Bus

My family is walking to the bus. The road has many cars on it so I must keep the two-year-old, the three-year-old, and the four-year-old off the road. Mama is pushing the baby in his pram. It is warm today, but there are many clouds in the grey sky. Maybe it will rain. I can see the sea down the hill, grey with white choppy waves. We hold hands and walk past the shops with signs on their windows and people sitting at tables, drinking coffee. Cars drive past in gulps and hiccups. 

Today is my first ever bus trip. The bus will drive us to A1 Play Zone where we will play Mini Golf. Our Mama has promised us all a toy.

It is important to know your address. Mine is three Sapphire Coast Drive, Sandy Beach, New South Wales, Australia, the World, the Universe. Our old home was on the sea too. As I walk, I look at the great big sky and the great big sea. I feel dizzy, thinking of how big the world is.  
The bus stop is one hundred and fifty-two steps from our new house. I know this because I counted. I am a good counter, the best in my class at my new school. Mama helped me when I got past thirty.  

Our new sea has whales swimming in it. Humpback whale mothers with their calves. The calves drink milk from their mothers, just like our baby does. The whales are on their way home to Antarctica. These are facts I learnt at my new school.
We can see the whales from our house. They jump up into the air and crash back into the water. That is called breaching. They also spurt air into the sky from their blowhole and slap their white flippers on the sea. 

Slap, slap, slap. 

Sometimes they dive down and I see their tails sticking up into the sky. 

This is a secret. Sometimes the whales talk to me. Mostly the calves. They talk in their own words but I can understand. Today, a calf tells me, “Mama protects me. I feel safe.” I nod my head but do not know what to say. I am big. My Mama relies on me. I must be responsible. 
“Hurry up, Dina. Stop daydreaming.” Mama says. “If you want to go to A1 Play Zone, I will need your help. You must be responsible, sweetheart.”

Here we are at the Bus Stop. Bus 891 stops at the bus stop with a roar and a grunt. It is a big, white and blue bus with many wheels and blue seats. The bus driver has no hair. I am in charge of getting the tickets. I ask the bus driver with no hair for “One adult and five children to A1 Play Zone, please,” and give him the money. 

 (My mother hasn’t learnt English yet. Too many babies, she says.)

I hop from leg to leg, dancing and singing, The wheels on the bus go round and round. This is a song I learnt at my new school. The bus driver with no hair smiles at me. He likes my song. 
“I will get a tiny doll,” I explain.

An old lady with a purple blouse and purple hair like fairy floss is sitting on the seat behind the driver with no hair. She smiles. “That’s nice, dear.”

I smile back. I am seven years old. Mama has entrusted buying the tickets to me. But it is a hot day, and my hands are sweaty. Are my wet hands crumpling the tickets? I open my fist to look. No, they are still beautiful and blue. I squeeze my fist hard. Better not drop them. 

I pull up my new white socks with lace on the top and turn back to help the little ones climb the steps. I hold onto the rail. My other hand grips the two-year-old’s hand. His other hand holds onto the hand of the three-year-old. The three-year-old’s other hand is held tightly by the four-year-old. We all climb in. 

The bus driver helps our mother park the pram in the front of the bus. Mama carries our baby to the back where there is a row of empty seats. For once, our baby isn’t crying. His eyes are closed. He is asleep. We climb up onto our seats at the back of the bus. The little ones are chattering loudly, and the four-year-old is pushing the three-year-old, fighting and shouting over a yo-yo and trying to get the window seat.

I tell them, “Shhh!”

I look around. Every other seat has a grownup on it except one with a big schoolgirl with fair hair, wearing blue jeans and a white tee-shirt. She is sitting in the seat opposite the friendly lady with purple hair. 

My mother holds our baby in the nest of her lap. I hope our baby will stay asleep. He makes such a big noise when he wakes up. I love our baby, but his yells hurt my head. I whisper, in a soft voice so that Mama cannot hear, “Please don’t let our baby wake up.”

It is my responsibility to mind the little ones when Mama is busy. I have to stop them from making a racket and annoying the grown-ups on Bus 891. Mama has a packet of biscuits in her basket. I ask her for it and she hands it to me to share. Because, while the little ones eat their biscuits, they will be too busy eating to fight. They will stop yelling. I tear open the packet and hand one teddy bear biscuit to each of the little ones. I give the two-year-old his first. That quietens the others. They stare at me, waiting for their own biscuit. When they all have a biscuit, I start nibbling my teddy bear biscuit’s ear. The two-year-old eats his teddy bear’s legs first. The three-year-old and four-year-old start laughing. They nibble around the whole body of their teddy bears in a race. Those two are always in a race. 

