The Night At Stanberg High

“Let’s get on a bus.” I suggested. Everyone agreed, since the football game was getting increasingly boring, it was halfway through the 4th quarter and we were losing miserably anyway. I led the way down the bleachers and out of the Stanberg High Stadium and zipped up my sweatshirt to protect myself from the cold.

The wind bit at our noses and we quickly found where the bus that had been announced would take us to the dance was parked. Timmy put one clog-clad foot onto the first step of the bus, but the bus driver shook his head slowly.

“Y’all can’t get on this bus. It’s for football players only.” He said with a twang that I normally would have stopped to enjoy.

We turned around. “It must be another bus.” Ann shrugged. I checked my watch. 9:00. the dance was starting, but we had plenty of time. Setting off in another direction, we ran into the juniors and seniors hopping into their cars and wished we could do the same, because America is stubborn and won’t lower the driving age.

The 20 of us stood in a circle and deliberated. “I don’t see any other buses.” Amanda informed us, her teeth chattering. We each responded that we didn’t either.

“Let’s go around to the back of the school.” Grant suggested. We looked at him incredulously, but followed him anyway since there wasn’t anything else to do.

Amanda had another comment. “Ali,” she told me, “my flats are killing me.” She raised one foot. Her gold ballet flats glinted in the lights of the stadium.

“They must be cheap. Where did you get them?” I asked, craning my neck to look for any sign of buses. There were none. We all glared at Timmy and turned around again.

“Juicy Couture.” Amanda practically shouted. “This sucks, they were $250 and I’ve only worn them once.”

We had reached the front of the school once more, and still there was no sign of the bus. Amanda rested her feet while we looked around and slowly came to the realization that the bus for the football players was the only bus.

We wouldn’t have minded quite as much, but the frizzy-haired girl on the announcements had read on the teleprompter for the past week and a half that there would be buses for the students from the game to the dance.  Zac swore loudly and sat on the bench. The roughly 100 kids who thought they were going to take the bus to the dance were calling people frantically and asking to be picked up.

Grant’s dad came first. In some feat that is surely a world record, they squished 15 people in the four-passenger car. I was surprised and impressed that they could shut the door.

The parking lot was emptying, and Timmy decided that it was time to be audacious. A pretty cheerleader was passing…

“Can I have a ride?” He asked.

The cheerleader was taken aback, but she said “sure.” He left, and we stuck our tongues out at his back.

Soon, it was just seven of us and the Stanberg parking lot. I checked my watch again- 9:45. The parking lot suddenly seemed very overwhelming.

“Let’s walk to the dance.” Ann recommended.

“Great idea.” I snapped sarcastically. We moved together almost instinctively and looked up at the glittering tapestry of stars above us, but their brilliance wasn’t pronounced tonight. I looked instead out at the parking lot, which was nearly empty, back at the locked school behind us, and the wooden bench to our left.

It was not Amanda’s day in terms of wardrobe; she was wearing a tube top along with the killer shoes and shivering so much we thought she might drop dead at any moment. Zac, whose pants had been maimed earlier in the game (the stands are just as rough as the field, believe me) when the button had fallen off, was wearing his sweatshirt tied around his waist. He took pity and gave her the sweatshirt, and used my ponytail holder to tie the buttonholes together.

Meanwhile, Matt was lying spread-eagled on the bench. “Do I look like a hobo?” He asked the general public.

No one was in good enough spirits to answer that he did not, because he was wearing a very warm, expensive jacket. Zac and Ann were trying to get ahold of people, Amanda and I sat on the ground at Matt’s feet with Alejandra, who was coughing, and Christina was huddled next to us.

Christina was fearful of everything, especially when it got dark. At the moment, she was terrified that we were going to be abducted, raped, and/or murdered, and had herself really worked up.

Suddenly, Alejandra tensed up beside me and squeezed Amanda’s knee. “Look!” She whispered hoarsely, pointing out into the semi-darkness as the stadium lights shut off.

Ann closed her blackberry and backed up. Amanda took off her shoes, revealing an immense blister, in case she should have to run. A beater car swerved into view full of senior guys, obviously blindly drunk and quite possibly stoned. They were driving raucously around the parking lot and laughing at nothing in particular.

Christina nearly went berserk, crawling under the bench. The car soon swerved out of sight, but we could still hear the screamo music as if from the end of a long tunnel. The temperature was dropping rapidly and no one said anything.

Finally, Zac whooped in elation, having just gotten through to his dad. “Dad!” He cried into the cell phone. “Can you come pick me and my friend up at Stanberg?” He asked. A moment later, he put the phone in his pocket. “My dad’ll be here in 10 minutes!” He announced.

We all practically tackle-hugged him and stayed like that for awhile because it was warm and we felt safe. The mood got a little lighter and we started to talk about the most random of things to keep our minds off of the dance that was going on without us.

After several more drive-bys courtesy of the drunken teenagers, Zac reached into his pocket and called his dad to check up. I checked my watch yet again: 10:25.

Amanda got numerous texts in quick succession, things like ‘where r u guys’, and started to cry a little bit. We’d all been looking forward to this dance, but Amanda had been looking forward to it the most out of all of us. We all moved close to her, and someone (probably Ann) procured a Kleenex for her.

“My dad’s waiting for a train to go by.” Zac sighed.

We all groaned, because the trains in our town were notorious for being slow, since they were freight trains with a station a mile out of town and impossibly long.

Christina and Amanda sniffed in unison. We all sat down, a tangle of bodies, our giddy relief gone. “I just want to go home.” Alejandra said. My head was resting on her knee, Matt sat on my feet, and Ann’s head was on my stomach.

“Guys, just think,” Ann began, an uplifted expression on her face, which was bathed in starlight. “This will be a great story to tell later.”

Matt took off his flip flop and chucked it at Ann’s head, missing by a mile. “The eternal optimist.” He said dryly as the car passed us once more. We all recoiled, but nothing happened.

It seemed like hours later when Zac’s fathers’ car pulled up in front of us. We all cheered and leapt into the car, relishing in the heated air. I checked my watch for the last time. 10:45.

The seven of us, whether we liked it or not, now had a close bond, the kind that cannot be broken, for a reason that is unexplainable.

The drive to the dance was chiefly silent. We trooped wordlessly out of the car, into the arms of the people who were waiting for us. Into the arms of the people who had left us behind that night at Stanberg High.