School Bus Story

When Barb was five, the family were living by a salt water inlet. Her dad maintained and hired out fishing boats. Barb’s mum had just given birth to her fourth child and was more or less housebound. This meant that from the very start of school, a year some call “prep”, Barb had to catch the school bus to get to the town’s school.

Brave little Barb would be dropped off at the highway bus stop to wait there with the bigger children till the bus arrived. When the bus did arrive, a few bigger boys would grab her school bag and keep it off her. This happened numerous times. They would hurl Barb’s little school bag into the long grass behind the bus stop. As all the other children clambered aboard the bus, Barb was scrummaging about in the grass, which was as tall as she was, looking for her bag. Somehow she always managed to make it back before the bus departed. This was a painful ritual she quietly endured at the hands of the bigger boys who thought it was such fun. This was something that Barb never talked about till much later.