About six years ago I wrote a blog post about the last girl on the bus. That was during my first six months as a bus driver when I was still a substitute. I can still see that girl’s face when she looked up at me from her book and surprised me by still being on the bus when I was checking for sleepers. That girl is gone now. She is married and school bus rides are long behind her. Other girls have taken her place on the bus. One gets off last.
Liesl just started riding the bus. Her mother moved to Nephi a few months into the school year and brought her two daughters with her. Liesl gets on in the dark of the winter mornings at the first stop. She rides for thirty miles and then gets off at the high school. In the afternoon she gets on at the high school, rides for thirty miles, and then gets off where she got on in the morning, only now it is the last stop.
Liesl could walk to school in much less time than it takes to ride the bus. She doesn’t because many parents today don’t believe it’s safe for their children to walk to school, and it’s probably also because kids today don’t see walking as a desirable thing to do. So, for whatever reason, Liesl takes a long ride morning and afternoon.
I certainly don’t mind having Liesl on the bus. I can’t think of any bus driver who wouldn’t classify her as the perfect passenger. Liesl is twelve years old and in 7th grade. She is pretty with blue eyes and long brown hair. She takes care in the way she dresses. The way she walks reminds me of girls from the 1950’s who have been to a prep school—her back is straight and she carries her books in her arms up against her chest.
I notice that when Liesl gets off at the school in the morning she walks alone to the building. I take that as a sign of strength and independence. Most of the other girls who get off—good girls—walk in groups and might not know what to do if they found themselves alone. At night so many kids get on and the middle school that I often don’t see Liesl among the crowd.
It isn’t until the last eight to ten kids get off way out at the dairy that Liesl suddenly appears. When the last voice says good-bye to me I’ll see her get up out of the middle seats and move up to the seat right behind mine. I’m glad she does this because I often forget she is there. Once I was nearly back to the bus compound before I noticed her.
I typically have a bag of mini-candy bars on my bus as treats for kids who complete requirements for little games we play. I always have to resist the temptation to dig into those candy bars myself after I drop the final big group of kids at the dairy. Anymore, when it’s just Liesl and me on the five mile ride to her stop, I can’t resist pulling a couple of candy bars out and offering her one. To my delight she has the grace to happily accept. We don’t talk much because her voice is quiet and I can’t make out her words over the ruckus the bus makes. Instead, we drive in silence eating our chocolate until I pull up at The Last Stop. I usually call out “Last Stop” over the intercom even though she is the only one on the bus and sitting right behind me.
It usually takes her a few moments to gather her things after we stop. That’s because she is usually lost in a book or some content on her iPad and doesn’t realize we have arrived already. Then she will get up, give me a slight smile without quite meeting my eyes in the mirror, and start down the stairs. Even though she is only twelve, she is self-possessed and appears to feel quite mature. Her ‘hop’ off the bottom step to the road betrays the young girl she still is. She hops every time. In my rearview mirror, as I start to pull away, I see her make her way up the sidewalk to where she turns the corner.
She’ll grow up and move on into adulthood never realizing the dash of color she added to my life.
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