Sunya’s dad lives in Chicago, IL and her mom lives in Pittsburg, PA. As a middle schooler, she is of the right age to travel the distance between the two cities unaccompanied as long as she has permission from both parents and rides the bus under the supervision of the bus driver. She has made the trip a lot, knows the stops and scenery by heart, and is friendly with four different bus drivers who work the route.
Sunya is a comic book and webtoon fan, preferring women superheroes, vampire hunting teams, and steam-punk science fiction. She reads some hard copy books but mostly reads off her tablet during the long bus ride. She will create, post, and repost memes, but doesn’t like to film herself or post self-focused web content… yet. She might do that when she’s 14, keeping mental note of the highway, roadway Americana in the Michigan/Ohio Great Lakes corridor for a planned future 30 part web documentary.
She’s seen her share of crazy bus people. But avoids them mostly by putting on her headphones, keeping her head down, and keeping a seat close to the front of the bus. From Sunya’s point of view, most crazy people have very sad hard-to-follow adult problems. Laurethel on the other hand, seems very friendly and chipper, even though her wardrobe screams “Whack-a-doo.”
Of course, once Laurethel reveals her secret, Sunya can’t help but be intrigued by her duality. Laura reads like a big goofy babysitter, while Ethel reads like a comic book character come to life. It should be noted that Sunya isn’t immediately intrigued, she’s freaked out by Laurethel (or Ethelaura, whichever) at first, but something about this unique flavor of nutbag won her over.
The goth teddy bear helped too.