✏️📚 The Big Little Bus

Day 1, 9:49. Emily

The bus door slid open, and a heavily-built woman stepped down to the road in front of me. She was wearing a blue and white uniform that could have come straight out of a hospital. In fact, everything about her screamed 'nurse', except for a badge that declared her name to be Marge and volunteered the hope that I would have a nice day.

I couldn't see past her into the bus. She had enough bulk to block the entire doorway, and all the windows were too high above street level.

"Your tickets?" Marge asked, with a voice that was clearly perfect for keeping wayward children in line. With two words, she had managed to conjure up every memory of discipline by a stern teacher, and every commanding instinct of a nurse.

I swung my bag around in front of me, and pulled my tickets out of a side pocket. I wondered briefly why they didn't do this inside the bus, shielding these critical documents from the weather. But of course, they didn't want people to even get a glimpse of what was on the bus without proving they already knew. And the tickets were printed on some strange, thick paper that seemed to be wipe-clean, so I wouldn't have been surprised to learn they were waterproof as well.

The ticket was quite a complex form. At the top it had my name, 'Emma Chattel'. Not my real name, but the one I used from day to day, and the one everyone in the neighbourhood knew me by. It had been years now since anyone had called me 'Emily', a name I'd denounced as too girly and too childish when I was less than half my current age. Given what I'd learned about myself since then, I sometimes wondered if it would have been better to keep the name.

Below that, there was a much larger name which looked like it was a copy of a crayon drawing, giving my name as simply Emily, and my age as four. Emma was the name that had booked the tickets, but Emily would be the one making the journey. I'd given her a name, my inner child made real, and now I just had to hope that everyone, from the BLB staff to the other passengers, would treat me like the child I was supposed to be.

"Welcome aboard, Emily!" Marge read the ticket as she spoke, but looked up long enough to underscore the welcome with a forced, cheery grin. "Now, it says here you'll be travelling with your Daddy today, but that you are to expect discipline from the Supervisors if you act out while he's otherwise occupied?"

"Umm, yes?" I mumbled. I knew I'd ticked those boxes, but they'd just been part of a story, a weird little fantasy. With this giant matron saying the same things, it was somehow clear that this was for real. I hesitated, and then nodded more firmly. I was embarrassed to say, but this was exactly what I wanted. I would be a child again, and these people would treat me like a child. They might not all be kind, or considerate. Some might be strict and better equipped to deal with unruly children, but I could be sure that if I stepped out of line, I would be punished just like a real child of that age would be. "Yes, he's not arrived yet, I think? He said he'd join the bus later, depending where he's been working this week."

When we'd planned the journey, I'd kind of assumed Rob would come with me. A stronger, more mature man to take care of me. But he lived within a block of the Academia Hotel, and that had been one of the reasons he gave for inviting me to visit. If we got on well, I could stay with my friend and he could show me his lifestyle; and if we didn't click as well in person as we did online, there was always the hotel to go back to.

He'd said he was going to meet me on the bus, so we would arrive together. I didn't actually know where he was coming from, but I could only assume he had business in one of the towns I would pass through on my way to the lands of fantasy and gambling. Rob had to travel all over the country on work, doing things that I couldn't even imagine, and it seemed sometimes like he could have been wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

He'd offered to pick me up at home, when we started planning this trip. I didn't know why I'd said no, really. Maybe it was the thought of someone who knew this side of my life coming into a space where my parents could ask him questions. My mom, certainly, was a master interrogator, and I knew my life would be over if someone let even the tiniest detail slip. But going to visit him, I was sure there'd be nobody there who knew me. And if his friends and family found out what our common interest was, that was his problem to deal with. I was sure that he'd tell me to keep quiet before we actually met anyone from his regular life, and I'd find his dominant aura so imposing that I couldn't even think of disobeying.

I was having second thoughts now. Not because I thought anything bad was going to happen, it never even entered my mind. But because so many good things could be happening, this could be a turning point in my whole life, and I hadn't even thought about it before. It was only striking me now that this was real.

The lady let me onto the bus, and the scene in front of me was beyond belief.

The sides of the bus were mostly taken up by windows, that much was normal. There were faces pressed up against them, excitedly staring out at the scenery. But there was a strange coloured sheen to the windows, only visible at a steep angle, and there were lights recessed into the frames that gave the closest faces a faint hint of green. That must be whatever fancy stuff the scientists had come up with to ensure that people outside couldn't see in, I thought. But that was one lonely thought at the back of my mind, standing in the rational corner of my brain like a nerd in a party's kitchen.

Most of my attention was given over to the people laughing, joking, and playing in front of me. The insides of the bus were painted with all kinds of cute animals, including snakes that criss-crossed over the windows. There was thick carpet on the floor, in pink and yellow stripes. Nothing was grey, nothing was black except the outlines around the cartoon characters. Everything was friendly bright and pastel colours, from brightly-upholstered seats to the rainbow seat belts.

The seats, I couldn't believe. There were child seats at the back of the bus, with cross-shaped belts to keep an infant secured. But scattered all the way down the aisle were seats in the same style, only larger. Big enough for a full-grown adult, and certainly big enough for a 5'3" shortass like me. Elsewhere, there were bus seats that seemed normal aside from the rainbow belts, or there were some of them with booster cushions on, to add a couple of extra inches to a child's height. I could see a girl larger than me, in a frilly princess dress that was expertly tailored to conceal her breasts under a dozen layers of pink lace, stretching up with the help of her cushion to peer out of the bottom of the extra high windows.

Everything was too big. The windows were extra high, and everything was built to a slightly larger scale than usual. And it seemed that the scale varied, along the sloping aisle from the front to the back of the bus. So whether you were five feet or seven, there would be a seat where you could sit to stare out at a the passing landscape, a seat where you'd need a boost to see anything except sky, and a place where you couldn't reach the window at all. It was incredible.

I'd tried to imagine what the bus might be like over the last year, all the time it had taken me to save up a tenth of the cost for this holiday, but nothing in my mind had prepared me for the truth. Things in different parts of the bus were made at different scales, so it looked huge. The kids at the back, it was hard to work out how big they actually were. They looked so tiny, but they were probably taller than me. I might have expected the bright colours and childish decals everywhere. I wouldn't have expected the sense of space, or the child seats. I certainly wouldn't have expected large areas without seats, where toddlers – or people dressed like toddlers – were sprawled out, playing with dolls.

I'd always wanted to find a place for my inner child to play. That was why I'd signed up for those forums. That was why I'd dreamed of visiting the Academia Hotel ever since I'd heard that they would cater to guests who wanted to be treated like children in a specialised daycare centre. That was why I'd considered a road-trip half way across the country, that would have taken me years to save up for, and why I'd jumped at Rob's offer as soon as he even mentioned the Big Little Bus Company. This was the kind of dream that I would give anything for. Even if it meant accepting a gift from a stranger who happened to live near the hotel, so that I could afford the tickets.

It was a dream come true now. And from the laughter, I could see that all the other passengers felt the same. They were having the time of their lives, and not one of them had an adult thought in their heads.

Well, maybe not all of them. There were a few people sitting around the bus who looked like they were on a normal bus ride. Mostly men, with suits much in evidence, but one or two dressed more casually. Rob would be joining them when he boarded the bus. He didn't enjoy childish play so much, not first hand. But he said there was nothing better than being able to play with someone who was in touch with their inner child.

Someone like me.