The Mütter Museum

The school bus bumped through the stop-and-go Philly traffic on the way to the Mütter Museum. All three biology classes from Bartham High's 9th grade had been shoved onto the dreadful buses to be carted over the the museum full of old dead bones and artifacts.

Naomi was not happy about it.

She had only been in school for a week now and she had much preferred the boring emptiness of the summer. English class had started out insanely hard right from the first day, with an in-class writing assignment about how her summer was. Not only did she hate writing in the first place, but all the things that happened this summer were not things Naomi could really share openly. She had been moved up into the school's Geometry class as well at her dad's request. It sucked. Her classmates weren't too bad for the most part, but some of them were just straight up obnoxious. It didn't make the situation any better that Naomi was currently sporting a mending rib and a nasty looking bruise on her chin from a botched attempt at heroing the week before. It also meant she had to sit out of gym class, which was the one class she had really been looking forward to.

The bus jostled again on a pot hole, making Naomi grit her teeth against the pain that flared up from her rib. She turned up her music louder to try and drown out the pain. "-Russian roulette is not the same without a gun, and baby when it's love-"

Her headphones were yanked off her head. Naomi looked up in annoyance to see the zit covered face of Harvey Skiver. One of the few white kids at Bartham High, Harvey had already made a habit of seeking out the wrong kind of attention from people. Or at least from Naomi.

"What you listening to Helen Keller?" He snickered holding the headphones high out of her reach. "Whale mating calls?" the other students in the back of the bus were either indifferent or watched to see what she would do.

"Sorry, what did you say Harvey?" Naomi replied, turning up her hearing aides a little. "I can't hear stupid well." the few kids that were paying attention 'oooh'ed at Harvey. One kid whispered 'Buuuuurrrrrnnnn' loud enough for everyone to hear.

Harvey ignored them and stuck the headphones on. "Lady Gaga? Wow Keller, your music taste is older than the dead people we're going to go stare at."

Naomi glared, picking up her phone and cranking the volume to 100. Harvey yelped and quickly threw the headphones off back towards Naomi. The other kids laughed.

"Can you knuckleheads shut UP?" A girl spat from the seat in front of Naomi. Her name was Darleen Dabler. A taller girl who had reached puberty earlier than everyone else and always had her nose in a book. People listened to her, even though they didn't always like it. She was kinda scary.

"Settle down back there!" An assistant teacher called from the front of the bus with bored disinterest.

Harvey moved his attention over to Darleen, leaning over the seat beside her. "Whatcha reading Double D?"

"Call me that again and stab your eyes out with your own pencil." Darleen didn't even look up from her book.

Naomi put her headphones back on and went the rest of the ride undisturbed.

At last, the bus pulled up to the front of the Museum and the students filed off the bus. Naomi hefted her backpack over the shoulder on her good side and followed the stream of students. As she stepped out into the shade cast by the large building in the morning sun. She shivered against the cooling September air. I should have worn a jacket she thought to herself.

The building was large but relatively unimpressive. It was grimy for a museum and litter clumped around hard metal benches the sat along the wide sidewalk. 9th graders were quickly spilling out onto the sidewalk and were already having to start up the wide staircase up to the museum to make room for everyone.

Naomi was shuffled over to the steps as the teachers started taking assigning field trip partners and to make sure everyone was accounted for. Up a few steps, Naomi could finally see over some of the crowd of students still filing out of the last of the three buses. She hated being so short.

There he is Naomi's heart skipped a beat. Mateo Rivera had just stepped off the bus. Mateo was easily the cutest guy in the 9th grade. At least Naomi thought so. He was always picked first for teams in gym class. He had just joined the track team after tryouts earlier that week. Mateo was also in Naomi's American History class. American History was her favorite class period.

Mateo looked around and made eye contact. Naomi immediately looked away, staring at the teachers with determination. He didn't see me right? That would be so awkward. What if he thinks I'm a creep now?

Darleen walked up to stand next to her. Naomi looked at the taller girl in confusion. Darleen's nose was still buried in her book until she felt Naomi staring at her. She stared back.

"Uh... Hi?" Naomi said, a little weirded out.

Darleen made a face. "Mrs. Gollard just assigned us as partners." She told Naomi. "That doesn't mean you have to talk to me. In fact, don't."

Naomi stared at the taller girl. "Right..."

The teachers started ushering the large group of students into the museum, the students shuffling forward in their assigned pairs. Naomi was shuffled along next to Darleen, who still had her nose in her book. Naomi huffed. Well this is going to be fun.

yay museums where fun well as long as jeannie wasn't getting yelled at by grumpy watch men to stop touching stuff.

and this time she was here for fun to look at the interesting stuff.unlike the time she was hired as a guard to extra protect some rare exhibit, then there was the time where she had to catch a ghost that was stealing paintings that got weird.

yup so looking around she noticed a large group of kids coming in, oh a field trip how fun jeannie loved field trips when she was in school and lunch and recess. oh one of the girls looked familiar from somewhere.

oh she was the girl from the store the other day, what was her name again nelly,nacy,,,,naomi ,hello friend nice to see you again and under more pleasant circumstances,hopeful no one will try to rob the museum. she smiles and waves to namoi

Naomi's eyes went wide as the blonde started towards her waving and calling out her name. Oh no, not here! She just wanted to blend in and have a quiet school year where everyone ignored her. What she really didn't need was Jeannie singling her out.

Naomi squeezed through the crowd to meet Jeannie before the teachers saw. "Jeannie, what are you doing here? I'm in school you can't blow my cover!"

"Who're you?" Naomi turned around to see Darleen had actually pulled her nose out of a book for once and was looking at Jeannie skeptically.

"No one!" Naomi said a bit to loudly, some of the students close by were starting to stare and whisper to each other. "She's just... uh... my babysitter?" She looked back at Jeannie even doubting her own lie. "From preschool?"

Darleen looked at Naomi with one eyebrow arched skeptically, the looked back Jeannie as if evaluating her. "What's your deal lady? You a drug dealer or something?"

um i'm here to look at the stuff, isn't that why everyone comes to the museum?blow your cover? what cover are we playing spies or something

jeannie was confused what was so strange of saying hi to a friend in the same place,babysitter will ok jeannie has worked as a babysitter before so she can be that if naomi wanted.

oh my you sure have gotten big since i last saw you,yup i'm jeannie the babysitter,huh drug dealer that isn't something you kids should be talking about,

you better not be being a bad influence on little naomi drug dealer really what a rude little girl naomi's friend was,jeannie didn't think she looked like a drug dealer,not like the ones she caught that one time.

but that isn't a thing babysitters do so she probably shouldn't bring that up as naomi wants her to be the babysitter in this game they where playing, yay she'll be like mary poppins then.

yay that was one of her favorite movies