About twenty of us boarded the university’s full-size tour bus at 7:30 am. On the road to Zhengzhou, we heard a loud, deep pop from the front of end of the vehicle. The driver slowed, and I thought maybe there was a flat tire, or that we had crashed, until I saw black fuzz whiz by the windows. The bus came to a stop.
“Bird,” the driver shouted down the bus aisle, and all the teachers turned to look. The bus kicked into reverse and we drifted backward on the highway until we could see the bird, a large pheasant lying in the opposite lane.
I thought our driver was climbing down the bus steps in order to remove the bird for the safety of other drivers. I watched him pick it up by the tip of a wing and run back to the bus’ cargo doors. When he climbed back on the bus he said, “Dinner!” And we teachers looked at each other -- the newly-arrived first-year’s were wide-eyed and one second-year was laughing.
