THE BUS TRIP

The Baldwin family decided to leave the driving to the bus company and the responsibility to Bettina. Mrs. Baldwin had just given birth to twins and it was decided that Bettina and her younger brother Kennie should spend the summer in Pennsylvania with their grandparents. The bus was supposed to take them directly there from Florida, but the inevitable complications arose-- a change in drivers, a schedule shift which meant ""a transfer at Washington, a frazzled mother who left Bettina holding her baby too long while the bus from Washington to Pennsylvania pulled out, a mis-placed Kennie. The discomforts of a one and a half day bus trip have been exactly located, including, a number of possible, but not over-developed sources of humor, like: Kennie being locked in the bathroom of the bus; the problem of communication when Bettina had been instructed not to talk to strangers and signs forbade speaking to the driver; the girl across the aisle with the radio who insisted on giving Kennie gum; the discomfort of sleeping and the loud snores of others...Sympathetic travel reading for 8 year olds by a popular author for this age group.