The Last Bus Home (A2 Reading Story)

A2 · ELEMENTARY Reading practice · ~1,600 words · 9-min read

This is an easy story for A2 learners. It happens in a big city, and it is about a bus, a driver, and the people who ride with her. First, read the eight key words. Then read the story. At the end, there is a small quiz to check what you understand.

The story

1 · A new city

Amira moved to the city in September. She was twenty-four years old, and it was her first time away from her small town. She found a job in a bookshop in the city centre, and she found a little flat far from the centre, because flats near the centre cost too much.

At first, the city frightened her. It was so big. The streets were crowded from morning to night. Crowded means full of people. Everyone walked fast. Nobody smiled. Nobody said hello. In her town, Amira knew every face. Here, she knew nobody.

Every evening, the bookshop closed at half past eight. Amira cleaned the tables, turned off the lights, and locked the door. Then she walked to the bus stop on Green Street and waited for the number 12.

The number 12 was the last bus to her street. It came at nine o’clock. When it arrived on her first night in the city, Amira got on with her heavy bag and looked for her ticket. Her hands were cold. She could not find it.

“Take your time, love,” said the driver. “The bus can wait. The night can wait too.”

The driver was a woman of about fifty with short grey hair and bright eyes. Her name was on a small card: Rosa. Amira found her ticket, and Rosa smiled at her in the mirror.

“New in the city?” Rosa asked.

“Yes,” said Amira. “How did you know?”

“Because you said thank you,” Rosa laughed. “People from big cities forget that word.”

That night, for the first time since September, Amira did not feel alone.

2 · The number 12

Soon Amira knew the number 12 very well. It was old and slow, and in winter the heater made a funny noise. But the route was beautiful. The route is the way a bus goes — the same streets every day. The number 12 went past the river, past the market, past the hospital, and then up the hill to the quiet streets where Amira lived.

Amira also learned the faces of the other passengers. A passenger is a person who travels on a bus. The last bus had its regulars, and they were always the same.

There was Mr Petrov, an old man with a small wooden box of chess pieces. He played chess every evening in the park, and he always lost. “One day I am going to win,” he told Amira, “and then I will stop playing forever.” There was Grace, a nurse at the city hospital. She finished work at nine and slept with her eyes open on the way home. And there was Tom, a student with yellow headphones, who drew pictures of everyone in a little black book.

Rosa knew them all. When Grace ran late from the hospital, Rosa waited an extra minute at the stop. When it rained, she stopped the bus a little closer to the shop doors. When Mr Petrov forgot his chess box on a seat, she kept it safe and gave it back the next evening.

And every night, at the end of the route, Rosa did the same thing. She stopped the bus, opened the doors, and waved to every passenger. To wave means to move your hand to say hello or goodbye. “Good night, my people!” she called. “See you tomorrow!”

The city was big and cold, but the number 12 was small and warm. It was like a village on wheels. Amira wrote this in a letter to her mother: “I found a home here, Mama. It is a bus.”

3 · The notice

One cold evening in January, Amira walked to the bus stop and saw a white piece of paper on the glass. It was a notice — a paper with important information for everyone. She read it under the street light:

“From 1 March, bus route 12 is going to close. Not enough passengers use this route in the evening. For other buses, please walk to Station Road. — The City Council”

Amira read the notice three times. Station Road was thirty minutes away on foot, up a dark hill. Grace finished at the hospital at nine. Mr Petrov was seventy-eight. How could they walk that way every night in the rain?

When the bus arrived, Rosa did not smile. Everyone was quiet. Tom took off his yellow headphones. Grace was awake for the whole journey.

“Is it true?” Amira asked.

“It is true,” said Rosa. “The council counted the passengers on a Monday morning. But this is a night bus! Our people ride at night.” She looked at the road. “They are going to give me a new route on the other side of the city. Or maybe no route at all.”

“Can we do something?” asked Grace.

“The council is big,” said Mr Petrov sadly. “We are small.”

Amira thought about her first night in the city — her cold hands, the lost ticket, and Rosa’s voice: The bus can wait. The night can wait too. She stood up and held the yellow bar.

“We are small,” she said, “but there are many of us. We are going to make a petition. A petition is a letter that asks for a change, and many people put their names on it. If hundreds of people sign it, the council will have to listen.”

Rosa looked at her in the mirror, and her bright eyes came back. “Now that,” she said, “is my favourite passenger.”

4 · Two thousand names

The next day, Amira wrote the petition on her computer at the bookshop. It was short and clear: “Save bus route 12. It is the last bus home for workers, students, and older people. Do not close it.” She printed fifty copies.

Then the passengers went to work — but not their normal work.

