Clouds of dust bellowed behind the tiny red Department of Education bus as it rumbled along a top plateau in New Zealand's backcountry. Inside, the driver, a clean-cut man with a short haircut almost out of style at the time, glanced in the rear vision at Taihape School's probationary assistant. Lisa Woolstone lived on a farm further out and left her car at the terminus of the bus route. From there she drove her car home to her parents' farm.

As it often happened on a Friday afternoon, she was the only passenger. At the end of the week many of the parents would pick their children up at school and the twenty-four children on the Junction Bus Route would end up as a handful.

After they let the Taylor children off at the start of the plateau, Lisa came forward from near the back. With her blue cardigan and tight skirt she was an attractive young woman with clothes that accentuated rather than hid her figure.

"Are you going back to Palmerston North for the weekend, Noel?" she asked as she plunked herself down in the seat behind him and her blue eyes found his for a brief second in the rear vision mirror.

"Yes," Noel Overworth replied. "There's nothing to do in Taihape."

Lisa glanced at him. "You've got a girlfriend, there, I suppose?"

Noel took his eyes off the road and glanced at the intense eyes gazing at his mirror image.

"No," he said. "Only my parents and younger brother are at home."

"I see," Lisa replied. "So why don't you stay in town over the weekend?"

Her voice became a whisper and Noel felt fingers brush his shoulders. Over the last three weeks since she'd moved from a flat in town back home to her parent's farm she'd come and sat behind him to chat.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean," she continued with uncertainty in her voice. "You seem so alone out here and at school, too. Oh, I know you kid around with the other guys on the staff but you ignore the women. There are five single girls on the staff, including me. I would have thought a husky man like you would be fighting them off."

"Well, I have a sort of girlfriend," Noel confessed "We're sort of drifting."

"That happens," the girl said. "Are you going to marry her?

"No," Noel replied before he even thought about the answer.

"That's good," Lisa replied. "So you're a free agent?"

"I guess." Noel frowned. "Why?"

Lisa flushed and glanced away. "I just thought ... "she whispered. She stared at him and gulped. "I thought we might hit it off Noel, if you know what I mean."

"Sure..." he replied and gulped. He'd wanted to ask her for a date but whenever the opportunity arose something had happened and he'd chickened out. He pretended to concentrate on his driving so there would be a halt in their conversation.

After the last bend they drove along another short straight to where the schoolhouse stood in front of an abandoned sole-charge school. The school had closed a decade earlier and the bus route established to transport local children into Taihape. Noel rented the house for a ridiculously low amount and drove the bus into the town every morning, taught ten-year-olds during the day and drove back at night. He lived in two rooms of the house. The cheap rent and extra pay from driving the bus made the position well worthwhile. It was lonely at times and after almost three years, he was ready to move on, perhaps back to the city now his country service was completed.

He pulled the bus in beside a massive corrugated iron bus shed and glanced at Lisa.

"I'll put the bus away," he said and half hoped Lisa wouldn't back out her Morris Minor from the side garage where it stayed all day and head off to her home, four miles down the road.

She didn't. When the bus was inside the shed, she grabbed her satchel and stood waiting just inside the building while he slide the heavy wooden door around on its rollers.

"Do you want to go out?" he burped out just before he closed the last door.

"When?" she whispered and stood straight in front of him with a strange smile on her face. He could smell her closeness, gazed at the long blonde hair, and attempted to avoid lowering his eyes at the heaving breasts.

"The movies tomorrow night," he gulped.

"But you're going home for the weekend," she replied somewhat offhandedly.

"I don't need to,"

"Okay," she laughed and reached over and squeezed his arm. "Why not tonight? There's a better movie on at the Majestic than tomorrow."

"That sounds great to me."

Lisa swung around, grabbed his cheeks and kissed him in on the lips. He could smell the sweet breath of fresh toothpaste, a slight whiff of perfume and taste the salty lips against his. "I must be going, Noel," she whispered. "If I'm not home soon, Mum will come looking for me. She is terrified I'm going to crash the Minor on the road but I told her it is safer driving here than in the city."

She almost skipped across to her little car. She backed around and wound down the window. "I'll be back at six and we can have a meal in town. Okay?"

"Sure," Noel laughed.

Lisa grinned before she drove away. "Don't be so self-conscious. If that girlfriend of yours is too prudish to have a bit of fun, she's the loser, not you."

Noel shook his head in wonder. It was as if Lisa could read his mind. He walked slowly over to his house deep in thought.