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The cycle of life, bus stop to bus stop. They get taller, kinder, grumpier, wiser, leggier, tougher. They watch Big Bird, then scorn him, then wear tee-shirts sporting his yellow head … to high school. They wear the kind of pants my mother might have tried to make me wear: flared, patterned, and weird. I'd have died rather than wear those pants, and not just from the humiliation. My classmates would have killed me in a kind of noncompassionate darwinism. "She has no taste, no taste at all. Kill her before she can reproduce. Quick, do it now!" Those pants are in again.

Em said this morning, "I hate having one of the last stops." For a second I thought she was crazy. Having one of the last stops means you can sleep a few more minutes. The bus ride will be just that much shorter. Who wouldn't want one of the last stops? Foolish me. I wouldn't want one of the last stops either. Then all the seats are taken. Friends and enemies all blend together in a mass, all looking at you when you step up those three big steps. You can't pretend they're not looking at you, because you have to find a seat. You have to look back at them and walk with some pretense at dignity, clunky backpack and all, along the aisle until someone – friendly or unfriendly, and you never know which – makes room for you to sit with them.

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