The limited stop flashed by, leaving behind it an impression of well-scrubbed faces and a wake of rushing September air. Then the 72X came into sight on the brow of the hill and, for one moment it seemed as if it would hover there indefinitely. But, amidst a crashing of gears and a cloud of diesel fumes, the aged Crossley engine reasserted itself and the boy found he had to run for the bus as it shuddered to a halt at the bus stop known as Blackley Library that was located halfway along the convent wall.
He stepped aboard the inclined platform and clung to the rail at the foot of the stairs, a school satchel across his shoulders, a cap set squarely upon his head, the angle of his body indicating his intention of ascending to the upper deck.
‘Free pass is it, Einstein?’ said the bus guard good-humouredly, winking pointedly at an elderly woman with a blue rinse, perched a little uncomfortably, it seemed, on the rear seat nearest the bell with a brace of shopping bags taking up the seat to the side of her. The guard scrutinised the plastic wallet the boy held ready in his hand and, reaching behind him without looking, located the bell, pressing it twice for the driver to proceed. ‘Right you are, then,’ he said as the bus got under way again, adding just loud enough for the people on the lower deck to share his good humour: ‘But think on, son. No smokin’ that dark shag of yours up there. I’ve a terrible chest this mornin’.’
Somebody towards the front of the lower deck laughed and one or two adult faces inclined themselves towards him and smiled. He was always good for a laugh George Ponden. (None of the passengers knew the guard’s name, of course, but they knew the face.) He was the one who would sing a selection of Josef Locke songs when the mood took him and who had been known to do ‘Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ on the school bus in season. But the boy felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment and, as the bus lurched into motion, he clattered up the stairs as fast as he could, tumbling into the unoccupied back seat for fear that, had the interchange on the lower deck been funnelled, like himself, up the stairwell and past the reflection-distorting mirror at the head of it, the passengers on the upper deck might burst into ribald laughter upon his appearance there.