Bus of Ages

I note a number of superb bloggers get their muse whilst taking a ride on the bus. Apparently, this is a rich seam of human anthracite in the bedrock of society, ripe for the mining, ready to be thrown on the fire of blogging to warm the hearths of . . . well, you get the drift.

On the bus are people to write about.

We are a one car family and, apparently, I'm not allowed to take the kids to school on the motorbike no matter how much duct tape I use. Because of this, I must resort to the bus when the wife goes off on her little hobby of being a state-registered nurse.

So, after a morning spent wrangling a 4 year-old boy off his trampoline and wrestling a 1 year-old girl into her tights, off we go to the bus stop, which is just round the corner.

"What do we do now, daddy?" my son asks.

"Now," I narrow my eyes, look to the horizon and put on my Ray Bans. "We wait."

And wait we do. Past the time the bus is due, which is pretty much normal. Past, in fact, the time my boy is supposed to start school, which is also not uncommon.

My daughter pulls my Aviators off my face and licks the lenses. If she breaks them that'll be another twenty quid on ebay wasted.

Eventually, just as I'm about to give the school a ring to say we'll be forty minutes late because I'm going to have to walk there at the pace of a small boy, the public transport device hoves into view round the corner. It is elderly, and erratically driven, and about as aerodynamic as a sofa. It meanders down the road like a brick being pushed by a dog, hissing to a stop in front of me, a cloud of oily smoke arriving at about the same time.

"New model?" I ask the driver, conversationally. He turns his head slowly to look at me, then his left eye, and then his right one. His brow furrows, and he glances desperately at the signs on the wall. From past experience I know he is looking for the "Do Not Distract The Driver With Pleasantries Or Queries About The Age Of The Vehicle" sign, but they have been taken off because people want friendly drivers, not automatons. Unfortunately, they got neither.

All he can see are signs that say "DayRider Ticket - £3.50" and "Work For Us; Good Wages And All The Used Chewing Gum You Can Scrape From Under The Seats", so he is forced to interact.

"Uh . . ." he says.

"Single to the school, please." I say, putting him out of my misery.

"Uh . . ." he looks at the children, his mind wrestling with the concept of three people on a single ticket. I enlighten him that they are free because the company's own policy allows under-fives to travel gratis.

"Uh . . . wanton." He mumbles.

"Oh . . .kay . .?" I wonder how to respond to this, before my brain translates it into 'one pound and ten pence'. I consider giving him a tenner to see if he might explode, but the bus is late enough already so I hand over the correct change. Wanton.

By now, my son has managed to sit at the back next to a window, so I join him. Next to us, a kid in a hoodie, looking like he's trying to be cool, quiet and mysterious, looks at me, grins widely and says "Hello!"

"Hello." I say back, settling in.

"I have to go on this bus to school now because I've got to go to a new school, because it's further away, do you go on this bus a lot, because if you do I might see you, because I'll be on it every day, so I hope it's not too busy, but it was the only school that will take me, even after my tablet, where are you going to, do you know why I have to go to a new school?" He takes a deep breath in.

ADHD I immediately think, and we begin a conversation about the emergency exits, and about how a very fat person wouldn't be able to get out, about how he doesn't like his new school, or being twelve, and a load of other subjects in between.

"Have you heard of ADHD?" he asks me at one point. "They give you tablets, and you get these lessons where . . ." he actually looks quite perplexed at that point, almost sad. "I have to go to a new school," He concludes.

"I have." I say. I decide to confront the subject head on. "Got any hobbies?" I ask.

"Er . . ." His eyes flash left and right, trying to recall. "No!" He announces proudly.

"Get some." I tell him. "And do you like writing?"

"Yeah." He says, enthusiastically, "English! That's not so bad! I'm good at spelling"

"Get a note book and a pen." I say. "Write a load of stuff down. Don't show it anyone unless you want to. See how much you can write in one day, starting with who you saw in the bus."

"Why?"

"Helps with the ADHD." I say, "Maybe.

"Does it?" He asks, and I can see the expressions on his face chase the thoughts in his head, like watching the ripples on a pond made by a fast moving pike beneath.

"Yeah." I think about my own notebooks from those days. "I think it does."

Our stop arrives and we say goodbye. I gather my son up, preventing him from trying to touch the blackheads on an elderly chap's enormous ears on the seat in front of him.

In front of my son, not the elderly chap, because ears like that would be worth writing about.

We get off and, amazingly, aren't the last to arrive at school. My boy, the epitome of young confidence and wonderful carelessness, legs it into his classroom without even a backward glance.

Those notebooks are long gone, as are my school days, but I recall I always had a backward glance.