The trick is to act like you’re minding your own business and yell out random commands, from time to time, to keep everyone on their toes. “No eating on the bus!”

I casually return to my eavesdropping.

“I think it’s crazy we can’t drink. I mean, kids our age in Europe drink.”

“You can drink at home if your parent’s are cool with it.”

“Yeah, but your friends can’t come over and drink. If they get in a wreck, you get sued.”

“If we all had web-cams, we could party over the internet.”

“That’d be awesome,” I blurt out.

Every set of eyes on me, I try to recover. I pick up the receiver and pretend to send a message in to dispatch. “Um, yes, that’d be awesome, if you could hang on to my jacket. I left it there at home base, over.”

I thought they bought it until, in a much quieter tone than usual, one of them said, “We could just party with the bus driver.”

“Um, yeah,” the cute blonde chimed in, “If you want the world to see you on his freaky web-cam.”

Great, now I’m the creepy bus driver.