The Start of Something

I'm not sure what kind of story this excerpt could be the start of, but I think there's something there...wrote it on a whim and putting it out into the universe as I think of where to go with it next.

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Paige McCrea did not need saving. Not by boys or from her parents or anyone else. She had learned early on that if anyone was going to do the saving, she would do it herself.

**

On a winter’s day when Paige McCrea was seven years old, she eagerly made her way to the front entrance of school after yet another tedious day at as first grader at Thomas Culpepper Elementary. When she reached those familiar glass doors, she noticed a large group of classmates gathered around Ms. Shivone, the school's librarian whose resemblance to Ursula the sea witch - in both appearance and manner - was simply uncanny as far as Paige was concerned. She could not understand why anyone would want to be close to that woman, let alone her fellow children!

Why spend the first precious minutes away from the confines of the school day to keep talking to a teacher? And such a cruel one at that? If there was one thing that Paige McCrea loved, it was the first moment after the last bell when she knew freedom was just around the corner and came, quite literally, in the shape of a yellow school bus. I dare you to find a happier child than one Paige McCrea, comfortably collapsed into the first cracked leather seat of the number 5 bus, knowing that in just a few short minutes, she would be home with her best friend and consummate companion, Mo (who also happened to be the family dog).

But alas, today a curious group of pint-sized brown-nosers both literally and figuratively stood between her and sweet escape. So, Paige McCrea contemplated her options.

She had already said “excuse me” multiple times, but as the tiniest child in the class, her voice had a way of getting lost in the space between her mouth and other people’s ears. She wondered if she should scream “help!” or “fire!” and make a break for it as the children scattered, but she calculated that such a commotion might cause the buses to be delayed in their departure, and that would defeat the purpose altogether.

Just as she began to feel the prickling sensation of tears forming at the edges of her eyes, she spotted it. Paige McCrea saw an opportunity to squeeze into a gap that had presented itself between the oafy John Lemon and his ghoulish sidekick Kyle Henry. Normally, she would not have willingly put herself in such close proximity to these playground menaces who most often smelled of what could best be described as a mix of peanut butter, sweat and pennies, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Paige McCrea saw her opening and took it.

She crouched and ran, tucking her head as she made her way beneath the bottoms of their backpacks and narrowly missed getting walloped by John’s metal soccer ball keychain. And that’s when she spied it. The beautiful shine of the slick black number five painted on familiar yellow metal. It called to her like the siren's song called to many a weary sea captain.

Paige McCrea raised her head and fist in celebration. “Yes!” she hissed, just three short seconds before her Keds gave way on a patch of black ice, and she fell to the sidewalk with a sickening thump.