We have about thirty seconds to make it to the bus stop on the corner, so we cover the rest of the block at a full-out run. Maisie’s backpack thumps up and down with every step, and I hear her puffing behind me. I turn and take her hand, slowing my pace a bit.
We make it with ten seconds to spare. The bus is packed. I finally find one seat near the back door and point for Maisie to sit down. Holding the bar above my head, I sway as the city slides by: cop cars, dogs, old people raking leaves, pawn shops, parking meters.
Maisie unpacks her backpack in her lap and shows me where she wrote her name on all of her school supplies. “I like this one,” she says, pulling the cap off a glue stick. “The glue is pink.”
After ten minutes, I ring the bell. The bus slides to a stop in front of Sir John A. Macdonald Elementary School, where we squeeze out with a few others. The bell has already rung, and the hallway’s a solid wall of children. Two boys wrestle each other, swinging backpacks and laughing. When they trample on my feet, I give them a good shove and say, “Watch it.”
We weave our way to the grade-two classrooms and scan the class list outside the door for Maisie Bennett. This is it. Her teacher, Mrs. Williams, strikes me as the cookie-baking-grandma sort. Silver hair pulled back in a hippie ponytail. Laugh lines around her eyes. She extends her hand to me as I leave Maisie at the door.
“Isabelle,” I say, shaking it. “I’ll be back to pick up Maisie after school.” I give Maisie a pat on the head and push my way through the swarming hallway.
Back out on the sidewalk, I look up and see my final destination across the street—Glenn Eastbeck High School—where I’m about to begin my first day of grade eleven.
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