The Route 51 bus circulates between our town and two others. In Port City, the end of the line, it loops a figure eight before starting the return route, which makes it seem like you encounter the bus everywhere you turn. For this reason, Husband calls it the “Ghost Bus.” When we see it around town, we shriek, “Yikes! It’s the Ghost Bus,” in true Scooby-Doo fashion.

Recently I was casting about for something to do with the boys and thought it would be fun to take a ride on the Ghost Bus. When I told Minor of my plan, the first thing he said was, “It’s not too scary for me?” My heart sank a bit, because he is sensitive to things that are potentially frightening, and I didn’t want him to panic aboard the Ghost Bus. We jollied him over it and, after missing the bus once and having to run a quarter-mile for it on the second try (they had changed the route), he enjoyed the ride immensely.

In general I try to avoid talk of monsters and ghosts. I figure, they already have a hundred and one reasons why they don’t sleep; there’s no need to add “fear of things that go bump in the night” to that list. Aitch is not afraid of ghosts and monsters, but he likes to play ghosts and consequently Minor is terrified. Minor frequently claims to see ghosts in our living room, and then we have to help him battle them with magic swords (sound effects: “Ching, ching, BLEAAAAAH”–that’s the ghost dying).

If this were a movie, Minor’s ghost sightings would be followed by strange disturbances that would eventually become too blatant to be denied by even the adults, but we are non-believers so in this house the dead remain at rest. Since the house is over a hundred years old and used to be a nursing home, there have probably been a few deaths on the premises, but until I have evidence to the contrary I’m going to assume that it’s the living-room wallpaper giving Minor the heebie-jeebies, and not specters of the walking dead.