_ We turned off the main road in Macksville and pulled into a gas station. At the
entrance there was a ditch, then a hump and downhill into the station. Nobody
thought of the trouble about to happen. Suddenly – crunch! and scrape! The
bus jerked to a stop. Daddy tried to reverse. Nothing happened. He floored the
accelerator in forward. Nothing happened. We piled out to look at the damage.
The bus had bottomed out on the hump – its back wheels in the ditch and its
front wheels on the hill. And dark red liquid was running down the hill from
the bus’s cracked oil sump. “Aw, man,” I said. A police car, flashing its
lights, arrived to stop the traffic, while a huge tow truck backed into the
station and hauled the bus onto its tray. Repairs cost $220. The tow to the
repair shop cost about $600.