Shortly after Jeff left for school, Jared, who is still in a grumpy mood, which he always is on Mondays, lets out a sigh, 'I hate school,' he thinks to himself, as he gets up from his seat and heads to the front door. The 12-year-old grabs his backpack and heads out the front door and towards the bus stop to catch the school bus, 'I really wish I could just dump school for a day, but dad would smack me and mom would ground me for a month if they'd find out.'
There are some kids at the bus stop, Jared sees two of his friends, Max and Brad, standing by the bus stop among the other kids. They all were chatting with one another, but suddenly they stop and their expressions turn to fear, their eyes widen and they all start to back away as Jared approaches.
Jared notices this and he raises an eyebrow as he stops by the bus stop, all of the kids had retreated 20 feet at least away. The 12-year-old looks around in confusion, “what,” he asks, “do I have something on my face?”
There is a long silence, “um... J-Jared,” Max asks, “is... is that you?”
Jared turns to his friend, “um... yeah,” he says, “of course it's me. Who else should I be?”
Brad and Max look at each other, “um... y-you look kinda different,” Brad says.
Jared looks down at himself, “what do you mean,” he asks, “I look the same as I always do.” He reaches up a hand and touches his hair, “is my hair messy, or what?”
“Um... n-no,” the boys say, “y-your... um... f-fur is fine,” they add.
“Then what... wait,” Jared says, tilting his head, “did you just say “fur”? I don't have any fur,” he says, looking at his hands.
The other kids standing close by are whispering to each other and staring at Jared in a weird way.
“Guys,” Jared says, now he is starting to feel really confused and scared, “what the fuck is going on? Why are you acting so weird? Why do you all look so scared? If this is a joke, it aint funny!”
Before they could answer however, they hear the bus driving up to the bus stop, the bus stops beside the group and the doors hiss open. The bus driver, who's name is “Dave”, looks towards the door and his eyes widen in shock when his eyes land on Jared. “What the hell,” he says, “what is a white tiger cub doing dressed as a school kid out on the street?”
Jared is taken aback, he turns around to look if Dave saw something behind him, but there is nothing, “what white tiger,” the boy asks confused, “there is no white tiger here. Why is everyone acting so weird today?”
Dave continues to stare at the boy, 'since when do tigers talk,' he thinks to himself, 'it acts like a human child, it even walks on two legs and has the school's uniform on. Something weird is going on.'
Jared by now is so confused, scared and unsure of what to do, he looks around, his friends and all the other kids just stand their, far away from him, with terrified expressions on their faces, and Dave, who Jared really liked, also stares at him with a terrified expression. It is just to much for Jared to handle, he breaks down, “SOMEONE PLEASE JUST TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON,” he shouts, he falls to his knees with his head in his hands.
Seeing Jared falling to his knees, his head in his hands, hearing him yell out in confusion causes the kids to look at each other, as if asking each other what to do. Dave notices something, since Jared is kneeling right in front of him, he notices tears fall onto the pavement in front of the “tiger”. 'The young tiger seems confused and scared,' he thinks to himself, 'it does not seem that it means harm, I heard about this program which supposedly is able to transform stuff. Could it be that someone used the device on a actual tiger and make it think it were human, but forgot to activate the reality alteration? That would make sense as to why the young cub is acting so confused to us being so freaked out.'
Jared continues to cry and shout out to them, asking for someone to just tell him what is going on.
Dave looks at his dashboard, 'god damn it,' he thinks to himself when he sees the time, 'I got to get the kids to school,' the man thinks of what the best solution would be. With a sigh Dave decides to calm the atmosphere, he could phone the Zoo while driving the kids to school and have someone from the Zoo take the little Tiger with them, maybe they could help it. So Dave takes a deep breath and gets up from the driver's seat and walks out the bus.
“DAVE, CAREFUL,” some of the children shout, “IT'LL HURT YOU!”
“No it won't,” Dave says, looking down at the “Tiger”, “if it wanted to harm someone, it already would have. Besides that, can't you see that it is just as scared and confused as we are?”
The children fall silent, they look at each other and back to Dave and the “Tiger”, the children soon realize that Dave is telling the truth and they calm down and slowly walk closer to the sobbing boy, who they think is a wild and dangerous animal.
Dave does not look at the children, he simply says, “get on the bus,” and kneels down to Jared while the kids get on the bus and take their seats. The children stare out the windows of the bus to see what is going to happen, they see Dave carefully stroking the “Tiger's” head and talking to it.
Jared feels a hand on his head, stroking him, he looks up at Dave, the boy's eyes red from crying so much. “D-Dave... wh-what is g-going on,” he asks.
'Weird, it knows my name,' the man thinks to himself, “how do you know my name?”
Jared blinks, the confusion returning to him, “D-Dave... it's me... Ja-Jared,” the boy says, “if... if you are... in on... the j-joke... it... it's not funny.”
Dave is so confused, he realizes that the “Tiger” who seems to think it is the younger brother of Jeff, is really confused and scared, so he decides to not make it worse. The man also decides it would be best to send the Tiger... “Jared”... home, it would not be wise to take it with him to the school. He could tell the Zoo where to find the Tiger when he calls them, “I am sorry,” Dave says, “I don't know what is going on, but I promise that we'll figure it out. Um... why don't you head home, you don't look so well, I'll let the school know, are your parents home?”
Jared shakes his head, “n-no... they will be working until late in the evening,” he says.
'Okay... good,' Dave thinks to himself, 'then they won't freak out when a Tiger suddenly appears and by the time they return home, the Zoo would have picked him up and taken it away.' Dave then says, “it'll be fine, I won't tell them anything. I'll let the school know to not inform your... parents about your... situation.”
“S-so... I should just go home,” Jared asks, “I... I don't want to get into trouble.”
Dave nods, “you won't,” he says, “I promise.”
With a sigh Jared nods, “okay... fine,” he says, he gets up and wipes his tears away. He then looks at the children in the bus, all of them, including his two best friends, look really confused and still slightly terrified. Jared waves at his friends who slowly wave back, the boy then turns around and with his head hung slowly walks back to his house. When he arrives at his door, he turns around one last time and watches the bus drive off down the road, no one looking back at him. Jared begins to cry again, “what the hell is going on,” he asks himself before heading into the house and up to his bed room, unaware that his day will just get weirder and... scarier.