The big yellow bus
When I was in first grade, my school bus driver got a little distracted and hit one of the difficult curves on our country road too quickly. Just like that, the bus was rolling off the edge of the road. Fortunately, the neighbor's pasture was only a few feet below the level of the road, and very flat. The bus rolled over onto its top, then stopped. I, active farm kid that I was, was on the 'new ceiling,' clinging to the metal bars of the seats.
The driver, who was unhurt but must have been fifteen kinds of OH SHIT, came walking up the bus, plucked me from where I was hanging like a wounded squirrel, and we exited from the emergency door in the back. We were only a few dozen yards from my neighbor's house. I bet my kindergarten friend, who was home sick that day, was so mad that he missed out!
Driver had to walk to the house to use a phone for what must have been a very, very difficult phone call. I don't know if he told me to stay put - or just assumed I would - but either way, I was within walking distance of home and so. I just walked away. Home. Told my mother that the school bus had flipped over. That must have been a little difficult to believe.
So the driver goes back to the bus, and the one, miraculously-unharmed kid he was driving was missing. Gone. I do feel bad for him, looking back on it as an adult. I was home, and very probably enjoying cookies and milk.
The poor driver had to make another very difficult phone call, shortly followed by the school system calling my mother to very, shamefacedly tell her that. uh. the bus. um. there was a little issue and . . and they had. uh. well. Lost me?? She was able to tell them that I had come home. All was well, really. The bus wasn't even badly hurt, it was back the next morning, picking me up.
Nobody at school would have believed it. Except that both my shoes and the driver's were unaccountably dirty. There were tracks all across the ceiling, ending at the emergency door.
