I'm going to try to write another children's short story. I'm writing this short story, from inspiration from my description of Bus 131.
Here's the blog post.
https://gangstalkedcreoleauthor.blogspot.com/2023/01/my-fascination-with-school-buses.html
I'm going to try to make it descriptive, funny, creative & cute.
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Fernando Pacheco, an immigrant from Peru, came to the United States when he was 4 years old & attending preschool. For preschool & kindergarten, his parents brought him to school because they didn't trust anyone, & they want to get familiar with Americans. Fernando learned English pretty quickly.
By the time Fernando started 1st grade, his parents decided to start making him take the school bus. It was the 1st day of school. He was excited to ride the bus with other kids. He didn't care how raggedy it was. He thought it was very cool to ride the bus.
When Fernando got on the old, raggedy, squeaky, falling apart bus, he was mesmerized by the decorations. The entire bus was decorated from ceiling to floor. Inside & out. He didn't care about what decorations were on the ceiling or on the walls. He was fascinated by the different creative designs of the seats. The seats rotated between the colors of green, blue, red, gray & brown. He sat in seat 20 on the left side, at the back of the bus. His particular seat was a blue seat with paintings of dark gray clouds & yellow lightning ⚡, with a dog begging its owner for a bone.
In front of Fernando was seat 19, & the back of seat 19 was a green seat that was decorated so much that the only green spots you saw were the trees. The back of seat 19 had a painting of someone flying a kite during the beginning of Spring. He wondered what was on the front of seat 19 & the back of seat 20 (his seat).
When he got to class, he gleefully described the bus to his ESL teacher, Mrs. Wells. He spoke such fluent English that Mrs. Wells felt like he didn't need ESL. She thought he was pretty smart. Mrs. Wells told Fernando to get in front of the class & describe the bus to everyone in both English & Spanish. The class thought that the Spanish version was the funniest.
Fernando described his seat. Another kid, Ramiro Ramirez, who also happened to be his neighbor in his apartment complex, said, "Hey! You ride the same bus as me. The wheels on the bus go 'round & 'round, don't they? Well, I want to say that, on that bus, the seats on the bus go squish, squish, squish whenever we sit on them." Everyone laughed, while Mrs. Wells was blushing.
The class started singing & adding new lyrics, singing, "The seats on the bus go squish squish squish, squish squish squish, squish squish squish! The seats on the bus go squish squish squish! All through the town!" & the kids couldn't help but to laugh.
Mrs. Wells challenged each student to get up in front of the class & sing, "The seats on the bus go squish squish squish", without laughing. Poor kids! None of them won the contest, but everyone got a prize, anyway.
One day, the children went on a field trip to Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles. The assigned bus for the field trip was Fernando's bus.
Mrs. Wells couldn't stop giggling, so the bus driver jokingly said, "You wanna laugh at my bus? How about YOU drive?"
Mrs. Wells said, "I'm up for the challenge, but first, I wanna sit in Ramiro's squishy seat."
Mrs. Wells found Ramiro's seat, which was seat 19. Seat 19 did cave in when Mrs. Wells sat in it. She was a petite, skinny teacher, too. She felt rather confused. She worried for the safety of the children, but the bus driver assured her that the seats were OK.
Mrs. Wells invested in buying a BRAND NEW school bus, with the exact same seat painting colors & decorations, but with seat belts. The kids thought the new school bus looked like a space ship. The school bus became the school's new mascot, & they ditched the old golden retriever mascot.
THE END