At 5:00 am, when my alarm goes off, the faces of my bus children are already in my mind’s eye. This is strange to me because most of my day has very little to do with the bus. I pick up my first stop at 6:55 am and deliver at the school at 7:55 am. In the afternoon I pick up my first stop at 2:30 pm and drop my last drop at 3:30 pm. That’s basically just two hours of my day. The rest of the day is running my computer repair business, family affairs, and writing. Yet the faces of my bus kids are there in my head.

During the short time we are together on the bus these kids do things or say things that are like pieces to the puzzle of who they are. Over the days, weeks, and months I get a more complete picture (but never complete) of what makes each child tick. There is one, I’ll call him Eddy, who has caught my eye. He is one of a group of about twenty kids who get on at the Church stop and get off at the elementary school which is the very next stop. I have no assigned seats for them since they are on for less than ten minutes. They just clamber to the back of the bus.

Eddy, a second grader, got my attention by misbehaving. Mind you, most of the kids in the back are loud and boisterous, but Eddy always went too far. I would see him climbing over the seats or hanging out the window. More than once he threw trash out the window. What bothered me most was his telling other kids f*&% You and flipping them off. He only did this when he was mad, but he got mad easily. I had seen him get off the bus after I had asked him to quit climbing over the seats and he would flip me off and say his favorite phrase.

Before you picture an ugly bully of a kid let me tell you that he the cutest little second grader you will ever see. He has dark, fuzzy hair; dark eyes; and a warm smile (when he smiles). I turned him in to the principal once when his imperative sentences (f*&% you) got out of hand. The principal already knew him well. He said he would call him in and talk to him although he was already on detention. It wasn’t long before Eddy’s language was making some of the older kids mad at him, so I turned him into the principal again. The principal, who really seems to love his kids, scratched his head. He told me he had talked to the Eddy and his mom. His mom doesn’t have a car. Throwing him off the bus would be throwing him out of school. I saw the problem. Eddy needs school. I didn’t want to get in the way of his possible progress if there was another way.

I moved Eddie and his brother (I’ll call him Shawn) to the front of the bus. I didn’t think for a moment Eddy would quit using his language just because he was up by me, but it would limit who heard him. To my surprise Eddie and Shawn seemed happy to be in front. They often had verbal altercations with the kids in the back. Shawn would tell me stories about the cars he is going to own when he grows up. Eddie was quiet, but when he spoke I heard a sweet, high voice of a typical second grader. Other than his favorite phrase I had never heard him speak before. I didn’t get to know him well, but I started seeing the little boy that he was. Surprisingly I never heard him swear once during the few weeks he was up front. He showed me his Hot Wheels cars and shot me his winning smile more than once.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. Shawn would bully Eddie sometimes when Eddie didn’t do what he wanted. I saw them fight more than once. Usually it was heated wrestling, but once I saw them exchange punches. Eddy won when he bit Shawn on the hand. Shawn, who is much bigger than Eddie, complained that Eddie was acting like a first grader. I was driving during this and by the time I got stopped they were best friends again.

The other day Eddie’s teacher followed Eddie onto the bus after school. She sat with him in the front seat while the other kids boarded. She had a quiet chat with him while he sat with an angry pout on his face. As she left she said,

“I’m sorry. Anything could happen. Anything.”

I wasn’t really sure what she was talking about, but I could guess that she was dealing in the classroom with the behavior I had seen on the bus before I moved him. The next day Shawn got on and told me that Eddie wouldn’t be getting on.

“They threw him out of school. He was kicking chairs over and flipping everyone off.”

I learned Eddie had to complete an anger management class before they will let him back in school. I feel bad for the teacher. I feel bad for Eddie. I feel relieved that a potential problem is off the bus. I feel bad for feeling that way. Life can be so conflicting.

It’s true, I don’t see the kids very long each day, but they still work their way into my life.