I got to the bus depot at 7:33 AM.
I almost didn’t go. I almost stayed in my room. Then I almost stayed in our entrance hall, huddled in the corner. I almost lay down in the cool morning dampness of our yard.
But I didn’t.
Instead I counted the nine rocks I had put in my pocket and walked to the bus depot.
By the time I arrived, I’d counted forty-seven cars, forty-two houses, nine fire hydrants, two stop signs and three For Sale signs.
My hands were sweaty, my breath came in gasps, and my heart felt as if it would beat right out of my rib cage.
The bus depot consisted of a single room with white walls, a tile floor and a counter at one end. It was quiet, empty and without any strong odors.
“You going to Vancouver?” the man behind the counter asked.
I nodded but did not speak, because he was a stranger and I am not supposed to talk to strangers.
“One way or return?”
I didn’t understand. I shrugged.
“You planning on coming back here?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Then you want a return.”
I bought the ticket. It cost $89, which left me with $111 from the $200 I’d brought from home. (I’d taken $200 from the $312 that I’d collected in my blue pot-bellied piggy bank with the broken ear.)
I sat on the wooden bench and counted the items in the vending machine. Skor chocolate bars (three), ketchup chips (two), salt-and-vinegar chips (three), Smarties (three), M&M’s (five). Four racks were empty.
I waited. Six people came in. They didn’t talk to me, which was good. One person held a coffee, clutched between his two hands as though he was cold. I don’t mind the smell of coffee.
A voice crackled over the loudspeaker, even though there were only eight people in the waiting room, including the guy behind the counter. “The Prince George bus is now loading.”
I stood. I needed to catch this bus, which would take me to Prince George, where I could transfer to another bus that went to Vancouver. My watch read 7:57 AM. I went outside. The bus already had its engine running. The air smelled of diesel, and I hurried to stand behind a large woman with a blue backpack that had three zippers and a koala-bear key ring dangling from its strap.
“You can get in now,” the bus driver said. He wore a gray uniform.
The six other people (four women and two men) stepped onto the bus, but I waited until my watch read 8:03 AM. The bus driver went to the other side of the bus and loaded the baggage. I heard hollow thumps as he threw the bags into the vehicle’s metal underbelly.
“You gonna wait all day?” the driver asked, coming back to my side.
I shook my head. All day is an expression. I don’t like expressions. Besides, the bus driver was a stranger, and I am not supposed to talk to strangers. It is a rule. I touched the round, smooth rocks. I pushed them through my fingers—one… two…three.
Carefully I stepped onto the bus and walked into the surprising warmth of its interior. It had plush seats patterned with red and gray diamonds instead of the cracked fake leather of the school bus. It didn’t smell bad, just dusty.
I sat down. I leaned my head against the window and felt the hard coldness of the glass and the vibration of the engine through my legs, arms and head. I like vibration.
The door closed. The driver sat down and shifted into gear. He swung the bus out of the lot and up the hill through Kitimat’s two stoplights.
As I have said, identifying emotions is hard for me. My hands felt clammy, which indicates fear, but I felt something else as well. As we passed by the viewpoint overlooking Douglas Channel, and the Chamber of Commerce with its square of flags, and the graveyard, I felt a frothy, bubbly feeling in my stomach…
I hoped I would not get sick.
I hoped no one would get sick, because the smell of vomit makes me rock and bang my head, and this freaks people out more than vomit does.
But no one got sick. No one spoke to me, and I stared out at a landscape populated only with trees and felt the bus’s engine rumble through me. We traveled along the Skeena River, and I watched its fast, turbulent movement as it twisted and turned, swollen with the runoff from the melting snow.
And then I slept.
***
The Prince George bus depot stank.
It smelled of French fries.
It smelled of onions.
It smelled of wet boots and cigarettes.
It smelled of diesel fuel and exhaust fumes.
The smells hit me the second I exited the bus. I stopped, standing quite still on the gray concrete curb. People pushed me. Someone swore. Men laughed. A child screamed. People spoke, laughed, shouted.
