Nothing comes of nothing.

Today on the bus, nothing happened. I thought it might as I've recently jazzed up my getting to work routine by cycling in and thought the time away would make me more alert to The Public and their ways.
The driver did miss a stop, despite three people clamouring at the door to get off. But he stopped about twenty five metres down the road and they got off. Disaster averted.

Shy girl, don't listen

Fridays are a good day to catch the bus. Half the little kids who normally get it - to their school just under a mile away (obesity crisis?) - have been given the day off by their parents who are keen to start the weekend and don't fancy ruining it by getting up early. There's a lot of seats.
I pull out my book - The Gift - and settle in for the next half hour. Behind me a teenager is reading a crumpled edition of The Sun. I know it's crumpled because it got trapped between my back and the chair when I sat down. He's on one of those elevated seats that are mid-way down most buses: why? His position means he's definitely for it if the driver is forced to do an emergency stop.
Anyway, The Public are behaving. A young girl ( Shy Girl) in front is listening to music. I can't hear it. Good to go.
But just two stops later a girl with a voice louder than God gets on (Mouth Almighty). She scans the bus and recognises the girl in front of me and comes towards her, greeting her as though she's in Iceland and they're relying on yoghurt pots to talk. The girl shifts uncomfortably and it's apparent straight away that these girls know each other but they aren't friends.
Shy Girl looks a lot less relaxed and Mouth Almighty starts telling her all about her piercings! She shows her one somewhere in her ear. When she runs out of steam she remembers her manners and asks about Shy Girl and why she's on the bus but she doesn't even listen to the answers, instead she's waiting to jump in with some related information about herself. It's all just noise, to be honest. NOISE.
BLAH BLAH BLAH... she's paused for breath and I turn my music off so I'm able to concentrate on the book I'm reading. But off she goes again. YADDA YADDA and then something about not being arsed to finish her GCSEs wrestles past the headphones and gets in my ears. I give up trying to block it out.
Shy Girl is off to finish her media coursework. "So what, you just like sit there and write pages for eight hours?" Mouth Almighty asks her as though the very idea is akin to dancing with your mum at a school disco. Do school's even have discos now? Or is it dub-step night? I hope they don't... the very idea makes me cringe for the teachers.
"Well, there's editing to do too."
"Oh, like of the pictures and stuff? Yeah, yeah." MA says and bounds into her next mindless topic.
Shy Girl gets off but MA doesn't even move her ass to let her get out, so she ends up squeezing past. Shy Girl has been totally intimidated and I want to tell MA to let the girl get off the bloody bus. When she does get off, finally, she has to walk past us and MA waves but Shy Girl doesn't even look her way. MA then sits awkwardly, looking round for other people she might be able to talk to. She's uncomfortable but at least she's shut up.
Then I get off and leave The Public behind.