• Chapter One


    Murphy sat on the bench. She was cold and wet, miserable and annoyed with everything: the rain, the winter season, and her own life. She hugged herself, trying to keep the warmth in her body and not letting it transfer out into the cold air. ‘I wish the bus would come.’ She thought staring out at the toad as cars passed in furious hurry to get into their homes.
    The bus was supposed to pick her up at 6:30 but it was already 7:58 and there was nothing here. She wasn’t in a bus, a dry bus with strangers, the strangers being beings of curiosity, looking up when ever someone would get on and then turn back to the passing streets.
    She signed, annoyed once again. Today was just a perfect day to be shipped off to her Aunts house in North Carolina. Her Aunt lived in a trailer park, having lived in one her whole life she probably thought it was normal. Her mom though had gone to college right after high school, getting a jump on her lawyers’ degree.
    Well all Murphy knew of her Aunty is that she lived in a trailer park. And she knew that she was going to have a somewhat weird way of adjusting since she came from well of family, with a big home. She wasn’t spoiled but she hadn’t worked for anything in her life either. Well except for an education but everyone works for that.
    Suddenly she heard the roaring of a bus and she looked up to see her transportation arriving in front of her. She got up and picked up her luggage, a bag for each shoulder, and walked toward the opening bus doors. She stepped up the stairs and was greeted with a grimily looking bus driver. He probably wished he was home drinking beer and watching Sunday football games but no he war her, doing his job, probably because of his wife’s order and the reluctant knowing of the bills piling in the mail box.
    She pulled out her ticket and shoved it down the plastic box. She then walked down the aisle and sat her stuff in the second to last seat. She then sat down and looked to see who was on the bus. Half the bus was full of people, from teenagers to old black ladies with groceries. No she knew. She wouldn’t have cared anyway. She turned to the window and watched the rain splatter up the side of the bus as they passed empty street corners and lonely looking stores. No one was out in this weather except if you have to be.
    She signed again and pulled out her ipod-touch from one of her bags and switched it on. It turned immediately to her new favorite song: Thick as Thieves by Short Stack. Murphy put the ear buds into her ears and turned the volume a bit loud and soon fell asleep, the hours ticking away slowly. Her destination beginning to arrive faster as she slept, the moon watching the night doing its dark deeds as the bus speed along the road.