Abandoned Bus

“Hey, look at this!” my friend, Cindy, yelped. “It’s an abandoned bus.”

Frannie and I stopped and stared. We were speechless. Right in front of us, hidden in the thick bushes, was a bus—an old broken-down school bus.

“Let’s go inside,” Frannie said.

“No way! It isn’t ours. Besides, someone might be living in there.”

“That would be hard to believe,” whispered Cindy. “The trees are grown all around the bus. You can’t even see the windows.” We walked all around the bus, but the windows were boarded up or covered with thick branches from the trees. Moss was growing on the bumper, and the license plate was covered in mud.

Suddenly, we heard the crackling of twigs breaking as footsteps approached. We ducked, jumping behind a large oak tree. None of us dared to breathe.

A tall, thin man wearing a black trench coat and dark glasses was coming down the path. He had a magnifying glass in his hand, and he was carrying a briefcase. He had a thick mustache and bushy eyebrows.

Without warning, as if he had pressed a magic button, the door of the bus opened, and the man disappeared inside.

Cindy, Frannie, and I all looked at each other. We tiptoed around to the back of the bus and tried to peer in the windows.

“Give me a lift,” whispered Frannie softly. As she looked in the window, she let out a low whistle. “Would you look at that!”