Ryan was going on a
field trip with my school, even though he had already moved. I was getting ready at home, talking to my mother to get details. I told her that Ryan and I would end up taking
his car. We were going to
Houston and Ryan was driving down from
San Antonio to go with us, even though he really lives in
Oregon. She told me that that would be unsafe and that I should probably take my father's
little blue pickup. I told someone else how
insane my mother was for expecting me to take the pickup that was not very mechanically fit and besides, a model that was prone to rollovers. I said that when Ryan got there, he would talk sense into my mother. Then I remembered his
knee surgery and thought that perhaps it might be better to take my
Jimmy, since then we could take turns driving since he'd never let me drive his car but he might get tired with the wounded knee.
We were dressed up for marching band at the end of my driveway when Ryan drove up, and he exited by climbing out of his passenger window. Everyone gathered around him and I couldn't even get in a greeting. I was worried because Ryan kept stumbling around and hurting himself.
Then we were in the high school parking lot. Ryan was there and so was Lucas, a high-school buddy of mine, who didn't greet me either, despite the fact that we were good friends. Lucas's station wagon filled up with people, including Ryan, who was pretty much ignoring me. I trudged around in an attempt to find another vehicle and even considered driving myself but I would have had to take the rest of the people who were left out who were very distasteful to me. I started yelling about how I'd rather not go at all than go with a bunch of losers. One man said shame on me, that the bus driver (one of the left-over people) was one of the truest friends and most interesting people that he had ever known. I stormed away.
Then Tyron, another friend, pulled up. In addition to his goatee he suddenly had long hippie hair. He said that he was going to drive his truck (Tyron doesn't have a truck) so I said that I would ride with him and ran to get my luggage. When I returned, he was driving away. I started yelling at him to come back but he only yelled back "Why?" It suddenly became night and I watched for a while, expecting Tyron to have been joking and to return, but all the headlights were confusing and he didn't return, so I went into the school.
It was full of classes of elementary and junior high kids, and some of the teachers were cleaning up prom decorations.I snuck into one of the toilet stalls in the back of a classroom, and from there began to plan my day, trying to remember my schedule of classes, and worrying about what the people would think of me after my outburst. That was when I woke up.