Every morning I drive to school by bus. There are never many people on it - it's just too early. Just the poor guys having to stand up at five and taking the bus at 6.
It's quite funny, because I know every person. Not personally, but I see them every day. And everyone has his own special seat in the bus. Like a Rize, a young woman. She sits right behind the door, always listening to music. Or Bob. Left middle row. I don't know their names, I just call them that. I have nicknames for every one of the seven persons.
I call one of them Yoko. She's a girl, roughly 16 years old, driving to school. Her seat is in the middle, a row before Bob. She sleeps in the bus. She brings her own little pillow with her and props it against the window and sleeps on the bus. I actually gathered the courage to talk to her once. She told me that she can't sleep at night, due to personal reasons, so she's doing it at daytime. This spread quite quickly between us bus-people and we all knew why Yoko was sleeping. Rize stopped listening to loud music and instead played calming piano music or used earbuds. Josy actually brought her a blanket in winter when she had seen that Yoko couldn't sleep due to the cold. I love this. I love this courage of a stranger for a stranger.
But the best ever happening was two weeks ago. Some drunk guys got on the bus, yelling loudly and blabbering. The driver sighed and pretended not to hear anything. A few moments later, Bob got up and told them to be quiet. They insulted him and kept blabbering. Thomas repeated Bob. Nothing happened. They noticed Yoko, trying to sleep and started insulting her, too. When they stepped up and wanted to shake her awake, Bob grabbed one of them by the jacket. He hissed at him to let the girl sleep. They didn't stop. Rize got up. The conflict escalated, and the bus driver threw the guys out of the bus. We never saw them again.
Next day, Yoko brought a chocolate bar and shared it with us all. She thanked us for standing up for her.
I love our little bus-driving-party.