Baartock

by Laura Dent Crane

  Chapter 11

  Mrs. Jackson had a lot to talk about with his mother, when they got tohis home. They had talked all morning and now they were talking somemore. He had wanted to tell his father about the bridge, but he wasn'thome yet. So he had to sit and listen to Mrs. Jackson and his mother.When they started talking about lunch money, he remembered how veryhungry he was, and went to get something to eat. They were stilltalking about money when he finished eating. They agreed on a price andMrs. Jackson got one of the small silver coins with some of her 'new'coins, and he could use some of those 'new' coins to buy milk and fruitat lunch time. And he could bring his own lunch. He was glad of that,because he didn't like the humans' food. Then they talked about theschool bus. He wasn't very sure that he was going to like being on theschool bus. Mrs. Jackson had explained the 'Rules for Riding theSchool Bus', which was the name on a piece of paper she gave to hismother. There were so many things he couldn't do on the bus. One ofthe rules was 'No whistling'. When he asked her what whistling was,she puckered up her mouth and made a strange sound. 'No bird noises',Baartock decided.

  "Just behave like you did in my car today," she said, "and you won'thave any problem. You'll like Mr. Barnes."

  Very early next morning, Baartock was standing by the side of the roadwhen the yellow school bus drove up. He was holding his pencil box anda bag with his lunch. Mrs. Jackson had shown him a place that shethought would be a safe spot to stand and wait for the bus. It wasn'tright by the driveway to the 'old Howard house', but it wasn't right bythe stream bed and the path he used to come down to the road, either.

  The bus made a screeching noise as it came to a stop right in front ofhim.

  "OK. Come on up. Thought I'd you'd be closer to the house," Mr.Barnes said in a loud voice, when he opened the bus door. Then heshouted, "OK. New customer today. Which seat can I sell him. I thinkthis one," he said, pointing at a seat for just one person right in thefront of the bus. There was one very big boy sitting in the seat."Gabe, you've been pretty good this week. Find yourself a new seat."

  "Aw, Mr. Barnes, do I have to?"

  "Go on now. Find a seat, before we're late getting to school." Gabegathered up his books and moved back to the middle of the bus and satnext to another big boy, and Baartock sat on the empty front seat. Helooked around for the seat belt, as he started driving down the road.

  "What's the matter? Got ants in your pants?" Mr. Barnes asked, whenhe saw Baartock squirming.

  "No," Baartock said. He didn't have ants anywhere. He asked, "No seatbelt?" Mr. Barnes was using one.

  "No," was the answer. "They say that they're going to put seat beltsin the all the busses. Maybe by the time you're in high school. Youjust stay in your seat, and I'll drive carefully."

  The bus went on down the road, stopping to pick up children waiting bythe road. Soon there were a lot of kids on the bus. Mr. Barnes kepttalking to Baartock all the time he was driving. In fact, he wastalking to everyone on the bus, he was talking so loudly. Much of whathe said didn't make any sense to Baartock, but the kids laughed at someof the things he said. Soon, Mr. Barnes turned the bus onto anotherroad.

  "School that way," Baartock said loudly, pointing down the other road."Nice try, kid. I know you're in a hurry to get to school, but we'vegot to go to the high school first."

  "We can go to the grade school first!" came a shout from the back ofthe bus.

  "The mall! A field trip to the mall," someone else shouted.

  "Some other day," Mr. Barnes shouted back. They went on down this roadfor quite a while. They went right past some children standing by theside of the road.

  "They're waiting for a different bus," Mr. Barnes explained toBaartock. "It'll be along soon."

  Very soon after that, the bus pulled off the road into a parking lot,in front of a building much larger than the school Baartock was goingto. The parking lot was filled with cars, and humans were walking tothe building. There were six or seven big yellow school busses linedup in front of the building and lots of big kids were getting off.

  "OK, high school, you students of higher education. Off!" called Mr.Barnes, as he pulled up really closely behind the last bus. All thebig kids got out of their seats and came up to the front of the bus toget off. There were more busses lining up behind Mr. Barnes' bus, butthey weren't letting anyone off.

  There were still a lot of smaller children on the bus, when Mr. Barnesclosed the door.

  "Next stop, Marvis T. Johnson Elementary School," announced Mr. Barnes.But they didn't go anywhere. They had to wait for the bus in front ofthem to pull off. Baartock could see inside the bus in front of them.The big kids were getting off very slowly. The woman driving that busseemed to be talking to each of them as they got off.

  "She must have had some trouble with them," Mr. Barnes said. "We never have any trouble on this bus, do we?" he said very loudly.

  "No!" several kids shouted back.

  Most of the busses in the front of the school building haddriven off. Several more busses from behind them pulled around, andparked up ahead. They waited a little longer, then finally the bus infront drove off. And they drove off too.

  They didn't go back the way they had come. They turned onto anotherroad, and drove for a long way, past a lot of houses, until theyfinally turned toward the school. Baartock asked Mr. Barnes why theywere going such a long way.

  "It's shorter this way," was his reply. "I've been coming this way foryears."

  "No," said Baartock. "Other way shorter. We be school, go this far."

  They drove for a little while longer, then they finally got to school.There were other busses lined up in front when Mr. Barnes stopped thebus and they got off.

  "See you all this afternoon," Mr. Barnes said, as they were getting off.

  This was the first time Baartock had gotten to school in the morningbefore it started. No-one seemed to be going inside. Jerry, ablack-haired kid who had played tag, was getting off the next bus infront. He saw Baartock and came running over.

  "Want to go to the playground?" he asked.

  They went around the building to the playground. Jason was alreadythere, and they raced a couple of times, then they went over andclimbed on the jungle gym. They were just sitting at the top when thebell rang. A lot of the children ran to the building and went inside.

  "That's only the first bell," said Jerry. "We've got lots of time."So they sat for a while longer, until Jason started to get down.

  "I'm going in," he said. And all three of them went into theclassroom, just as the bell rang again.