Window #11 The boy who sniffs glue keeps the bottle of Elmer’s in the breast pocket of his button up. That way he simply bends his head and inhales. At first we thought he was the twin brother of the crooked neck girl, but once in awhile he raises his head and stares at us,…

Window #10 It’s like she has an octopus on her head. If anyone tries to sit next to her, that octopus squirts a big, black cloud of ink. By the time they clear the ink away, she’s gone, sitting by herself in another seat. Sometimes, she’s one row away. Sometimes, she’s clear across the bus.…

Bearded Boy: Episode 2, The Battle Paper flies from the bearded boy’s backpack. It’s as if he never took out his old assignments. Math homework, vocab tests, lab analyses, even last year’s book report on To Kill a Mockingbird fly from the vortex, papering the bus. As long as we stay clear we’re safe. But…

Window #9 Silence weaves about the boy with the bowl haircut and the rings under his eyes. It follows him from the moment he wakes. We don’t know why, but we would like to help, perhaps to be a friend. We sit beside him on the bus and feel the thick blanket of his silence…

Window #8 If you crawl along the floor, you can creep close enough to hear Jesse and Jill talking about the sleepover at Jesse’s last Saturday. Jesse mentions how they didn’t really want to invite the astronaut head girl, but they felt they had to because she’s friends with Nancy, and Nancy would certainly tell…

Window #7 No matter how hard we try to see him, we can’t get the kid in focus. It’s like he isn’t really there. Thomas says there’s no kid, that we’re imagining him. But we argue it’s impossible to imagine the same kid in the same seat each day. Mornings, before the bus arrives, we…

Spiky-haired boy: Discussion 1, Row 4 Those weren’t chains dangling from his belt buckle. They were keys. How do you know they were keys? Because he has all the keys to the school. Is he the janitor’s kid? No. He has the keys because he can come and go as he pleases. He has special…

Window #6 The lazy-eyed girl takes her bunny to school in her lap. She has to because her mom won’t let her keep it at home. So, she hides it under her bed. Blocks it in with books. Sometimes the bunny eats it’s way through. Yesterday she missed the bus because she couldn’t find her…

Window #5 The window artist says he sketches pictures of us, but we can’t see the resemblance. With his pointer finger, he cuts and chisels away at the frost on his window. He stares at us, then turns to his work. He begins with the body, though it seems misshapen to us, the forearms out…

Window #4 You wouldn’t know it from looking at her but the girl in the green dress is a dancer. She doesn’t carry herself like one, at least not on the bus. With her lowered head and shoulders curled in, she reminds us of prairie wheat when the wind blows. But we who sit in…

Bearded Boy: Episode 1, The Vortex We’re pretty sure the boy with the beard is not one of us. How could he be? His face is covered with bushy hair. We watch him intently, sure that his beard will get longer. He studies his math book, reading the same page over and over. It’s when…

Most of what you see from the outside is the brown sweater that covers her long torso. But if you could lie on the sidewalk and look up, you would see the crooked neck and bent sideways head of the tall girl as she tries to peer out the window. Jill says her head has…