It is sticky and warm, and if you’re the kind of person who cares about environmental science, a little alarming, even for May. Most everyone is on their phones, even those who are pretending to listen to their friends. Dee isn’t there. I stand alone, watching two squirrels chase each other around a nearby tree, one of them finally catching the other, pinning it down and humping it like a squirrel robot. Then he scoots off and the first squirrel just lies there. You never really see a squirrel lying on the ground unless it’s dead, but I guess she needs some time to collect herself. We file onto the bus while our teacher checks our names off a list.

I sit close to the front on the left-hand side. I grapple with the window for a while, trying to jimmy it down a couple of inches, but I can’t do it. I slump down in the seat, which lets out a defeated wheeze. Someone sits down beside me and I turn to see that it’s Lottie. I look around and see there are no other seats, and so that’s why she’s sitting here with me.

“Oh, hi,” I say.

She smiles a little, and says, “Hey.”

“I didn’t know you were in this club,” I say.

“I am very concerned about the environment.”

I let out a low laugh as she takes a book out of her bag and begins to read.

The bus comes alive and starts moving, and right away we are jiggled about like a train in an old-timey cartoon. People are laughing and goofing off because being in a school bus is like getting into a time machine, and you just can’t help but turn nine again. Lottie is reading, and I look out the window and it feels like nothing and everything has changed. Our bodies bump into each other as the bus hits potholes. I miss being next to her and wish we could just hook arms, feel that closeness again.

“Sorry,” she says, as she is knocked into me.

“It’s okay,” I say, and my heart feels like it’s cracking.