Friday’s Story #9
By: Keith
The Bus
by Keith Wilcox
Mark didn’t like school, but he did like the school bus. He liked the bus most when it was taking him home rather than to school. His stop was one of the last ones on the route, and he loved watching kids get off ,and having time to relax, and the scenic tour of the town he got every day. Mark had a habit of watching each kid disembark from the bus and recounting the remaining passengers after each stop. Sometimes only one kid got off at a time, usually it was two or three. By the time the bus got to his stop each day, there were only a few kids left. When the small band of kids from his neighborhood were unloaded, there were always only two kids remaining on the bus. He would glance at the two kids sitting together as he walked down the steps through the double doors, and he would wonder about them. Mark knew where all the other kids on the bus lived but not those two. It was always just two kids. They might have been brother and sister; they probably were because they were always sitting together. Mark recognized them from school, but he didn’t know them. He wanted to ask them where their stop was, but the mystery was worth not asking. He knew everything else about all the stops; it wouldn’t be right for him to know everything.
It was November 3rd, and there was snow piled up where the plow had passed through the school parking lot, and there was an area cleared for the children to wait for the buses. There were 8 buses lined up, and Mark’s was the G bus. The kids shoved their way, laughing and playing, onto the buses while the bus drivers sat idly and expectantly. Mark found a seat, where he always found a seat, in the middle, between the wheel wells and next to the window. Laura, his neighbor, sat next to him. She would move to another seat when the bus was about half done with its rout – because there would be space. It was a sunny day even though the temperature was in the 30′s. The glass bus window and the combined heat of all the kids made the bus warm. Mark leaned his head against the glass and felt the warm sun; behind him the rowdy kids harassed each other. The overly hyper kids always rode at the back of the bus because that’s where they could catch the most air when the driver went over a speed bump or hit a dip in the road, the biggest being near the center of town where there was a pot-hole the town inexplicably refused to fill.
The buses pulled out of the lot. A quarter mile down the road they each had gone their own way, returning each kid to his proper neighborhood. Amy, Hendrik, and Nick got off at the first stop. They lived within walking distance of the school but took the bus anyway; there were no sidewalks in the winter. Slowly, and as always, the kids drained out of the bus. Mark took note of the remaining passengers. Laura moved to the adjacent seat when it cleared because she didn’t want to give the appearance that she and Mark were a thing, not that she didn’t like Mark, she played with him almost every day. She just didn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea. The two kids destined for the last stop were there on the bus, too. Mark still wanted to know where they lived. The sun through the window felt good as he rested his head. The bus rumbled on. Mark’s head vibrated on the window with the grumble of the engine, and Laura went up front to talk to her girlfriend.
When Mark woke up, he was being shaken by the bus driver.
“Hey, Kid! Wake up.” The voice sounded far away.
“Huh?” Drool was escaping from the corner of his mouth as he woke up. “Where are we?” He said as he looked around at the empty bus.
“What’s your phone number, Kid? I’ve gotta call your parents to come get you. You slept through your bus-stop.” The bus driver didn’t seem very surprised by it. Mark thought this was probably not the first time it had happened to him.
Mark gave the man his phone number, and the guy took him to the depot office where they called his mom. It took his mom 15 minutes to come get him; and, in that time, he was kicking himself for missing the last stop. He really had wanted to know where those two kids lived.
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How sweet.