Almost a Runaway

[A girl in a long black Renaissance type dress, is busily putting her long black hair in a braid as she stands waiting for the bus. Just then a blond girl walks up to the bus stop carrying a suit case.]

BELLA:[putting the suit case down]
Why are you dressed like that, Halloween isn't for a month.

RYO(rei-oh)[sighing, her pony tail holder is in her mouth, so she takes it out and slippd it on her wrist]
I know that. I like to wear this stuff. Do you have a problem with it? [RYO looks the girl up and down in her pink mini skirt and white and pink tank tops. She had meet peolpe like this gril of pink and they had only brought grief.]

BELLA[wrinkles her nose]
Well I'm sorry, don't curse me just because I'm normal.

RYO[trying not to lose her cool]
Well one: I'm meeting some friends down in Shakopee I work at the Renaissance Festival and two: I'm not Wiccan, or an Anarchist, or a Sorceress, I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

BELLA
You're not going to preach to me are you?

RYO[starring at the girl as she finshes her braid by putting the pony tail holder on the end.]
No, we don't always preach to people, if they don't want us to.

BELLA
Oh. [shifts uneasly on her feet]

RYO[smiled slightly at the girls uneasiness]
It's Ok, I get that a lot being in choir, and all.

BELLA[jumping on the subject]
You're in chior, what school!?

RYO[raised an eyebrow]
Draco High, why?

BELLA
Cool, I'm going to be in the Treble Chior, you!?

RYO[sighing, surprised that someone could be so hyper in the morning]
Uhmmm, I'm in Treble chior again this year.[Takes out make-up and mirror and begins to put the make-up on]

BELLA[tilting her head to one side]
Again. What grade are you in?
RYO[sighs irritated that she is beinging interupted. Also her make-up wasn't going on straight]
Yes, I'm a senior this year. [She began again to put her make-up on after cleaning most of it off.]

BELLA
Cool, so you get to rule the school.

RYO
I just think of it as my last year of torture.

BELLA[laughing]
So that's why you're ware black?

RYO[clinches her fist]
That, and I like this color.

BELLA[trying to stop laughing]
School can't be that bad.

RYO
For some one like me, it is. Have you ever been teased before?

BELLA[was quiet for about 3 minutes]
Yeah a few times.

RYO
And you didn't feel too good afterwards did you? [BELLA shakes her head slowly] Well I was teased every day and even thought of what would happen if I died once because I felt sad most of the time, and it seemed to only get worse. But then I realized that the rest of the world didn't really matter if they only wanted to judge me. I also had my religion to fall back on. It kept me sane, that and my parents.

BELLA
Wow, I never though of it that way.

RYO[smiling]
Most people don't, but I try to open people's eyes to it. [leans forward to look down the road, but the bus is no where in sight] Hey aren't you Ryan's little sister, Bella? [has a strange feeling that this BELLA girl might not be like her older brother.]

BELLA
Yeah, do you know him.

RYO[looking at BELLA's suit case]
I don't know him that well. By the way, I'm Ryo. [holds out fringerless lacy gloved hand to BELLA and she taks it.] And if you need to get anything off your chest I'm willing to listen. [hopping to got BELLA to talk about the case. Also she notices that BELLA's hand is oddly cold, but the girl isn't shivering.]

BELLA[looks down at the suit case next to her]
Really?

RYO
Yeah, I would have said so. So what's with the suit case? [she already has an idea, but she want's to hear the whole story.]

BELLA
Well, my I feel like no one at home is listoning to me. My mom buries herself in her work and when she isn't working she's shopping. My Dad moved to West St.Paul, and has a new girlfriend every week, and their barely older then Ryan. [BELLA takes a deep breath.] I just want someone to listen to me.

RYO[not sure what to say, RYO stood thinking]
Well - - [she tries to beging] I my not know what it's like to have parents that are divorced, but you should set down or call them at work and tell them how you feel. Ryan can't be happy with this either. But no matter what most parents love their childeren and should listen to you, but what ever you do don't do anything drastic, it only makes things worse and you get more attion then you want. So if I were you, I'd go home and talk with my mom. It's the best thing you can do.

[The black and white bus comes and RYO gets on before BELLA can say anything. Soon a red muscle car drives up to the stop an a brown haird man gets out.]

RYAN[shaking BELLA]
Bella what are you thinking! Where are you trying to go!?

BELLA[pulling free from her brother's grip]
I was going to go to Dad's house.

RYAN[not truly hearing BELLA and began to shake BELLA again.]
Do you know how upset mom is!? She's so close to calling the police! She's blaming
herself for you running away. She's ready to hang herself!

BELLA[pulling away from her brother and slapping him]
You idiot! Don't talk so losly about something like that! I'll come home and talk it out with mom.

RYAN[stepped back to get a better look at his little sister]
What happened to you?

BELLA
I meet a Ryo just before you got here.

RYAN[smirking and slowly shaken her head]
You mean Ryo 'the Jehovahs Witness' freak that never has any money and never will, she tried to preach to you, didn't she?

BELLA[plased her hands on her hips]
Be nice to her, she almost killed herself because she was being teased so much. At least she had her religion to fall back on and her parents. What do we have Ryan, what? Our parents are divorced, you surround yourself with junk, I lie and run to Dad when things don't go my way! [BELLA is nearly in tears] Mom buries herself in work and Dad has a new girlfriend at least once a week that's barely older then you! [tears start to make their way down her face] She has to really for her money, and she was teased all the time, but she still goes on. We have no right,[takes in a quivering breath] no right to make fun of her. [Now BELLA loses it and begings to ball]

RYAN[wrapped his arms around his sister stunned at her words]
I'm sorry Bell.

BELLA[through her tears pushing her brother away]
Don't apologize to me, apologize to Ryo.

[BELLA gets into her brother's car and goes home, where she apologizes to her mother and explains what Ryo had tought her at the bus stop.]