The Awkward Bus Journey – Part Two

Against all odds, they didn’t fall into a phone-sized pond. We continued our day in Brent Cross, dreading the text we were expecting from our relentless admirers. We spent the day aimlessly window shopping or buying see-through t-shirts, that would only be acceptable to wear during the sport we would never get round to doing.  As we were going up the escalator,  which was very crowded due to an unexpected dance performance in the middle of the shopping centre, I glimpsed a snap-back pulled over a greasy head of hair – back to front, of course. I brought this to my friends attention and we made dash up the escalator and into the nearest shop. We hid in there for a pathetically long time, before we continued our shopping spree. But that wasn’t the embarrassing part.

It all happened between H Samuels and PC world. They were heading up the escalators and were about to turn, if we didn’t move fast they would see us. I pointed in their direction, pointing them out to my friend. We both panicked and ran … in different directions. Confused, we ran back in the direction that the other was running. We ran right past each other again, and as if we were in a comedy we ran back in our original direction, past each other once more. I assumed that my friend had realized and had turned around to follow, but as I turned around in PC world and was alone. I didn’t dare to venture outside of the shop until I was sure that the boys were nowhere to be seen. So after a good 7 minutes hiding behind a cardboard cut out of an advertisement for a ‘SUPER GREAT DEAL ON THE NEWEST TOSHIBA YET’, I crept out into the open and into H Samuels, where I thought I would find my friend. She was nowhere to be found. Like she had fallen into a grate or a girl-sized pond. I can practically hear you asking why I didn’t use my common sense and call her, like an average teen would. This is because, my friend is no average teen and she did the unthinkable. She let her phone RUN OUT OF BATTERY. So she was phone-less and lost.  I wandered around that PC World/H Samuel area for a while, weaving in and out of stalls trying to find her, about 10 minutes later I heard a tannoy echo the words:

“Can MissLeightonLondon* please come to the Information point, MissLeightonLondon”. Flustered and embarrassed I asked a shop attendant where the Information Point was, and she pointed in a vague direction toward the other end of BrentCross. I found it without too much difficulty and there I found a sheepish looking friend looking around anxiously for any sign of me. I saw her and rolled my eyes, attempting to shift the blame for this fiasco. When we had laughing at our selves for the melodramatic turn of events, we called it a day and decided to head home.

When we got to the bus stop, there was no electriky thing to taunt us about our wait. Which made the 15 minutes we were waiting even longer. We sat in the bus shelter, I was shifting my gaze between the direction our bus should be arriving from and the exit door, making sure that our bus ride home would be peacefully uneventful. Finally, I saw the bus slowly appear, and practically simultaneously, the boys who we had the delight in meeting sauntered out the door. It all happened in slow motion, a race too the bus stop, between the bus and the boys. The bus was going painfully slowly, but considering it was racing a pack of oblivious teenage boys, it was a sure win. Then one of the boys looked up as it was adjusting its ‘Obey’ snap-back, he saw the bus, and their speed increased. The bus and the boys were neck and neck. When the bus arrived, all we could do was take the two seats at the back and silently prepare ourselves for the worse. They sat down in the seats infront of us, we kept our heads down and pretended to be oblivious to their presence. We spoke quietly about our purchases until the leader of the pack turned around and spat.

‘By the way, thanks for the fake number.’

“Excuse me?” I replied. Annoyed for being blamed for something I had initially wanted to do, but didn’t. “I didn’t give you a fake number.”

“Oh really?!” Said the boy skeptically. I nodded. With purpose, and perhaps a few too many flourishes of the hand, he produced the phone with my number. I read through it swiftly.

“You forgot the zero.” I said impatiently. The boy blushed and apologised countless times and I ended up giving him my corrected number, which he thoughtfully called too double check. The small talk began. They lied at every corner, for example.

“So, uh, what music you into?”

“Ummm, like country. Taylor Swift and all that.” I mumbled in reply.

“You’re not going to believe this, but I’m in a folk band.” … They were right, we didn’t believe them. They asked us what stop we were getting off at and surprise, surprise, that was theirstop as well. As we were getting closer and closer to our destination, I spotted a corner shop a couple stops earlier than our usual stop. Thinking fast I said to my friend.

“Didn’t your mum ask us to buy some milk?” Nodding toward the shop. I was impressed that she caught on so quickly, considering her track record throughout the day.

“Oh yeah!” She said, we waved goodbye briefly and jumped off the bus. Then we ran all the way home … Just in case.

I just want to point out (before you do in the comments) that I am painfully aware that both my friend and I were complete idiots in the first place by handing out our number. We both wish we had been frank with them to begin with. So, if you could refrain from telling me such things we would both be grateful. In fact, I think it would be more appropriate for you to thank us, because without our brief moment of stupidity this tale of events would never have occurred and your day would not have been brightened by this blog.

*They didn’t actually say ‘MissLeightonLondon’, but we can pretend…

END OF PART TWO

Last updated: April 16, 2020