Eyelance

(Is there anything you think I can change? Please give criticism, I want to know what I can do to make this the best.)

I made my way out the door into the early morning light, book in hand, earplugs silently plugged into my ears. I wore a brown sweatshirt, to guard against the beginning-of-day chill. I opened my front-yard gate, and continued onto the road, making note of the briskly cool air, and late sunrise.  

            ‘Summer is truly over’, I thought groggily to myself, ‘the sun no longer rises at 6:30. It tops the mountains that surround the valley at about 7:15. Something like that, I’m not sure. It’s late, though.’

            I had a few blocks to walk until Main Street, and then one block up to the bus stop. There isn’t anything special about our high school bus stop in this small town, no markers, signs, or benches, just a lonely little spot between two house fronts.

           

I passed the Saope’s house at about 7:20. I don’t know much about the people that own the house except this: they are an old couple who seem to travel a lot, and they have this huge (and I mean HUGE) co-operative garage and yard sale every summer. My mother goes every year, and fills our poor, defenseless garage with even more useless treasure. We ought to have a garage sale of our own one of these summers. Maybe then we’d have room for my dad’s car, and I could get a motorcycle. My parents won’t let me get one; they say we don’t have the room. Psh….

            But I digress.

            As I walked by their front yard, I noticed two kids working, a boy who looked about eleven or twelve, and a girl who looked somewhere around sixteen.

            The girl was watering the Saope’s numerous planters, many scattered around the table in a courtyard sort of set up, and a few set cheerfully on their porch.

            ‘The Saopes must be away again’, I mused, ‘it’s too late in the year to have grandchildren over, as far as I know.’

            The girl seemed to have dressed hastily that morning; she wore different shades of dark, faded black pants, and a long sleeved navy shirt. She also wore an extremely bright orange hat, and her short, dark hair hung below.

            The boy wore khaki shorts and a gray hoodie; his hair was cropped short and was a sort of sandy blonde color. He had a cocky manner, and swaggered after the girl, who I then decided was his sister.

            Neither of them seemed to have books, bags, or backpacks about their persons, as most kids on their way to school do. Still, ‘they could have stashed them somewhere safe while they do their chores’, I acknowledged.

            I continued on my way up to the bus stop as I observed and thought.

            I arrived shortly after 7:24; no one else was yet there. I stood and waited, listening to Muse, I had turned my iPod on only after reaching the bus stop. I enjoy listening to the sounds of the outside while I can during the day. As it was, I became bored after I had reached the bus stop, so I turned on my distraction.

            I wasn’t left alone long, a brown jeep arrived and parked carefully on the left side of the road, opposite of there I stood.

            I was already resigned to school, so I didn’t bother hoping that maybe, just maybe, the bus wouldn’t reach my cozy little roadside. It’s really only the first day that’s the hardest for me, and that day was the second. I always resist some, but not enough to make me miserable. I’m a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.

            A white car arrived soon after the jeep, and parked on the right side of the road, close to an apricot tree and a tractor-like contraption. I’m still not sure quite what it was; I assume it has to do with harvesting crops. I’ve never bothered to find out.

            Casually, I reviewed my surroundings as I listened to Sunburn, a song by Muse. I observed the girl and boy from the Saope’s yard coming around the corner of Main Street.

            ‘Ah, so you do attend the same school as me’, I thought in the direction of the girl, ‘though I’m not so sure about you, shorty.’ This was directed toward the boy, good naturedly, of course, but he was, indeed, short.    

‘I assume you attend the elementary school, with either Clark or Sam’, Who are my younger brothers. They attend fourth and sixth grade. They enjoy legos, pretend sword fighting, macaroni and cheese, annoying Lavinia (My little sister. Don’t ask me where my parents got that name.), and repeatedly breaking their teeth.

            ‘Of course, you could be in junior High, and in that case, neither of my brothers would know you.’ I thought. It was possible, maybe he was of middle school age, but just hadn’t quite reached that long and lanky growth spurt yet. His age was rather hard to get as I thought more and more.

            The girl walked with a kind of life-loving grace, I could almost see her personality and soul within every step she took. That is, until she seemed to spot our patiently waiting little group. Then she folded her arms tightly around her chest, and her charisma seemed to fold right into her along with her arms. She seemed to become almost withdrawn. She began to walk faster, leaving her brother behind as she maintained her pace. She kept her gaze on the ground, or straight ahead with little sidelong glances at the cars and me.

            When she was about two thirds of the way to the cars and me, she glanced back at the boy; at that point I realized that they still weren’t carrying any school supplies. I, myself, clasped a green notebook under one arm. All of my other school supplies, books, pencils, and such, were already in my locker.

            The girl suddenly stopped when she realized that her brother had fallen behind, to let him catch up, and they continued walking.

            When they reached the bus stop, instead of stopping on either side of the road, they advanced on up the block, and avoided eye contact with everyone.

            I watched them sidelong until they reached the stream two quarters of the way up the block, until the bus finally arrived at 7:36. It was then that it hit me, ‘they must be homeschoolers; it might even be that they are THE homeschoolers.’

I had never seen either of them before. From what I could tell, they were probably in the first ward, too, but I had never encountered either of them before that morning. They must have been the famous, though rarely encountered, homeschoolers, the ones with the well-known German shepherd the ones who, I’ve been told, used to attend church, but stopped some years ago without any easily apparent reasons.

            As I boarded the bus, I realized that I was intrigued about the girl.

            I once read “Stargirl” for a class, and there was something about the homeschooled girl that reminded me of that character. Perhaps it was that easy grace, and the zaniness from the clothes and hat, but then again, it could have just been because I came to the conclusion that she was homeschooled, as was Stargirl.

            I greeted my friends, “Hey!” “hey.”, and sat down next to Paul.

            As the bus drove away, I turned to look out the back window, the window behind my seat, and saw the girl looking directly at me.

            She looked with a kind of drilling gaze, curious and probing, and strangely wary. Her eyes evoked curiosity in me. I felt as if my very soul had been laid bare, which was strange, the girl was quite a long way behind the bus, and I’m not sure how I even got the sensation of eye contact.

            I will never forget the piercing curiosity and wariness of her green eyes.