Half days are probably one of the greatest concepts used in high school. First of all, the class periods are about half an hour long each, so teachers don’t even have enough time to do anything productive. Secondly, your transpass is still usable like a normal school day. This gives you free transportation and seven hours of your life back that you normally would’ve wasted in school. So every time there’s a half day, students would make plans with their friends to go out and do something they usually couldn’t do because of school.

On one half day in the beginning of May, we were waiting for the southbound train. The boarding track was congested with kids, all wearing backpacks or book bags. Instead of the usual amount of students trying to get home after school, you had a bunch of kids heading downtown to eat. My friends and I stood by the yellow line painted onto the floor, blending into the sea of students.

When the express finally came, I followed Mark, Omar, and Theresa onto the train. Theresa and I sat down while Mark and Omar stood nearby. Getting comfortable, I took my book bag off and placed it onto the floor in front of me, then turned to Theresa. “Do you know where to get off?” I asked her. “Not really, we’re just following Mark,” she replied. For the rest of the train ride, we continued to talk while Omar played on my phone.

At the City Hall stop, Mark suddenly started to get off the train, looked back, and motioned us to get off too. Theresa and I jumped off of our seats and hurried to keep up with Mark and Omar. We followed Mark up stairs, around corners, and finally to the bottom of the steps that lead to surface. “This is it,” Mark said, “we’re here.” Forgetting that Omar still had my phone, I reached for my book bag so I could check the time. Except, my book bag wasn’t on my back, or in my hand, or anywhere. I immediately stopped walking and held Theresa back to stop walking, too. “GUYS! I think I left my bookbag on the train!” The guys stop walking ahead of us and turned around to look at me, eyes wide open.

Half way through the train ride, a recorded voice echoed through the carts reminding everyone to secure their electronics and other personal belongings. I completely disregarded the message, thinking “who would be such an idiot to leave their stuff on the train?” Now, this idiot had to go back to the lady at the turnstile to explain what just happened. She told us the train we were just on was on its way northbound to Fernrock. A second later, we all started sprinting, making our way through the station once again. Without any hesitation, we turned the final corner before reaching the trains. But just as fast as we were running, the train was already speeding from the track.

Before I could react to the realization that I lost my bag for good, an express pulled up on the other side of the track.

“Don’t worry, guys,” Mark called out, “just get on this one.”
“Are you sure about this, Mark?” Theresa asked as we all followed him onto the train.
“Mark’s got this, guys. You can trust him with this.” Omar responded.
“But my bookbag! I need my stuff back.” I complained.
“It’s okay, your phone’s here. Was there anything else important in your bag?” Theresa asked.
“Just my wallet, I think. Everything else, I can probably replace.”
“It’ll be alright, you’ll see.” Theresa said, patting my shoulder.
“I really hope so.”

We split up into two groups, Theresa with me and Mark with Omar, and walked through the carts. I knew my book bag wouldn’t be here, but checking this train kept my mind busy. Each door seemed to lead into the exact same cart. A row of orange chairs facing the front of the train sat on one side and a row of orange chairs facing the rear of the train sat on the other side. Next to the doors that would slide open after each stop, were more orange seats that faced the middle aisle. Silver bars and poles were scattered around the cart for people to hold onto, framing the vibrant color of the seats. Rectangles of glass placed in the wall showed nothing but black and the darkness of being underground.

“What am I supposed to do?” I moped to Theresa, for about the tenth time.
“Just don’t think about it. We’re not done checking and we’re not even at Fernrock yet.”
“But how can I not think about it?! I lost my damn book bag.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay! We’ll find it.” She continued trying to console me as we reached the middle of the train again and met up with the guys.
“We’re almost at Spring Garden, guys. That’s where we get off.” Mark said.

A few moments later we stepped off the train and waited some more. A tile wall stared at me from the other side of the station. For the most part, the tiles were white and square. At the top of the wall were reddish and yellowish tiles surrounding the white letters “SPRING GARDEN.” Suddenly, the white wall disappeared behind an orange train pulling up in front of us. A sign in one of the windows read “LOCAL” in white, fluorescent letters.

“Yo, let’s go!” Omar called out as he and Mark were already boarding the train. Theresa and I ran across platform to the last cart of the train before getting on. Just as before, I lead the way down the line of carts and through the doors leading to more carts. She kept her eye on the floor to the right of the aisle and I kept mine on the floor to the left of the aisle, a system we established on the last train. We hurried through door after door, making sure not to trip as we stepped from the old cart into the new cart.

Before we reached the middle of the train, I saw it. My plaid, black Jansport was laying on its side in front of a set of chairs facing the middle. “OH, MY GOD,” I shrieked, grabbing my book bag and turning around to show Theresa. “You found it!” she exclaimed as we quickly moved to the next cart to find Mark and Omar. “We got it, guys. Hurry up and get off,” I called out once we saw them.

Somehow, we had managed to search through the entire train before even leaving Spring Garden. In that little subway station, we shared the largest possible group hug between four people. Passengers on the train we just got off of stared at us as they started to pull away from the platform. At last, we broke apart from our group hug and resorted to giving high fives all around.

“Wait, check to make sure nothing’s missing.” Omar reminded me.

“It doesn’t look like it.” I replied as I looked around my bag. My folder and English book were in the large pocket next to my planner and my comb. In the front pocket were my earbuds, pencil case, and wallet. Even my chapstick was exactly where I had left it.

“Now what?” Theresa said, as we started to settle down.
“You guys wanna eat? My treat.” I smiled, holding out my untouched wallet from my recovered book bag.