The little ones have sticky hands and faces now. They will need a bath when we get home. I love baths, and I love bathing our baby. I am the only one allowed to help bathe him. After his bath, Mama always places him on my lap, hovering close, strong hands ready. I love our baby’s soft skin, his wispy dark hair, his brown eyes on mine. A serious baby. Mama always says, “What a good older sister.”

“Dina, sweetheart. Do you still have the tickets?” That is my mother. But she says it in our words. The ones we use at home. Because, as you know, she hasn’t had time to learn English. What with all the babies.

I nod and answer her in our words. “Of course, Mama. I still have them. I am not silly.”

“Well done. You’d better give them to me now, darling.”

I hand over the precious blue cardboard tickets, and she puts them in her purse.

“Why don’t they talk proper?”

It is the lady in the seat in front of us. She is pretty in her flowery pink dress and curly red hair.

Proper? I’m not sure … I curl and uncurl my fingers.

A grey-haired lady sitting on the other side of the aisle, wearing a denim jacket, says, “Yeah, we can’t understand that foreign lingo. Stop that fucking jibber-jabber!”

Mama looks up. “What is it?” she asks, smiling politely.

The noise is waking our baby. He is making snuffly noises.

Oh, oh. Those ladies are waking our baby up.

Mama bends down to stroke our baby’s hair. That might calm him down. I have a scary tummy. What is jibber-jabber?

The denim jacket lady raises her voice, as though Mama cannot hear her. But she is close and it is scary loud. She shouts, “OY!”

At that, our baby wakes and yells, loud. So loud it hurts my ears. As loud as a fire siren. As loud as a war plane.

Everyone looks at us.

Mama is busy calming our baby and doesn’t notice the OY! She places him over her shoulder in case he needs to burp. Sometimes that works. The little ones are all yelling now, all fighting over the yo-yo. “We get out in one stop,” Mama says to me in her family emergency voice. “Then I’ll need your help, sweetheart. We must get the pram and all the children off safely before the bus starts again.”

“Yes, Mama,” I say, feeling responsible again. I will pass the bus test. If I do it right, we will go for another bus trip on another day. And go to A1 Play Zone again. And get another toy. Right now, I am thinking of today’s toy. I want a little doll. One that can fit inside the little cardboard box house I made yesterday. Play School on our TV told me how to make the box house. It has windows and a door and a little bed. 

“OY!” Denim-Jacket says again. “You’re in Australia now, talk English.”

Mama looks up, confused. She doesn’t understand English yet. 

You know why – all those babies.

I want to say, “I don’t like that lady, Mama,” but my tummy is wobbly.

“What is she saying?” Mama asks.

I want to say, “Not nice things, Mama.” But my mouth is scared.

“There's a lot of Aussie passengers on this bus and I'm telling ya, they totally hate you lot talking in your lingo. And I'm one of them,” says the red-haired lady, her voice an angry hiss, like the buzz of a war drone. She doesn’t look pretty any more. Her face has gone red, and I can see all her teeth. There is spit on her chin.

“Now, now.” There is a loud voice from the front of the bus. It is the nice old lady with purple hair. “Leave them alone, please.” I look at the nice old lady with purple hair and smile at her. She is much nicer than the ugly ladies. She smiles back, nodding, and turns to talk to the big girl with fair hair. 

“Fuck off, you toffee-nosed old cow,” growls Not-Pretty-Lady, but in a softer voice, as though she is a bit frightened of the lady with purple hair. 

Not-Pretty-Lady turns to Mama and says, under her breath, “I told you, stop that! On your boat, you dog.” 
Denim-Jacket murmurs. “Yeah, go back on your fucking boat and fuck off!” 

But Mama doesn’t see or hear them. She is too busy trying to calm the baby. 

Boat? Ha! I think. That isn’t right. The ugly ladies are silly. Not ‘boat.’ We came by plane. I picture the photo on the mantlepiece with Dad, Mama, me and my brothers and sisters stepping onto the plane last year. 

‘Boat’ makes me laugh. I am not scared now. 

We used to live in the War. In the War, everyone starved. That means they were hungry because there was no food. No one had any biscuits. I lost all my toys. Fathers went outside in the night, when the soldiers might not see them, and pulled up weeds to eat, because the shops had no vegetables. My mother’s father and uncles were shot, which means they are dead. Because the taps stopped working, mothers had to queue up in long lines for water. 

War means bombs going off, Boom, and blowing everything up. There are loud, loud noises all day and night from the war planes. Drones make whining noises that never stop. A sea wall stops the whales from getting close. When bombs explode, children who are little can be carried away by their mothers or fathers. But bigger children, like me, are too heavy. Sometimes they can’t run fast enough. Then, after …  some Mamas have to pick up their children in plastic bags. Overhead, the drones search for children. Soldiers point their guns at people and shoot. Bang! I sometimes dream that I’m running and running and running away from the soldiers and the drones.   
I shiver. But then I remember that there are no soldiers or drones here. The War is overseas.

