The Night Bus

It was almost two in the morning when Sofia left the restaurant in central London where she worked as a waitress. The last train had gone hours ago, so she walked to Trafalgar Square and waited for the N29, which is one of the busiest night buses in the city. It was cold and raining, and her feet hurt after ten hours of work.

She climbed to the top deck and sat at the front, which was her favorite seat. Next to her sat an old man in a long green coat. "Do you know why I always sit here?" he asked. "Because when I was a boy, I pretended to drive the bus." Sofia laughed.

At the next stop, a woman with a guitar got on. She sat behind them and started telling them about her concert in a small pub in Soho, where only six people had come to listen. "Four of them were my cousins," she said, "and one of them fell asleep." Then a young man in a suit joined the conversation. He explained that he had just finished his first day as a nurse at a hospital, which was much harder than he had expected.

The bus moved slowly through Camden, whose streets were still full of people at that hour. Everybody on the top deck seemed to have a story. A man who was carrying a cake explained that it was for his mother, who was turning ninety that morning. Sofia realized that she was smiling. She had taken this bus a hundred times, but she had never spoken to anyone on it before.

When the bus got close to her stop in Wood Green, Sofia put her hand in her pocket and her smile disappeared. Her keys were not there. She checked her bag, then her coat, then her bag again. "I think I left my keys at the restaurant," she said. "My flatmate is away this week, and nobody else has a copy."

The old man in the green coat looked at her calmly. "Close your eyes," he said in a deep, clear voice. "Now tell me exactly what you did before you left work." Sofia did as he said. She remembered taking off her apron, putting on her coat and running for the bus. Then she remembered something else. "I put my keys in my apron so I wouldn't lose them," she said slowly.

"And where is your apron?" the man asked. Sofia opened her bag. The apron, which she always took home to wash, was folded at the bottom. Her keys were in its front pocket. Everybody on the top deck cheered, and the woman with the guitar played a short song to celebrate.

"How did you do that?" Sofia asked. The old man smiled. "I was an actor for forty years," he said. "I played a detective on television, which taught me a lot about asking the right questions." He got off at the next stop and waved from the pavement. Sofia never saw him again, but since that night she has always talked to the people who sit next to her on the night bus.