Ten Minutes Later
Claire had worked the crossing at Maple and Third for eleven years, and she knew how the morning went. The little kids came at 7:40. The big kids came at 7:55. Her stop sign went up, the cars waited, the sign came down.
The boy in the green coat came at 8:20 on Mondays. Only Mondays. The rest of the week he was there at 7:55 with everybody else.
Claire thought he disliked Mondays. Lots of people do. But he wasn’t slow — he was out of breath. Every Monday he ran the last block with his bag hitting his back, red in the face.
So one Monday she asked him.
“The 14 doesn’t come down Maple anymore,” he said. “Not on Mondays. They’re fixing the road.”
“So what do you do?”
“I get off at Warren and walk.”
Warren was eight blocks further. Claire went and looked at the bus pole herself. The latest timetable was taped over the old one, and there it was at the bottom, in very small letters: no buses on Mondays.
She couldn’t fix the road, and she couldn’t move the school bell.
After that, on Mondays, Claire stayed ten minutes later. At 8:20 the traffic on Maple was heavy and nobody else was crossing, and her stop sign went up for one boy in a green coat.