It was the tatty old trainers that gave him away.
There he was, riding the bus with his feet up on the back of the seat in front. From the rear, raised section of the city’s shuttle bus she had a good view of them, but only them. She wondered what he was doing in town. Surely he hadn’t got a job. She considered with a deep and genuine sense of sadness that he, like some many of his kind, would probably never get a job. School was a year behind them both now. She liked the company she had gone to and was planning to do some extra study in the evenings during the following year.
She sat thinking about what sort of person he had been all through their school years. He was always rude, especially to girls. He loved showing off all the time. He seemed to be convinced that he was something special in some way. He wasn’t, of course. He didn’t have any friends of any consequence; being a bully he had a few hangers-on, only because they were afraid of him. The more she thought about it the more depressed she felt.
Every now and again he would wiggle his feet from side to side. He was probably trying to attract attention. She couldn’t remember where he lived. She hoped in earnest that he got off before her. She didn’t fancy the thought of walking past him.
She knew he came from a poor family, but that was no excuse. Other kids were in the same boat and had done well. All this was bringing so much back to her. The day he made her best friend cry. All the clowning around he did on sports day; how embarrassing was that? The time he hid some boy’s clothes so they weren’t there when he got back from the cross-country run. She closed her eyes and shook her head momentarily; he was such a sad case.
Those shoes! Horrible old things, falling apart, with little gold patches on them, now fading. That’s probably why he got them in the first place… little gold patches. She suddenly realised with some clarity that these old bumpers summed him up. That was what he was; how he lived his life; they represented the real him!
Her stop came up and he didn’t move. She moved quickly to the door at the last minute and jumped off as the bus pulled up. She stood, shaking a little, pretending to read the timetable; he didn’t get off.
She didn’t start walking until the bus was truly out of sight.