New friends

The first week continued on just like the first day. I saw Carl more and more, our lockers were in the same hall, we only had 1 class together, and still never said more than 1 or 2 words total. After the first day, I rode the bus to and from school daily. I'd walk over to Vanessa's house in the morning, and we'd walk together to the bus stop. There were others there that we obviously knew from grade school, but never got along with them so we just kept to ourselves.

Our stop was the 2nd stop of the ride and after picking us up, we had to travel (what seemed like) across town to pick up the others. There was a bus stop in a not so good part of town. The whole community there was populated with 100% black families. While I grew up not noticing the color of people's skin, (Vanessa was spanish, and Carl was mixed. His mom was white and his dad was black.) something about that community made me uneasy. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I dreaded that stop every morning.

That stop picked up about 15 students, from 3 different grades. (Jr. high/Middle school was grades 6, 7 and 8) Some of the kids were O.K. (I wouldn't go as far as saying they were nice, b/c frankly, they weren't) There was one young man that got on from that stop that stood out the most. He was huge! He wasn't tall, but rather in size, he was quiet large. Large and intimidating. His name was O'Neil. He had already failed so many grades that he was now 14 and still in the 6th grade. (When he should have been off starting his Freshman year in High School) He took a liking to me from the very first day. I tried to be nice to him, I didn't want any enemies just starting a new year. Every morning after the bus would pick him and the rest of the kids up at his stop, he would immediately come sit as close to me as possible. Usually Vanessa and I shared a seat, so in the begining, he would just find a seat to one side of us or another. Most of the time, he'd sit behind us and bother me the whole ride. Pulling my hair, pinching me.. all those stupid things boys did back then when they wanted your attention.

For awhile I was able to ignore him for the most part. He never would really talk to me, just annoy and pick at me. I chalked it up to him just being stupid and immature, until things started to progress.