The Night Bus Student
A free B1-level English story for language learners, readable online in 4 languages, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
A night bus driver notices a tired teenager studying chemistry on his bus and finds a quiet way to help her.
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Ingo has driven the night bus for six years. He knows most of his regular passengers by their habits. The loudest is a man who sings along to his headphones. The quietest is a teenage girl who gets on at half past eleven.
She always sits under the third light, the weak one that flickers. In her lap is a stack of flashcards. Ingo can see her in the mirror above his seat. She wears a restaurant apron under her jacket, and she looks tired. The cards are covered in chemistry: formulas, tiny drawings of molecules, long words he can't pronounce.
He has never spoken to her. A driver who chats with a teenager late at night might seem strange. So he only nods when she steps on, and she nods back.
Tonight her stack of cards is thicker than usual. She taps each one against her knee and sometimes shakes her head at herself. Ingo has a daughter of his own, and he thinks, She has a test coming. After the fourth stop, the girl's hand slows down. After the sixth, the cards slide onto the seat, and her head rests against the window.
Ingo looks from the road to the mirror and back again. If he stops the bus to wake her, he will scare her. If he lets her sleep, she will ride past her stop and walk back in the cold. He decides to wait for the right moment.
At the corner by the bakery, one stop before hers, he brakes gently. "Excuse me," he says in his calmest voice. "Your stop is next."
She jumps, gathers her cards, and stares at him. "Thank you," she whispers. "I have an exam at eight. I should have gone to bed hours ago."
"Then go to bed now," Ingo says. "And good luck."
She hurries off the bus and up the street. Ingo watches her go. Then he reaches for the small dial that controls the lights over the seats. He usually keeps it low so that tired people can rest. He turns it up.
The next night, the girl climbs on at half past eleven and stops beside the third seat. The light above it is bright and steady. She looks at it, then at Ingo's mirror, and takes out her flashcards. Ingo nods and starts the engine.
