Shades of Milton

  A Schenectady kindergartener was temporarily lost the other day.  Her mother had put her on the schoolbus, but at the end of the day the child didn't get off.  The mom called the school, and she was told her daughter had not been in school that day and she should call the police. Some time later the child arrived safely home.  She had been at the wrong school.  Today the school superintendent explained how it had happened:   something about substitute bus drivers not familiar with each child, something about how the busses all line up in the same spot but go to different schools, something about how it's necessary for parents to know which bus their child should take, and so on.  The explanation as to how the girl wasn't detected at the other school:  the teacher was expecting a new student, and this child "assumed the identity" of that one, even writing that child's name on her papers throughout the day.  Wait a minute-----the girl must be a genius to be able to write a name she'd just heard, though I don't know what that name is, maybe very simple, but still, a kindergarten student?   Moreover, what about the new student who didn't show up as expected?  Didn't anyone from the school check to find out why?  She could have been "lost" and it wouldn't have been discovered until the end of the school day.  There is so much I don't understand.
     Probably most parents have temporarily lost a child or two a time or two, and it's always a very unsettling experience.  When my youngest child started kindergarten,  the routine was for him to get off the schoolbus at his Nana's house, because I substituted many days and could not reliably count on getting home before the bus arrived to deposit him.  One fine September day, I was at my mother's house waiting for him to get off the bus. We were sitting in the back yard with a clear view of the area where the bus stopped.  The bus pulled up, waited a brief time, and then took off.  No Danny had emerged.  I ran to my car and drove home, thinking maybe the bus would stop there.  But it didn't! Back down to the house. No news.  I drove over to the school, found his classroom teacher, who said he'd gotten on the bus as usual.  There were 3 kindergarten buses at the time, and it was the time before mobile phones.  The principal checked; the other 2 buses, with shorter routes, had returned, so he hadn't gotten on the wrong bus.  Mr. McC, the principal, tried to reassure me by saying they'd never lost a student yet, but at that point I wasn't caring at all about what had happened in the past.   We were in the school parking lot getting ready to get into the principal's car, to search along the route, I guess, when someone from the office called out, saying Danny had been found, at the end of his bus's route.  The bus driver had to drive him back to his stop, and wasn't happy about it.  I remember finally being reunited, with Danny, big-eyed, saying the driver had sworn at him:  "Why the Hell didn't you get off when I called your name?"   Turns out he hadn't because a classmate, Milton, held him by his shirt and told him not to get off. And of course they were too small for the driver to see  them.  But all's well that ends well.  ( N.B. If by chance one of the players in the above drama should read this, there would most likely be a  disclaimer of some sort, but this is a reliable and vetted account as to what happened back in 1982. )