I was a new bus driver. I suppose every bus driver is at one point or another. I was still trying to find the answer of how to control the kids on my bus. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that you can’t. I learned that keeping order on the bus is more like a marriage—you can’t control your spouse, but you can work with him or her for effective (even spectacular) results.

Anyway, before I learned this there was this eight-year-old boy who I swear would be mistaken for twelve-years-old by any one of you due to his size. In the midst of all the noise on the bus there was a particular agitation about four seats back that always caught my attention. It was Steven. I’m not sure what he was up to to cause such a commotion, but he bothered me greatly. I finally moved him to the front passenger seat to separate him from the others. He wasn’t happy about this—at first.

My problem is that instead making kids hate sitting in the front seat for punishment I end up getting to know them and even liking them. I started talking to Steven and found him to be a lively kid with a lively imagination. In the course of our conversation I told him a story. I can’t remember exactly what it was about, but I’m pretty sure it was just some odd news item. He liked the story, or the way I told it, so much that he asked for another, and then another. The next day he sat in the front seat without being told to. He asked for more stories. Within a couple of days I realized he had decided to move to the front seat permanently.

It became apparent I had created trouble for myself. Steven expected stories every day. And not only him, but some of the other kids learned something was going on in the front of the bus. Soon I could sense three faces poking up over the divider behind my seat to listen to my story. Others leaned toward me from the front passenger seat. It became so distracting that I quit telling stories for a while. The kids eventually scattered back to their regular seats. Steven stayed in the front seat. He really liked talking to me stories or not. When he got off the bus he would turn around, stand there and wave until I finally had to quit waving back and shut the door.

Steven still pesters me for stories every day. After the most chaotic part of the route is done I tell him about the Battle of Bunker Hill, the bear story of Old Ephraim, or how Colonel Bernard Fisher won the Congressional Medal of Honor. What’s interesting is that even though he mostly rides in the afternoon on the way home kids who ride in the morning now move to the front and ask for a story. The morning run is so much quieter than the afternoon that it’s easier to tell a story. Because I have more time I tell the morning kids longer stories. I spent a month telling them, chapter by chapter, the story of Joey and the Magic Map, a novel I wrote.

Every morning it was, “Okay, Tory, tell us more.”

I have to remember where we left off, reformulate the chapter for an oral telling and time it for when I dropthem off. It isn’t easy, but on the country roads with the miles in-between stops I can do it. After Joey I told them The Graveyard Book. Then it was the Secret Benedict Society. Other times I just resort to odd news items again or funny stories from my life.

Sometimes, now, some random kid from the middle of the bus will come plop down in the front seat. This usually happens after the majority of the kids are off the bus and we have the long run to the scattered houses out in the fields. It’s usually someone in fourth or fifth grade who is usually too cool for the front of the bus. It’s often one who I have to call out on the intercom to settle down.

“You got a a story?” he will ask.

I’ll come up with something.

The other day it was little Kaye who suddenly appeared in the passenger seat. She usually resides in the middle of the bus, too. I think she is nine. I call her little, and she is only nine, but I have learned there is a certain sophistication to nine-year-olds.

“Can you tell me a story?” she asked.

There was a wistfulness—a hopefulness—in her voice. I think it was the same kind of voice she uses on her father when she wants something. She hadn’t made the trek up front for a couple of months so her appearance surprised me (and pleased me) a little. We had the eight mile drive out to the dairy and there are no more than ten kids on the bus at this point so it was a good time for a story. I told the first chapter of the Graveyard Book again. She hadn’t heard it yet. She, and a couple of other kids who moved forward when they heard me start, listened intently as I told them about the three-year-old boy who wandered up to the graveyard one night and ended up being raised by the ghosts who lived there. I loved the looks on their faces as I glanced in my mirror.

I’m still driving bus. I know there will be a call for more stories. Some days the stories flow easy. Other days the energy level on the bus is too much to tell a story and I have to tell the asker no. Those are bad days. But after those stormy days the rainbow comes out and a child will appear in the passenger seat and ask casually, like he doesn’t really care, “You got a story?”

And I can answer, “Why yes. Yes I do.”