Grace took copies to the hospital. Nurses signed, doctors signed, and even two patients signed. A signature is your name, written by you, in your own way. “Every signature is a voice,” Grace told them.

Mr Petrov took copies to the park. The chess players signed. The man who sold hot tea by the gate signed. Mr Petrov lost four games of chess that week because he talked so much about the bus.

Tom drew a picture of the number 12 with all its passengers inside — Rosa waving, Grace sleeping, Mr Petrov with his chess box, Amira with her books. He put the picture on the internet, and people shared it again and again. Under the picture he wrote: “This is not just a bus.”

Amira stood in the crowded market on Saturday morning with a copy of the petition on a little table. At first she was shy. Then an old woman stopped and said, “The number 12? I rode that bus to my wedding in 1985!” She signed, and she called her friends, and her friends called their friends.

In two weeks, the petition had two thousand signatures.

“Two thousand!” said Rosa. “There are only nine hundred houses on this hill!”

“The city is big,” Amira smiled. “That was always the problem. Now it is the answer.”

5 · The meeting

The city council had a public meeting on the last Thursday of February. It was in a grand old building with high doors. Amira wore her best coat and carried the petition in a blue folder. Behind her came Rosa, Grace, Mr Petrov, Tom, and thirty passengers from the number 12.

The council sat at a long table. A man in a grey suit spoke first. He showed numbers on a screen. “Route 12 is empty in the mornings,” he said. “The city cannot pay for empty buses.”

Then it was Amira’s turn. Her heart beat fast. The room was crowded, and everyone looked at her. She thought about her small town, and how far away it was. Then she spoke.

“You counted the bus in the morning,” she said. “But the number 12 is a night bus. It carries the nurses who look after this city, the students who will build its future, and the old people who built its past. You say the bus is empty. Here are two thousand signatures that say it is full.”

She put the blue folder on the long table. For a moment, nobody spoke. Then, at the back of the room, somebody started to clap. It was the old woman from the market. Soon the whole room clapped.

The council talked quietly together. Then the man in the grey suit stood up. “We are going to look at these numbers again,” he said. “The route will stay open — for now. And next month, we will count the passengers again. In the evening this time.”

The passengers of the number 12 went home on their bus that night. Rosa drove past the river, past the market, past the hospital, and up the hill. At the end of the route she opened the doors, but nobody wanted to get off. So Rosa turned off the engine, and Mr Petrov opened his wooden box, and for one hour, on a quiet street at the top of the city, the last bus home became a little party.

When Amira finally stepped off, Rosa called her back.

“Next Friday,” said Rosa, with a strange little smile, “don’t take the last bus. Take the first one. Six o’clock in the morning.”

“Why?” asked Amira. “What is going to happen on the first bus?”

“You will see,” said Rosa, and she closed the doors, and waved, and drove away into the bright city night.

Check your understanding

Read each question. Think about your answer. Then click “Show answer” to check.

Words to remember

Here are the key words again, in new sentences. Say each one out loud.

• route — The number 7 route goes from the station to the beach.
• passenger — The train was late, so the passengers waited on the platform.
• notice — I read a notice on the door: “Closed on Sundays”.
• council — The city council decided to build a new park.
• petition — We started a petition to save the old library.
• signature — Please write your signature at the bottom of the form.
• crowded — The market was crowded on Saturday morning.
• wave — My little sister always waves to the bus drivers.

Talk about it · Write about it

Talk about it: How do you travel in your city — by bus, by train, on foot? Do you see the same people every day? Is there a place in your city that feels like “a village” to you?

Write about it: Imagine the council wants to close something important in your city — a bus, a park, or a library. Write 6–8 sentences about what happened and what you did. Use the past simple: I saw a notice… I wrote a petition… We collected signatures…

🎉 Well done — you read a whole story in English! You followed Amira from a lonely September to a bus full of friends. And you now know eight new words about city life.

But wait — why did Rosa tell Amira to take the first bus next Friday? What is going to happen at six o’clock in the morning? You will find out in the next story…

Next story: Read another A2 story →

About this story: This is an original A2 graded reader (~1,600 words). It uses controlled elementary vocabulary and mainly the past simple tense, with going to and will for future plans, so A2 learners can understand about 98% of the words. Any harder word is explained before the story and used again inside it.

Khamis Maiouf

I’m Khamis Maiouf. English is not my first language – I learned it as an adult in the UK, passed Functional Skills Level 2 in English, qualified in Hairdressing at Level 3, and I’m now studying Business at university. For over five years I’ve taught ESOL classes in my community and tutored students through GCSE English. I write every lesson on this site myself, for the learner I used to be.