The ugly red-haired lady stands up. She is breathing loud, like a dragon. She looks Mama up and down and sneers. “Take that off! This is Australia,” she says in an angry screech like a cockatoo. She reaches over and yanks Mama’s pretty blue headscarf off. 

I shout, “Stop!” But no one hears me. The two-year-old, three-year-old and four-year-old start wailing.  
The nice old lady with purple hair shouts at the woman. “Hey, you can’t do that.”

The other grown-ups look at us but say nothing. They look scared. 

Our baby is yelling more and more, his face red and eyes screwed tight. Mama hands him to me. She tells me, in our words, “Don’t worry Dina. Mama will fix this.”

I hold on tight to our baby. Mama holds her hands up high to grab the headscarf back. “Stop! Give it back,” she says in our words.

The red-haired cockatoo lady is holding Mama’s pretty blue headscarf up high, too high for Mama to reach. Mama stands up and tries to grab it back. She almost reaches but it is too high. 

Nice-Old-Lady-with-Purple-Hair calls out to the big girl in a blue sports uniform, “Jessica, do you have your phone on you?”

Jessica answers, “Yep, Nan. Recording now.” She is standing in the aisle holding up her phone, her fair hair shining in the sunlight. 

I stare at Jessica. She is like Wonder Woman from the Super Hero Girls cartoons on TV. “Someone, do something,” Jessica says. She turns to the bus driver. “Why don't you do something? Like, stop the bus!”

The cockatoo woman lets the pretty blue scarf dangle for a moment, taunting Mama. But Mama is too quick for her. She grabs hold of a corner, grips it tight and pulls and pulls and pulls. An extra big pull yanks it out of the cockatoo woman’s hands. The ugly red-haired cockatoo woman topples backwards and falls on her bottom.

I laugh. 

The bus stops with a screech. The driver with no hair storms to the back of the bus. “Right, you two. Out!”

Mumma gives him a watery smile. The driver with no hair marches the two noisy ladies off the bus. When they are safely outside, everyone cheers.

Jessica and her nan walk to the back of the bus. Mama is putting on her scarf. Jessica’s Nan pats Mumma on her shoulder and says, “It’s alright now, my dear. They’ve gone. Are you alright?”

 I tell Mama what Jessica’s Nan said. 

Mama nods stiffly at Jessica’s Nan. “Yes, I am. Thank you,” she says in our words. 

Jessica’s Nan says to me, “You are a very good helper to your Mum, aren’t you? How old are you?”

I am proud to say, “I am seven. I am the older sister. I must be responsible and help Mama.”

Jessica says, “I didn’t have to be that responsible when I was seven.”

“Different situations, Jess. Refugees have to grow up quicker than Aussies,” Jessica’s Nan said, ruffling her hair.  

When I tell Mama this in our words, she looks less stiff. Jessica’s Nan scribbles her name and phone number on a piece of paper and gives it to Mama. 
                                      
Today is Monday. Through our big lounge room window, the sea is a greenish type of blue today. There are only two wispy clouds in the sky, like a mother sheep and her little lamb. I’m reading the morning paper before school. 

I read a heading: Hateful Women Evicted from Bus. I skip the next bit because it has words that I don’t know yet. 

Then, The girl’s grandmother, Mrs B …, said she couldn’t be prouder … It's just really beautiful that she would take that initia… and be that person to stand up for that lady, Mrs B … said … Thanks to Jessica’s quick thinking, the racists were later identif…. They have now been charged and …’

I cannot read the rest. I go back to playing with my new toy. I won her at A1 Play Zone. She is a tiny Bluey doll. She has a pale blue plastic body, tall black ears that stick up, a yellow face and a shiny black nose. I hold her in my hand and pat her head. I know about Bluey because I watch it on our TV. Bluey is my favourite because she is an older sister dog. My tiny Bluey doll fits nicely into the cardboard doll’s house I made. My best toy ever! 

My father is a dentist. Yesterday, he was on his day off from work. I told him about Mama’s big pull. He said, “Well done, my dear,” to Mama. But he looked worried.

Then we all went to the beach and made sandcastles. I love the sea. Even our baby likes the sea. Mama held him up above the waves and dipped his little feet in the salty swirls. When our baby laughed, we all laughed. 

A humpback whale Mama and her girl calf were swimming by. The calf saw me and started talking to me. She told me that she had swum a long way and she was tired. She said, “My Mama fights off Orcas.’” 

I smiled, remembering Mama’s big pull. “My Mama does too.” 






(Published Four W thirty five, New Writing, 2026; A version was short-listed for the Hilarie Lindsay Short Story Competition, 2026)
(Background: This story is a blend of events that happened to the author as a six-year-old older sister of a post-WW2 immigrant family in Melbourne, along with more recent 'Racism in the Bus' incidents.)