little while left. I'll wait.”

For some reason, his grumbling made her happy.

“Then keep warm on the way home. And don't forget your medicine.”

“Don't need you reminding me. Listening to your grandmother is enough.”

Grandpa sighed and looked at her again. He clearly wanted to say something, but he didn't seem to know where to start. She already knew what he was worried about.

“I'll make lots of friends at the new school," she said. "Then I'll tell you and grandma all about them.”

He gave a small nod. Some of the worry left his face, and silence settled between them.

Ngọc Anh didn't mind. That was simply how she and grandpa talked. With grandma, she could bicker all day about anything from whether the soup was too salty to how long she should grow her hair. Grandpa used fewer words. He said what mattered and left the rest alone.

Ngọc Anh actually preferred it that way. The two of them understood each other without needing to say much.

A bitter gust cut past them. Ngọc Anh immediately regretted wearing a skirt instead of trousers like grandpa. School-uniform skirts looked wonderful on other girls. Wearing one herself in this weather was a completely different matter. Then the city went strangely quiet.

The traffic hadn't merely thinned out. It had vanished.

No engines or distant horns, and even the background noise disappeared. Wasn't it a little too quiet?

Ngọc Anh glanced at grandpa, but he gave no sign that anything was wrong. A moment later, wheels sounded somewhere in the distance. A faded red bus slowly emerged from the darkness.

Across the windshield were the words "Minh Anh - Quang Uy High School" in yellow. Beside them sat the school logo: a white circle with a grinning buffalo head on one side and a grinning horse head on the other. Behind them stood a red school gate lined with vicious-looking spikes.

Ngoc Anh had no idea what kind of artistic vision the designer had in mind when they drew those two heads in such disturbingly realistic detail. But if the goal had been to scare students away from enrolling, then congratulations. Spectacular success.

She herself had hesitated before applying because of that logo on the website. The scholarship benefits, however, were far too good to refuse. If she studied there, grandpa and grandma wouldn't have to worry so much about her tuition. That was a good thing, wasn't it?

Still, she hoped the school would rebrand their logo someday. They could keep the buffalo and horse heads, but maybe make them cute and cartoony. Then students from other schools might not judge her when they saw the logo on the left sleeve of her uniform.

Only when the bus came closer did Ngọc Anh realize there was nobody inside except the driver. Apparently, she had the honor of being the first student on the first run of the school year.

The bus pulled up beside the stop. She checked her phone again. Exactly 4:00 a.m. Reliable and punctual. Her opinion of the school rose a little, just enough to recover what the logo had lost.

Ngọc Anh said goodbye to grandpa and asked him to pass it on to grandma too. Then she hauled the purple suitcase, more than half her own height, up the steps one at a time. Grandpa kept waving even after the bus started moving. Ngọc Anh leaned toward the window and waved back until he had shrunk to something no bigger than a grain of rice.

Before choosing a seat, she greeted the driver. He didn't answer. Maybe he was concentrating.

From behind, the driver looked as if the job had worn him down. His back was badly hunched and his skin looked almost bloodless. She couldn't see his face, but he was terribly thin. Even his cheekbones appeared to jut out.

She dragged her suitcase down the aisle. The seats were much cleaner than on any public bus she had taken before. Maybe school buses were cleaned more often. The vehicle also seemed new, judging by the sharp metallic smell inside. It took her nose a while to get used to it.

Ngọc Anh chose the very back row so she could stretch out and catch up on sleep. First though, she had to report in. Her phone clicked. She snapped a picture of herself with all the empty seats behind her and sent it to the group chat with her two best friends, Thảo Vy and Khánh An. First day!

Neither of them read it. They were probably still asleep. It was only four in the morning, after all.

Ngọc Anh scrolled through the photos in the chat. The three of them had taken so many together that she couldn't remember the last time she had taken a picture alone. One showed them in the schoolyard after rehearsal for a performance, all three red-faced and drenched in sweat from dancing too hard. Another had been taken in the cafeteria, with Vy and An clinking their milk tea against hers as if it were the finest drink in the world. One was from the school volleyball tournament, all three had their arms around one another, grinning after winning the final match.

A smile crept onto Ngọc Anh's face as she scrolled. She had met those two during a time when she had been lonely and hated school. Without them, she probably would have hated every second of middle school.

The newest photo was from their last day together. Ngọc Anh stood in the middle as usual, with Vy and An on either side. All three were smiling, but with red, swollen eyes.

Earlier that day, they had gotten into a huge argument after Vy and An learned she had chosen a different school. When they met one last time, Ngọc Anh had finally broken down and cried so hard she could barely get the apology out. Neither of them said anything. They just hugged her and cried with her.

They cried until there were no tears left. Somehow, after that, all three started laughing. Ngọc Anh had promised that even if they attended different schools, they would stay in touch and meet whenever they could. Weekends might be the only time all three were free, but she definitely kept that promise. She let out a quiet sigh and rubbed at eyes that had begun to sting.

Seriously. High-school students weren't supposed to be crybabies like this. She was only going a little farther from home. A little farther from her friends. That was all.

Ngọc Anh checked her phone again. 4:43 a.m. Maybe she should sleep before reaching school. According to the notice, the bus was supposed to arrive around 6:30.

Then another notification caught her eye. It had come through with her admission email. She tapped it open.

“Rules for students entering Minh Anh - Quang Uy High School...?”