"No," Baartock said. He didn't have ants anywhere. He asked, "No seat belt?" Mr. Barnes was using one.
"No," was the answer. "They say that they're going to put seat belts in the all the busses. Maybe by the time you're in high school. You just stay in your seat, and I'll drive carefully."
The bus went on down the road, stopping to pick up children waiting by the road. Soon there were a lot of kids on the bus. Mr. Barnes kept talking to Baartock all the time he was driving. In fact, he was talking to everyone on the bus, he was talking so loudly. Much of what he said didn't make any sense to Baartock, but the kids laughed at some of the things he said. Soon, Mr. Barnes turned the bus onto another road.
"School that way," Baartock said loudly, pointing down the other road. "Nice try, kid. I know you're in a hurry to get to school, but we've got to go to the high school first."
"We can go to the grade school first!" came a shout from the back of the bus.
"The mall! A field trip to the mall," someone else shouted.
"Some other day," Mr. Barnes shouted back. They went on down this road for quite a while. They went right past some children standing by the side of the road.
"They're waiting for a different bus," Mr. Barnes explained to Baartock. "It'll be along soon."
Very soon after that, the bus pulled off the road into a parking lot, in front of a building much larger than the school Baartock was going to. The parking lot was filled with cars, and humans were walking to the building. There were six or seven big yellow school busses lined up in front of the building and lots of big kids were getting off.
"OK, high school, you students of higher education. Off!" called Mr. Barnes, as he pulled up really closely behind the last bus. All the big kids got out of their seats and came up to the front of the bus to get off. There were more busses lining up behind Mr. Barnes' bus, but they weren't letting anyone off.