Spring was beginning to flower, but the icy grasp of winter was still felt, and all the kids on our bus route were as sleepy as sloths, wrapped up in their cozy cocoons of winter fur coats and a variety of Christmas colored hats and pants.  I stared out the frosted window at Jersey Ridge Road, the main street of our city, Davenport.  The bus plodded along the street, with other morning vehicles passing our painstakingly slow bus.  The nearby river was sleeping silently, completely frozen solid.  Davenport is a big city, but it isn’t as active as metropolis’s like nearby Chicago.  I heard some rustling around our supposedly dormant bus.  I turned around and saw some kids in my grade looking as bored as a plank.

            “Mark, I heard you’re moving.  Where ya going?”                                           

            “Ummmm… I’m moving to Singapore.”

            “Wow! It must be really dangerous there!  How are you going to survive?”

            Most of the people in our city had not even bothered to leave the county for their entire life.  Half of them have never visited Chicago which was only a three our drive away, a place I went nearly every month with my family.  “No, it’s not that dangerous.  Singapore’s a security vault.  You’re safe and snug there.”

            “What city in Singapore are you moving to?”  another kid asked.

            I thought to myself, ‘You’re retarded, Singapore is a city itself’ but didn’t say it out because I didn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings.  Perhaps I was a bit too nice; maybe I should have just thrown it in his face and act as a catalyst for his understanding of the rest of the world.  “You must be thinking about China.  Singapore is a city and country by itself.”