The bus jerked to a sudden halt at the stop, the driver having seen the girl’s ever-so-belatedly outstretched hand at the very last moment. He opened the doors; she stepped back.
“Are you getting on?”
“Sorry, wrong bus.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Sorry. I misread the number.” And she turned to walk away.
But she hadn’t bargained for the officers of the Transport Authority Police Service, ordering her to turn around. “You seem to be stopping a lot of buses this afternoon, young lady.”
For they’d had complaints, see. She’d been there making mischief for the past hour or more, forcing every passing service to pull to a stop at the very last minute.
‘Wilfully endangering the travelling public’ was the charge. The punishment? A fine, perhaps, or a few days at the Re-Education Centre. Well, that – and there’d be the call they would place to her father, who’d no doubt be quite dismayed at his daughter’s misconduct and arrest.
Or… They could deal with the matter back at the police station. In one of the cells. In private. No forms filled in; no record of the incident. Other than the stripes, which would no doubt continue to teach her a lesson every time she sat down for the coming week…
(This story is a true account of my journey to work one morning last week. At least, it’s true to start with. It rather veers off at a certain point!)
Ahhhhh….. discipline. That’s the way I like it.