Sandra and Aaliyah

"Bye, Sandra!"
"Kay, I'll call you later."
A blue and white sneaker plopped itself onto the first step of the bus. I hoisted myself onto the wretched vomit-colored thing. The sound of the pointless chatter and the bus' radio blasting rap music mixed in horribly. A crumpled piece of paper flew past my ear. Hmm. I sensed it came from the very back of the bus. Where the rogue eighth graders and their buddies the fake sixth-grade thugs sat. It was Tuesday, but I was already longing for every day to be a Saturday.
"Hey!" a familiar voice shouted over the regular racket. There was another good thing: at least one decent person was on today. All the sixth-graders I had known last year and the seventh and eighth graders I had gotten acquainted with had to stay after school for either a detention, sports, Technology Club or Step-Team. I was the only female sixth-grader on the bus. Aaliyah was the only girl who I had talked to, and she was on my bustop. Although I had been at J.R.Wilcox Middle School for over two months, I still hadn't gotten very used to being in sixth grade. In addition to be totally clueless about homework, classes and afterschool activities, I was also tearing my hair out because the only people I ever really talked to were the people I already knew from fifth grade and an seventh-grader named Shayla.
But Aaliyah was pretty nice. She was in seventh grade too. She'd handed out fun-sized Snickers and Milky Way candies to everyone on our bustop the day before Halloween, and she drawn Shayla an adorable card with a comical puppy on the front wishing her a happy birthday. She was also the most, eh.... Let's just say she's the one who's always by herself in the corner either busily cartooning in her notebook or laughing hysterically at her new dance move she'd dubbed 'The Banana Slide'.
I took a deep breath and braced myself for the hardship and suffering I was about to bear. My heart as heavy as my backpack, I successfully struggled through the narrow aisleway and plopped into the empty seat in front of Aaliyah. I turned to the sound of her beads that held her braids in place. Her head popped up behind my seat. Then suddenly, all I could see were the colors white and black.
"Lookie!" she exclaimed, and I grabbed her wrist to see what the thing in her hand was. The words "Science Quiz" were printed on the top of the crinkled paper in big, bold letters. There was a column of true or false questions, and either a T or F were scribbled on the line where you write your answer. My eyes wandered to the top-right corner of the paper, where '89%' was written in red pen.
"That's really good. You were one point from getting an A!"
"IF ONLY I HADN'T GOTTEN QUESTIONS 8 AND 15 WRONG, I WOULD'VE GOTTEN AN A!" she screeched.
All heads on the bus turned towards the source of the noise. Aaliyah sank into her seat, pounding her forehead on the back of my seat. I turned around, got on my knees, looked down at Aaliyah and shook my head.
"Stop doing that for two reasons. One, it's annoying. Two, you got a good grade! A B+!" I exclaimed. "I mean, you can't always get straight A's all the time. I got a C in Math and I almost failed English. If I were you, I would be jumping up and down in my seat right now instead of beating myself up on the seat in front of me." The seventh grader came to an abrupt stop and rubbed her forehead.
"Yeah, guess you're right," she said softly. And she grinned. I sighed in relief and flopped back down on my seat. I was worried that she would start whacking her head again.