“Come on, move it,” someone said behind me.
I felt hands on my back.
I hate being touched.
The crowd moved forward, propelling me through two wide doors and into the terminal. This was worse. The waiting room was smaller, more crowded, and the smell of smoke, onions and French fries was stronger. Harsh fluorescent lights hurt my eyes, and sounds bounced off the low ceilings, so loud they struck me with physical force.
I saw a corner approximately ten feet away. I pushed through the crowd, holding my breath so that I would not inhale the air. At last I reached the corner. I squashed my body into its sharp angle, sliding down its length until I felt the firm, cold hardness of the linoleum floor under my butt.
I closed my eyes. I rocked so my head went thud…thud…thud…against the wall and my heart beat shush…shush…shush.
One…two…three…four…five…
I moved the rocks in my pocket with a rhythmic click-click-click.
Six…seven…eight…
“Miss, are you okay?”
“Hey, are you mental?”
“What a weirdo!”
“Probably drugs.”
“Strung out.”
“Should we, like, do something?”
“Don’t stare at the lady, dear.”
“Maybe we should get the police?”
“Or an ambulance.”
The words and sentences invaded my space. I squeezed my eyes more tightly, shoving my fingers into my ears, pushing myself into my corner and rocking.
“Drugs for sure.”
I tried to count. I couldn’t. The noise, the questions, the onions, the diesel, the people—
“Alice! What—what are you doing here?”
The words came from a far distance, and it took me seconds to make sense of them. I opened my eyes—just a little, so that I could squint through my lashes.
I saw a miracle.
It was like the parting of the Red Sea. People fell silent. They backed away, stepping aside as Megan strode forward. Her boots clunked. Her chains rattled.
“Outside,” she said.
I shook my head.
“Get up.”
I got up.
“Hold this.” She pushed the strap of her backpack into my hand. “I’ll lead the way. You close your eyes. And hold your breath.”
I shut my eyes tightly. I held my breath. I gripped the strap of the backpack. She stepped forward, and I followed her into the frozen hush of the Prince George morning.
I inhaled. The air was so cold it stung my throat and lungs. When I opened my eyes, I could see the fog of my own breath.
I don’t know how long we stood on the pavement. I don’t remember feeling cold, although I felt Megan shivering beside me.
But after a while, I noticed my surroundings. I saw that we were standing beside a side road patterned with frost and bordered by piles of dirty snow. A row of six stores, not yet open, stood opposite. A man cleaned the windows at OK Tires. Wisps of steam rose from his bucket. Seven tires were on display.
It didn’t smell.
“Why’d you come?” Megan asked.
I shrugged.
“Was it…because of what I said about your mom?” Her forehead wrinkled.
I don’t like questions, particularly if I don’t know the answer. Questions like Is the earth round? are fine because I have seen pictures taken from space in which the world looks like a green-and-blue Christmas ball.
Why did I come?
“Do your parents know anything?” Megan asked.
My parents know a lot of stuff. “My mother has a bachelor’s degree in social work.”
Megan breathed out. “About me…you know, being here?”
“No,” I said.
I had written in the note to my dad only that I was getting the bus to Prince George.
“What about you? Did you say you were leaving?”
“No,” I said.
Megan exhaled with a soft whoosh.
“I wrote,” I said.
Megan swore. “Why?”
“It is the rule.”
“The rule. Forget the rules. What did you write?”
“I wrote that I was catching the 8:00 AM bus to Prince George,” I said.
“But why?”
“I am supposed to say where I am going,” I said.
“No, I mean why did you follow me? If there hadn’t been mechanical problems, I’d have left on an earlier bus for Vancouver. I wouldn’t even be here.”
My breathing got fast again because I don’t like questions. I started to rock.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Don’t answer.” Megan turned. She walked a few feet in one direction and then circled back.
We were silent. I watched the man clean the window. He lifted the squeegee five times. The intercom above us crackled. A voice piped out, loud in the still open air:
“All passengers bound for Vancouver, your bus is ready for loading.”