The Ride Home
The Ride Home
I start to make my way down the aisle. A red-haired girl whispers to another girl, and they giggle at me like I’ve got my fly open or something. I check. I don’t. I feel my face heat up.
“Hey, Fresh meat!” some guy shouts.
“What’s with the merman hair?” the red-haired girl asks. Oh, so it was my hair they were giggling about. There are a few dye jobs on the bus. But nothing like my bright neon green and blue spikes. I just had it done before…well, before.
I ignore them, keeping my eyes on the single empty seat I spotted at the very back. I want nothing to do with these rural freaks. I’m only staying with Gran until Mom gets back on her feet. Them I’m back to the city, first chance I get.
I slide into the empty seat next to the emergency exit. I figure here, at least, I’ll be left alone. But then a guy dressed in a black hoodie pulled low over his face turns in his seat to look at me. He’s wearing black lipstick. And what little hair I can see is dyed black. His face is pale, like he never sees the sun. There are circles under his eyes like he never sleeps. They guy is the Grim Reaper. All emo.
“Hey, Merman. I wouldn’t sit there if I were you,” he says. “That’s Jeremy and Sophie’s seat.”
Two people couldn’t sit here. The seat I’m in and the one on the other side of the emergency exit are only big enough for one person. And anyway, back in the city, nobody “owned” a bus seat. I stare out the window, hoping he will leave me alone.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” says Emo.
The Ride Home follows Mark over the course of a single November afternoon during the bus ride home from his new school. Mark has been forced to relocate from Vancouver, where he had lived with his mom, to an unnamed northern rural community to live with his grandmother. The reason for Mark’s move is not immediately revealed, but later readers learn that Mark’s mother had struggled with mental illness for years and is currently hospitalized for an extended period after a suicide attempt. While she is in treatment, Mark is living, temporarily, with his Gran. Readers meet Mark on his first school bus ride home after his initial day at his new school where he knows nobody and rumors about his reasons for joining the school so late in the term are swirling around.
The bus ride home is a chance for Mark to get to know his peers – first by the nicknames he gives them based on their appearance (Emo for the teen in a black hoodie and dark makeup, Cheese Kid for the kid who throws cheese curds at everyone on the bus – you get the idea). The ride quickly becomes a caricature of the most chaotic bus ride home you could imagine – an obnoxious couple sharing a single seat for a make-out session, budding fire starters melting holes in the upholstery with lighters, and food-throwing incidents that become so extreme that the entire bus roof is raining down pudding. This ride also gives Mark a chance to start to see past his perceptions of his peers – Emo is actually Eric who has left his abusive father to live with his grandmother and who just wants to graduate high school to get into an engineering program. The weird girl who sits at the front of the bus with the little kids is Grace, a thoughtful girl whose mother has recently suffered a stroke, and who sits up front to get away from the madness of the bus. Just as Mark is beginning to learn more about his classmates, the bus gets into an accident at a railway crossing. With the bus driver injured, the older kids have to step up and act responsibly to get everyone off the bus safely. Mark sees again that he is making judgements and assumptions of his peers based on a very limited set of interactions with them,
Anderson-Dargatz’s writing is generally smooth and to the point, but The Ride Home suffers from some clunky, out-of-place slang – Mark just wants to listen to his music, but he will only refer to it (unironically) as “tunes”, an obnoxious couple is “snogging” on the bus, and one kid sporting eyeliner and black lipstick is labeled as “emo”. These are little things, but to young readers, it will be obvious that Anderson-Dargatz is attempting to approximate the current vernacular of youth rather than truly being able to emulate it. Especially in a shorter book without a ton of action, this type of writing can alienate readers. The lessons readers are to learn from the book are also very clear – don’t judge a book by its cover, and don’t assume that you are the only person struggling in life.
The Ride Home is a quick read, and the plot may appeal to readers who are most interested in realistic stories. Even with the caveats mentioned, this book would be a good fit for readers who are not interested in science fiction, fantasy, or mysteries – a simple slice of life book with a pretty good lesson learned in the end.
Susie Wilson is the Data Services Librarian at the University of Northern British Columbia. When she isn’t at work, you’ll find her curled up with a cup of coffee and a good book.