  by Brezer Up until my ninth autumn, death was a distant reality to me. People who were old died sometimes because they were sick, or just because they were really old. My fifteen-year-old uncle Nathan killed himself with a shotgun when I was five. He liked to do cartwheels in the living room when I came to visit. I wasnt there when his sister found him though. They took him away in a black coffin and my grandma cried and cried, and I never saw him again.
That was all I knew. Death meant you never saw them anymore. Death happened to other people, though. It never occurred to me that it happened to children like me. That year I learned that it did, and it came as close as the seat beneath me. His name was Marcus.
I remember him vaguely: a blonde, freckled, ordinary second-grade boy who got on the bus with his blonde, freckled, ordinary sisters, every day, just like the rest of us. His class had the same playground period as mine, although we never mixed, partly because of the cootie problem but also because I was a fourth-grader, and fourth-graders dont play with second-graders. Everyone knows that. ... It was Friday when it happened. The bus-riders were just as obnoxious as ever, keeping up a consistent roar of shrieks and songs and filling the air with flying projectiles aimed at the back of the bus drivers head.
The bus driver was an older woman nearing retirement and probably praying for it every second of the route. She was nearer to retirement than she was aware of that day. Among the most insufferable of her torturers was my classmate Michael, who was infatuated with gross novelty songs and body noises. That day, being Friday, he was feeling particularly jovial and led the rear section in twenty-six rounds of Jingle Bells, Batman Smells as opposed to the customary fourteen. I sang along, although my older sister Chrystal, ever the mature almost-middle-schooler, sat tucked up in her seat over the wheel base and occasionally rolled her eyes in our direction as if to convey her poised disgust. Marcuss stop came and he got off with his two big sisters, who went behind the bus and crossed to the other side of the street.
It was a day for coats since the wind was blowing, and the tall evergreens outside swayed and lolled in the gusts while the autumn leaves swirled down to the dirt. It was this same wind that knocked the homework papers out of a little boys hands and scattered them on the pavement. The driver pulled the door lever and we lurched forward, as we had done a thousand times. And then it happened. Bump. It is a large bump.
I hardly notice it even though I am sitting next to the back wheel. Suddenly Michael turns to me and says, Oh my God! We just ran over a kid! I think he is joking because he is never serious. But the bus is eerily silent. The driver is frozen.
It is like time has stopped, and we have entered a dream. She moves like an old, old woman. She stands and takes the CB radio. The feedback blasts our eardrums and in unison we all clap our hands to our heads, gasping. I cant hear what the driver is saying and numbness creeps over me but then there is screaming from outside and it is the two sisters running into their house. Terror seizes us.
What is happening? Fire trucks come screaming down the street, followed by ambulances and police cars. If it is any other day it would be cool, but this is real, and it is loud, and it is coming for us. The police officer tells us to stay away from the back window, which is really an emergency exit, but there is no need. None of us wants to see what is behind the bus, not even Michael. Instead, we huddle together as if it is chilly and we dont have any coats.
All of us have coats but it doesnt seem to matter for some, because they are shaking, and most of them start to cry. Chrystal is white as a sheet. A little dark-haired boy who was sitting up front falls into her and begins to sob into her stomach. In between gasps I hear him saying, I wanted to play with Marcus today. I was going to play with him. He is my friend.
I couldnt find him. . . I couldnt find him. . .
Is Marcus dead? We wait for what seems like an eternity. There are at least fifteen people in uniform behind the bus, but they arent moving very quickly. There is a little Russian kindergartener who is crying, so I go put my arm around her because there isnt anything else to do. She doesnt understand English, but it doesnt matter. I wouldnt know what to say to her anyway.
Everyone is crying, and I wonder if I should cry too. What am I supposed to feel? I dont think I can cry. I am too tight inside. I want to go home and I want to know what is happening outside. Why wont they tell us anything?
Someones mother shows up. She somehow found out what had happened and gets on the bus. Our driver is gone now so it is just us. Mommy, is Marcus going to be okay? the son asks fearfully. She is hugging him reassuringly and obviously on an adrenaline rush so she speaks very loudly, Yes, honey, Marcus is going to be okay.
Hell be okay. I feel a surge of anger. She is lying. Does she think we are all idiots? The ambulance is still here. Everyone is still here.
We all know he is still lying back there, just like he has been for ages, not moving, and not going to the hospital. On her way out she keeps talking and she wont shut up. Another bus is going to take you home, honey when you get off if you drop any papers dont stop to pick them up okay? Okay? Promise me youll just wait for the bus to drive away if you drop any papers, okay? I hate her.
I hate her for lying to us and then for telling us how Marcus got under the wheel. I want to punch her in the face. She thinks we are stupid children, but we know what is going on. We all felt the bump. The replacement bus finally comes to pick us up. It has only been an hour and a half but it feels like a year.
We are told not to look back but out of the corner of my eye I see a brown blanket by the back wheel and then I know for sure. It occurs to me that I will not see Marcus anymore. No one will. He is dead just like Uncle Nathan is dead, only he didnt mean to be killed. That night there is a news story but it is wrong. They say Marcus was in the front of the bus when he was hit and they show a shot of a different school bus loading different children.
When Chrystal hears it she bursts into tears. The next day a policeman comes to our house. My sister tells him that she was sitting over the back wheel when it happened. Nobody saw him because he was bending down to pick up his papers under the back wheel. It happened at the rear of the bus. He scribbles on his little notepad and I dont understand why they would make a mistake like that because we all felt the one bump.
Why didnt anyone ask us? I expect them to fix the news story that night and tell what really happened, but they dont. Instead they show a story on a protest down town. I think adults are stupid. They plant a tree for Marcus at our school, but I dont understand how a tree is supposed to help him now that he is dead. Afterwards all the state school buses were fixed with long wooden bars that fold down straight out from the front of the bus, so that kids can walk out where the driver can see them when they cross the street.
I dont think this would have saved Marcus because he didnt go in front of the bus. Nobody seems to care about that though. They still refer to it as the accident that sprung a whole crop of new bus safety procedures. But I remember it as the day I realized that death could happen to anyone, even children, and I remember. His name was Marcus. urlLink READ MORE! 
