The Chicken Bus

At twenty to five on a cold Wednesday morning in January, Yesenia climbed onto the first chicken bus of the day. It was an old American school bus, painted bright red and green. She had a math exam at seven at the teachers' college in San Francisco El Alto, and she had stayed up until midnight going over her notes. Her grandmother had walked her to the road with a flashlight and a warm tamale wrapped in a cloth. While Yesenia was looking for a seat, her grandmother stopped at the door and said something to the driver.

The bus was almost empty. She sat down near the back and started going over equations again. The engine was roaring, the windows were rattling, and cold air was coming in through a crack in the glass. Little by little, the numbers on the page began to swim.

When she opened her eyes, the sky was turning grey and the engine was off. The seats were empty, and the driver was walking down the aisle. She was at the terminal in Quetzaltenango, at the end of the route, more than half an hour past her stop.

She jumped up. Her phone said 6:05. The exam started in less than an hour, and a taxi back would cost much more than the few coins in her pocket. "Why didn't anybody wake me up?" she asked, and her voice cracked on the last word.

The driver was a heavy man with a grey moustache. He looked at her for a long moment, and then he slapped his forehead. "You're Rosario's granddaughter, aren't you? She asked me to wake you up in San Francisco, and I forgot all about it. She's going to kill me. Anyway, my first trip back doesn't leave until half past seven, and there's nobody else on board. Sit down."

He pulled out of the terminal and turned the empty bus around. On the way back, he drove faster than he had driven all morning, honking at every curve. Yesenia went over her notes one last time, wide awake now. At 6:48, the bus pulled up in front of the teachers' college. "Good luck with your exam," the driver called out. "And tell your grandmother I did my job, more or less." Yesenia ran up the steps with her grandmother's tamale still wrapped in its cloth in her bag.