Day one. Begin monotony, Tanya thought. Her alarm was buzzing and the teenager was already reluctant to remove herself from the cocoon of covers that she'd tangled herself into through the course of the night. "Come on, you can be late tomorrow," she muttered to herself, reached over, and slapped around on the desk until the alarm stopped shrieking. Then she pushed herself up, grateful that she had the foresight to shut the blinds, and pack her bag the night before.
"Shiloh, up, boy," Tanya said, and nudged the mutt that was sleeping against her leg. He was a medium sized dog, mostly white, but with a large grey spot on his right flank and the left side of his head, as well as on his hind left paw and tip of his short tail. The dog raise his head and shook it, ears flopping everywhere, and ended up looking at her with one sitting atop his head. With a grin, Tanya wiped it off of her dog's head nd ruffled it, making the dog shut his blue eyes before they both got up.
Quickly, Tanya double checked her bag- a satisfactory amount of notebooks, pencils, pens, and erasers, phone, wallet, keys, even a calculator, and her tryout jerseys for soccer and football- and then showered and donned herself in her school clothes. First day impressions had stopped mattering once Tanya entered middle school, so she went simple; a green t-shirt, khaki shorts, a pair of sneakers, and her hair brushed and tied up.
Next, Tanya crept past her father, who was still sleeping- how that man slept through the girl's alarm, Tanya would never know- and down stairs with her bag and dog. She opened the back door to let Shiloh do what he needed to, and set coffee going for her dad. She briefly considered making breakfast, but looked at the clock- 7:02 did the microwave proudly beam- and sighed. Quickly, Tanya let the dog back in, brushed her teeth, grabbed her bag, and ran out the door, to the bus stop.
"Wake up, Glenn. School's back," his mother promised from the other side of the closed door.
"Ten-"
"Already gave it to you. Wake up, I've got breakfast if you do," she bribed, and Glenn could hear his mother retreat back downstairs to the kitchen. Pushing himself up, Glenn sighed; he knew she was right. In a state of half sleep, Glenn walked himself to his bathroom and showered; he brushed his teeth and dressed. Grey t-shirt with dark blue strips around the sleeves, collar, and bottom of the shirt, and a stripe of the same dark blue across his chest. Thin, tattered jeans, even though it was August. Black sneakers in need of replacement. An attempt to comb his hair, only to muss it back up again to retain the lock that Glenn had so not painstakingly set up for himself over the previous two years.
Next was his bag. A notebook, his schedule- more for room numbers and locker number- a few pencils and pens. Calculator. Laptop. After some deliberation, a tangle of metal that his uncle had given to him, just a couple weeks ago. It was a puzzle, supposedly Japanese, where the goal was to twist the metal until it was no longer twisted, but instead a loop.
With that all squared away, Glenn grabbed his phone and wallet, and put one in each pocket, and his keys with his wallet, then walked downstairs. As promised, his mom had made him breakfast; an egg with some toast. Not surprisingly, it was still warm; Glenn figured his mother had lied about having it being made when she went to go wake him. Not that he minded- she'd been doing that and leaving him alone in the kitchen for most mornings of his high school career. Just because this was the first day of his junior year didn't make this morning any different.
After he ate, in silence, Glenn put his dishes in the dishwasher, and headed upstairs to grab his bag- and brush his teeth again. There was something stuck, that he could feel, but his tongue just couldn't quite work it out; it was too small. After his mouth was again cleaned, Glenn took his bag. He did a mental check of everything he needed to have or do and, sure that he'd done everything, shouted a goodbye to his parents, and walked out the door and meandered over to the bus stop. When Glenn arrived the bus itself wasn't very far away.
Tanya and Glenn were there within seconds of another. "I see you didn't sleep in," Glenn remarked, easily. He and Tanya had been friends for ages; best friends, even. People had managed to get over the idea that the two of them were going out in middle school and their freshmen year, where Tanya made it clear who she was and wasn't going out with at any given time.
"I see you didn't laze your way out of school," Tanya teased back. Glenn shrugged; true enough, there had been days where he simply didn't go to school, for no other reason than he was comfortable at home. Not that Tanya blamed him- she'd do much the same if given the option, but unlike Glenn's parents, Tanya's father was adamant about her going to school.
"Looks like a popular ride today," Glenn observed, looking at the crowd that had gathered to the stop.
"Yeah, but-" Tanya directer her words to everyone now- "how many of you are gonna keep taking the bus throughout the year?"
