The Ride of a Lifetime
Written by Rebekah Tuchscherer in March of 2012

Everything stopped. No one moved, for fear had them trapped. The only question that could be asked, “What do we do?”

I had just boarded Bus Nine after an average day of school of my fourth grade year. I saw the regular kids and sat down in the green vinyl seat, placing my empty pink backpack next to me. I took out my book, ready to earn some more AR points. I looked over and saw the freshman girl beside me ignoring the snide comments that came at her so often from the bullies behind her. She no longer cared, but the torturous words and laughing continued. Just after we pulled out of the Milbank High School parking lot, another joke was heard, and something happened. The girl let out a scream. They thought it was a hoax and just kept laughing, but with a sense that something was off. She started to shake, like she was having a seizure, and the laughing stopped cold. No one moved. Everyone was staring, afraid to say anything. All that could be heard was static from the radio.

Finally, someone broke the sound barrier with the timid, simple question, “Are you okay?” The bus driver erupted with a loud, “What’s going on back there?” “I don’t know,” came the small voice of one teenager who didn’t seem as out of it as the rest of us, “but I think we need to get to the hospital…fast.” Our eyes stayed wide as the bus picked up speed. The girl kept moaning and shaking. It seemed as though we couldn’t get to the hospital fast enough. The air was thick with tension. No one on the bus knew what to do. The same question kept ringing in my mind, “What do I do? Did we cause this? What do I do?!” The entire ride was like watching a movie in slow motion. We turned the corner and pulled up to the hospital’s emergency door. We had finally made it to the hospital. I could just see everyone relax a little. We had made it.