“Our Famous Routine”

By Maegan Mears

When you’re in grade school, it’s just a casual known fact that people have at least one best friend; for me, that best friend was Colby. She wasn’t like the other kids sitting around the circle during morning meeting. Colby had a kinder heart than anyone I had met. She always wore skirts, could not listen to the same music I could, and never stooped low enough to insult or put down a single person. She was however a normal kid, and we still had our little kid spirit, and our little kid habits.

I never knew how much of a difference she made in my life until she moved, and now I can only look back to the memories of those times that we spent together. I remember the last day that we were able to complete one of those silly habits, our most famous one.

We were riding home on the bus, I didn't ride her bus normally but I had started to become more and more common to bus #2. It was early winter, or at least here it was. The windows had been carefully caressed by the artwork of Jack Frost and it felts as though the seats had been to. Our little tushies were chilled to the bone as though we were sitting on a block of ice and we had avoided leaning back and putting our spines in the same pain, at all costs. As we nestled into our now defrosted little areas in the seat, we began a conversation. We had found our topic of discussion. As we had done every time I was riding, we debated the routine. My mom, who was the bus driver, knew this routine by heart. Colby and I put on our every-so-famous “begging” smiles. These smiles were the ones that we put on so big that we think our lips are going to break and each and every one of our teeth are showing brightly, slowly gripping the victim’s pity. Then, keeping the smile in place as much as I could, I’d ask my mom if I could go to Colby’s, that is, if it was ok with her mom.

“I suuuppose sooo,” my mom would say, seemingly dragging out each word until it could stretch no further. That was it. Colby’s stop came and the routine began. She dashed off the bus and ran her short legs as fast as they could go across her neighbors snow blanketed yard and into destination place, her house. I remained on the bus for the all to short, nerve-wrecking time before we went around the block to the front of her cozy little white house. The time of house that’s small so you feel surrounded by safety, and when you walk in the aroma of something sweet would manage to wiggle it’s way to your nose and fill your heart with happiness. In this case my heart was pounding as I prayed for her to complete her journey quick enough (although it seemed as though there would be no way she could talk that quickly). I would pray then to see her run outside with the sincere smile telling me that it was a success. This heart pounding suspense lasted the whole two-minute ride as she was inside working her grin one more time.

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If someone were inside the house they would hear Colby’s fast paced footstep crashing though the heavily scented kitchen, past all of the apple decorations that filled it, and into the once calm quite living room, and then her gentle little voice saying:

“Okay mom quick, I need to know if Maegan can come over off the bus, I’ve got like two seconds. Pleeeease”, she said with the utmost enthusiasm and sincerity. With an answer of yes, Colby started her legs up once again and dashed out the door just in time to wave the bus down. “I made it”, she would think to herself.

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Back on the bus I would have a celebration inside my head as I saw her at the end of her driving with a real smile this time, one of excitement. I ran off the bus and another adventure awaited me.

The routine was once again successful. I would do anything to pull that little routine off one more time, but I won’t. The memory will always be in my head, and it will always be, our famous routine.