Years of the Bus

5- A Bonfire

“This is perfect,” Rosa nodded with conviction as she looked out the window.                                                         

“I like it,” Logan agreed. 

“So we're stopping?” Gaige clarified. He was driving so he had to make sure that he should actually stop the bus or not.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “We can stop here.”

It was about seven o'clock at night so we had to stop soon anyway and we still hadn't had our big celebration, which everyone was looking forward to with extreme excitement. The place that we'd decided to park was an old high school. It wasn't abandoned or anything, but it was summer, so it was completely empty.

“Look over there!” Sydney squealed as we all filed off of the bus just for some fresh air and to inspect the place. The sun was just starting to set but there was nobody around. There were no houses or businesses anywhere near here, but there were lights just a little farther down the road, so that was probably where the city was. Luckily, they probably wouldn't notice if we parked the bus there for the night, since the school didn't seem to be in anybody's way at all.

When Sydney shouted though, we all looked over to where she was pointing to see a pretty large pile of wood right beside their football stadium. The pile of scrap wood came up to my waste and it was about a yard in width or a little bigger.

“What is that even for?” Gaige wondered as we all curiously walked up to it to try and figure out what the school was doing with a pile of scrap wood out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it was near the football stadium, but it wasn't like, super close to it at all.

“I have no idea,” Ross shrugged carelessly as he pulled something out of his pocket. “But I hope they didn't need it for anything.”

“What are you doing?” I asked him curiously, but he didn't need to verbally answer me because I got my answer when he ignited the lighter in his hand and then shut it off again.

“A bonfire!” Grace cheered excitedly.

“An illegal bonfire,” Erin muttered uneasily. “That's so stupid.”

“We're not here to be smart,” Baker giggled, handing Ross a crumpled up piece of paper that she had magically fished out of her pocket. “Get it started then, Ross.”

Ross grinned excitedly, obviously happy to be playing with fire. It was probably illegal to set this pile of useless wood on fire and it was probably especially illegal to do it on school property. However, at the moment, I didn't care. I just wanted to celebrate and be stupid for my last few months of being a teenager because then, when college started in August, I’d have to be mature and smart and responsible and grown up.

Kenton, Cory, and Ross all helped get the wood started burning but it seemed to be a harder task than it seemed at first.

“I'll go get some tequila,” Rosa chirped before bouncing back into the bus. She returned with a large glass bottle with some fancy label on the front. I knew that there were like, five of those bottles under one of the seats on the bus, but I was positive that we wouldn't need more than one for this night alone.

“Do we have music?” Sydney wondered. “What is a drunken bonfire without music?”

“Suicide?” Erin supplied. “Then again, it's suicide with the music as well.”

“Don't be such a worry wart, Erin,” Turner laughed, throwing one arm over her shoulders.

“I'll go find something,” Baker announced, jogging the short distance to where the bus was parked in the parking lot where Rosa had just went to get the alcohol for tonight. She returned with her iPad and this weird speaker thing that plugged into the iPad so that it was pretty loud. I mean, not loud enough so that other people around us could hear it, but loud enough for us. The first song that started to play was Crazy Kids by Kesha.