even moreCHAPTER 15

You know how you forget about something for a while, and then you remember it and suddenly it becomes important? Like the bathroom. You sort of have to go, but you get busy, and then something reminds you and — boom! — you can’t think about anything else.

I’m not talking about the bathroom here. I’m talking about the phone. I check mine: 12:19. Morning is wearing away, time doing its thing. Still no signal. That can’t be right. Is the problem with my phone? Maybe other phones can find a signal. I’ll check with someone else. Most people have phones. They are a super-common device that almost everyone has access to. Kind of like a bathroom when you think about it. Why didn’t I ask that little girl? Or Paul the giant?

I resolve to ask the next person I see if I can use their phone. I check up and down. This street is empty. So is Stafford. Where is everyone?

Here comes a stream of cars. I jump up and down and wave. Two, three, four cars go by. No one stops.

The jumping up and down reminds me that — don’t laugh — I haven’t been to the bathroom in a while. I wouldn’t mind going now. Or soon …

Which is something that books don’t make enough of. Have you noticed? Oliver Twist never has to go the bathroom. Seriously. Never. Neither does Pinocchio or Peter Pan or Wilbur the pig or Anne of Green Gables. Anne with an e but without a pee. Does what’s-her-name from The Hunger Games? Don’t think so. Dorothy goes all the way from Kansas to Oz and back again without peeing. Scarecrow needs a brain, Tin Man needs a heart, but Dorothy does not need a bathroom.

Sorry, got distracted. Back to phones. If anyone was around, I could use their phone to find out, well, anything, including the best way to Saanich College.

Talk about a superpower. A regular person from today would have been worshipped two hundred years ago. With a few finger taps, The Human Phone saves the day! Oh thank you, Human Phone, for finding out the capital of Ethiopia for me! Thank you, Human Phone, for telling me when that movie starts! What would we do without you, Human Phone?

All right, maybe not worshipped. But there would be a lot of admiring.

Sorry, sorry. Back to the story. Hey that rhymes. Huh. If only my name was Corey. Glory, Corey, what a story!

Hey, here’s another car. I wave, like, Help, help! The driver waves back, like, Hello there! And keeps going.

As you’re seeing now, my mind won’t stay on one topic. Floating refrgerators, Pinocchio, Human Phone, words that rhyme with sorry.

That’s why I forget stuff. That’s why people have trouble following what I say, or think, or write down, am I right?

Sheesh.

If I think about this too long, I’ll start to feel bad about myself.

And my body doesn’t stay still either. I’ve been standing on this corner for minutes now. I’m sick of waiting for someone with a phone to come by. I set off for the next bus stop, counting the blocks as I run: one, two, three.

Not that fast. I get tired. And I’m not much of an athlete. It’s more like one — two — three …

I stop.

I stop because the third cross street is Fitzwilliam Street, and a bus is on its way up Fitzwilliam toward me.

“Do you go to Saanich College?” I ask the driver. “It’s up the hill somewhere. There’s a statue of a whale by the front gates.”

“Four stops. Hop in,” says the driver.

I said hi to the statue when we drove Ruby to school last fall. She told me its name was Kenes, the Saanich word for whale.

The bus heads up the hill. I look for a seat.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” the driver asks.

“Tell me about it! I’m forgetting lots of things. How did you know?”

The driver looks at the fare box.

“Oh — wait. Right. Sorry.”

I put my hand into my right-hand front pocket. There’s my phone. Right-hand back pocket. Nothing. Left-hand back pocket. Nothing.

I always check my pockets clockwise. Right front, right back, left back, left front. One o’clock, five o’clock, seven o’clock, eleven o’clock.

Don’t you?

The bus is halfway up the hill. We pass a couple of narrow streets. I see quiet, leafy neighbourhoods on both sides.

I check my left front pocket. Eleven o’clock. And there’s my wallet. I open it.

“Got a pass?” asks the driver.

I shake my head and start hunting through the wallet. I find a loonie. And a quarter. And a dime. Not enough money.

We go over a bump and I stagger back and have to hang on to a pole to stay on my feet.

I find myself counting the windows on the bus. Of course, I go clockwise. Four windows opposite the driver, then the middle doors, then two more windows. Then the back. Then six windows up the driver’s side. And the windshield.

I count them again.

One, two, three, four.

One, two.

One.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

One.

Through the windshield, I see clouds moving toward us. They look like — well — clouds. You hear about people seeing clouds that look like a boot or a whale or their favourite dessert. I don’t get it. They always look like clouds to me. And so do these.

That’s okay. That’s good.

“Hey, what about the fare?” asks the driver.

“Sorry.” I don’t have enough coins for bus fare, but I do have a ten-dollar bill left over from my one-way ferry ticket.

That’s too much money.

“Do you have change?” I ask the driver.

She shakes her head and points. Exact Fare Only says the sign.

How is this so hard? How is everything so hard? I take a deep breath. Count the windows again.

Onetwothreefour. Onetwo. One.

Onetwothreefourfivesix. One.

The next bus stop is at the top of the hill. The doors open. I get out.