On The Bus

Everyone was bowling. The church youth group had swarmed off the bus and into Greenwood Lanes and began donning bowling shoes and selecting their bowling balls. The youth pastor had just ordered the pizzas. This was the youth Christmas party.

Robert was home from the Air Force on leave and had come with his brother to this event. He remembered a few of the kids from when he still lived at home. He hadn’t been away for much more than a year, but he no longer felt a part of this group. He knew he was practically a stranger now.

His brother’s friends accepted him readily enough. He found himself on a bowling team, but not with his brother. This team was still looking for someone to play. Robert saw a girl from the bus already bowling alone.

“Why don’t we get her to play?” asked Robert.

“Her? No,” said one of the guys, “She’s a slut.”

Robert looked at the girl again. She seemed so young. She did have a little too much eye make up on as the so called “sluts” from his high school days would wear, but something didn’t ring true with that blanket assessment in his mind.

He took it upon himself to invite her to play on the team. No one objected, but no one talked to her except Robert.

He found out she was only twelve years old, and after more conversation, he found that she had run away from home more than once. Not wanting to make her uncomfortable by coming off as a counselor of some sort, he continued to talk with her about her likes and dislikes and she seemed to enjoy the bowling.

After that, she stayed close to Robert, and he included her in everything he did.

When the night was concluded and the bus was being loaded, Robert allowed the girl to sit with him in his seat. As he sat with her, he realized that this girl was nothing like “those” kind of girls he knew in school. She had to be lonely and could be trying to reach out for any kind of relationship.

Robert remembered his own lonely moments and took her hand in his. They sat together that way in silence as the bus took them home in the night.

At one point on the return trip, the girl turned to Robert and asked, “Where do you live?”

Immediately, Robert had a picture in his mind of this sweet girl turning up on his doorstep in the middle of the night. “Why do you want to know?”

She didn’t say anything and looked down into her lap.

“It’s okay,” said Robert. “I am in the Air Force, and I’ll be going to Italy in a few days that’s all.”

They continued to sit together until the bus arrived at the church and everyone went their separate ways. It was a brief and shy goodbye, and she was gone.

Robert breathed a small prayer. “Lord, I feel for that girl.”