Revenge on Bus 537

Revenge on Bus 537 by Anthony Rain Starez
The dependable yellow dot approaches from as far as your eyes can see, right down County Road 25....the yellow grows bigger and bigger until school bus 537 stops directly in front of the entrance to the Andersons' farm. It's just another school day, and the 15 or 20 eighth-graders board the bus looking like they are being shipped off to labor camp. Estelle Goodings greets each child with a smile and a "Good Morning," but rarely is she reciprocated with more than a mumble. 'But it's okay,' Ms. Goodings thinks to herself, 'they're only children.' Besides, Ms. Goodings was used to the temperaments of kids, why she'd been driving this same bus route for 25 years...and only late picking the children up a handful of times because of weather conditions or mechanical problems. In years past Ms. Goodings had met good kids along with bad, but there was something different about this group of youngsters. They seemed to feed off each other's wickedness, at times the bus would become a rolling nightmare of screams, fights, book throwing and teasing. Sometimes this teasing was directed at Ms. Goodings herself. There were days Ms. Goodings would be in tears due to the unusually cruel remarks thrown at her from the pack of children, things like, "You're ugly...that's why you have no man." or "Where'd you learn to drive old lady?" Ms. Goodings did all she could to control the young beasts, but the bus ride was over an hour each way to and from school, and the kids would work themselves up into a fever pitch.
	It was January, and half the school year was over, however, Ms. Goodings' mental health was deteriorating under the increased pressure of teasing from the children.
It's appropriate to say the kids had become vicious, and were now focusing their hostilities toward the 60-year-old bus driver. Each day was becoming a living hell to Ms. Goodings...the kinder she acted, the more blood the children would draw with their words!! The situation was debilitating, and Ms. Goodings was becoming a different person. Showing all the clinical signs of high-stress, she wasn't sleeping at nights, she took up smoking and she was looking unkempt. Friends would ask her what was wrong, but Ms. Goodings would only sneer and say, "Nothing." Truth was Ms. Goodings was a prideful person and couldn't admit to herself that these children were doing evil things to her, or that she couldn't handle the situation even if they were. Furthermore, there were things about Estelle Goodings, the person, that people didn't know. As a child she was tormented by an abusive alcoholic father, his negative remarks would cut her deeper than any knife could, leaving Estelle with emotional scars for life. But somehow through years of grieving and dealing with her painful childhood Estelle had finally left the past behind...she'd never married and became known as a tender woman who loved children. She was quick with a smile, yet kept mostly to herself. And so on this morning after picking up her last load of kids there was an eerie calm about Ms. Goodings, she smiled to herself as the bus full of children began a hurtful chant: "We Hate The Bus Driver Bus Drivers SUCK Bus Drivers SUCK Bus Drivers SUCK" Ms. Goodings looked in her mirror to see Sammy Watkins giving her the middle finger, there was Julia Patton making a face at her, then she felt something hit her in the head...a pencil or erasure, she thought. In Estelle's mind she could hear her father screaming at her to get inside the house for her spanking, and more. The fear inside that little girl was now inside the woman. Ms. Goodings became dizzy, her head pounded, the noise was that of a freight train. Her foot pushed the accelerator to the floor. They say the bus was doing 70 miles per hour when Ms. Goodings steered over the double yellow lines head on into the path of a tractor trailer, but no one really knows. There were no survivors! Thirty-five children, Ms. Goodings and the truck driver all met their end that disastrous morning.
	In an effort to explain the most tragic day in Nebraska history, some people say it was a freak accident caused by misjudgment. The weather has been mentioned as the culprit. Falling asleep at the wheel was another. Others just shake their heads in bewilderment, but all agree it was a terrible tragedy. The tragedy runs deep!