Billy was sitting at the kitchen table on Tuesday morning with his new notebook. It had an abstract design and a blue ribbon bookmark Billy knew he’d forget to use. Opening it filled Billy with both anxiety and delight. He stared at the refrigerator until he was just staring into nothing. Finally, he could write.

“Once upon a time, in an apartment building,,” Billy muttered to himself. “No… a house in New York… no, in Brooklyn…”

Okay Billy, you got this.

“… there lived a princess,” Billy continued, then started writing in silence. He had a groove now.

She would look in the mirror every day and say to herself, ‘I am Princess Fantasia. Ruler of the Farcesian Sea Kingdom, to the far stretches of the Parpesion Forest, to the shores of-‘

“Fantasia, time for school!” said Mrs. Miller, a person who had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. You see, Mrs. Miller is not really Mrs. Miller. She’s really the guardian of Fantasia, sent by her father, the king of

Billy jumped as his mother knocked on the wooden table, his pencil tearing a hole into the page. Looking up, he squinted as a weird pink glare reflected off of the window behind his mother, who was now glaring at him.

“Billy, how many times have I told you about writing at the table?” said Mrs. Harper, a woman in her thirties that could pass for the senior discount easily.

“Aw, ma,” said Billy, a kid with enough ideas to just about not be bored at any time. “Anyway,” he continued, “A writer has to be able to write down his ideas at any given moment or they’ll forget.”

“You can continue writing on the bus, which by the way, will be here soon, so finish your breakfast,” retorted his mother. Billy started gobbling his breakfast. Milk was dripping down his chin. “I’m done,” Billy said.

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“Brush your teeth,” said his mom. Billy grumbled and groaned but brushed his teeth anyway. They heard a honking sound.

“That’s the bus!” said Billy hurriedly. “Love ya, ma,” he added quickly over his shoulder as he rushed out the door. Billy picked up his bag on the way out and swung it over his shoulder with practiced ease.

“Good morning,” said Billy to the bus driver. The bus driver grunted in reply, and Billy looked for a seat. He spied the single seat in the back of most school buses, and started to make his way there. The bus driver (whose name is Bob Dingle, if anyone was wondering) stepped on the accelerator, and as Billy stumbled, he was tripped by David Brookfield and fell flat on the floor. Everyone laughed. Billy, now blushing, made his way to the back of the bus quickly and quietly, and sat down.

Billy liked the morning bus ride. No matter how loud it got, he could look through the mysteriously dirty window and just imagine. Passing by houses with columns he imagined embassies. Seeing a garden gnome here and there he thought of them spying on one another, maybe even arguing who had the best lawn. The best part was imagining new lives for the people he happened to see. The marks on the window became scars, or crowns, or even demons trying to possess unsuspecting individuals.

The other best part of the bus ride was that no one would talk to him. If they did, he probably unknowingly ignored them. Billy didn’t mind that at all. When people tried to talk to him at school, he just never got it right.

It’s not that he got tongue tied, or insulted people or was mean. Billy didn’t want to talk about the kind of things that other people were interested in. The other boys wanted to talk about schoolwork, or activities like sports or trading cards, which were fine things to talk about provided you were into that. Billy could care less about schoolwork, and he was more into making things, most of all his stories. He learned everything he needed to from books, not from teachers. That’s why he never started conversations, and that’s why he wanted to be a writer. He just had to hope every day that no one would try to talk to him. Some days were more successful on that front then others.

What Billy did like about school is that it gave him plenty of material for his stories. Whatever he couldn’t make up, he based on the things he saw around him. He took everything from a motivational poster to the color of someone’s hair.

Stories were everything to Billy, and he liked it that way.