The Bus Ride
The Clemmons Family Story Book I
by
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"But Grandma, I want to see Peter before....”
"No! Absolutely not!"
"But he has a right to know. After all, it's his baby, too."
"He has no right to anything. All he ever wanted was your body. He cares nothing about you or what happens to you.”
"That's not true. Peter loves me."
"Karen, when will you learn and understand? All men are out to use you. They used your mother the same way. Then she used me by leaving you here when she ran away."
"My mother loves me."
"How would you know? You've never seen her or that good-for-nothing man she hung around with. That man, your father, used her for his wants and desires, nothing else. Do you understand me, young lady?"
"I still want to see Peter. He should know.” Karen's pleading brown eyes reflected the love she carried deep inside her soul, the love that made her world worthwhile.
"No, I said! Absolutely not! He's not for you. I should've broken you two up long ago, before this trouble started," Karen's grandmother declared with a snap of her head that almost unraveled the tightly wound bun of silver-gray hair.
“Peter loves me.”
“Howard, does Karen know she's going there to have an abortion?"
"I have no idea, but I doubt it. I don't see Mrs. Swanson telling her that. She's not the type."
I have to find Karen! She doesn't know what they're planning. I have to stop that bus, or at least catch it. She doesn't know. That's our baby. They have no right to do this!
Calm down, Peter. Relax. Clear your mind and think. Come on. The bus left at seven. That's almost forty-five minutes ago. I can't leave until Father goes. Mother will have coffee and read, and that's my chance. She won't miss me for hours...I hope.
I'll need clothes, and I've got some money in my wallet. I'm glad I saved my allowance this weekend. Karen didn't want to go anywhere. She just wanted to sit and relax. She said her stomach was upset. Now I know why.
That's my baby, our baby. I have to get her away from her grandmother. I love her. I can't let them do this to her and the baby.
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About the Book
The Bus Ride, set in 1957, is the story of Karen, a sixteen-year-old girl being sent across the state on a bus to a home for unwed mothers. She is unaware that an illegal abortion has been arranged shortly after her arrival at the home. When her seventeen-year-old boyfriend, Peter, discovers this evil plan created by his parents and Karen’s grandmother, he begins to chase the bus to save their child. His well-to-do parents realize what Peter is doing and begin chasing him to stop him from making a horrible mistake of marrying this girl from the wrong side of the tracks. As Karen travels on the backroads bus, her quite spirituality touches the other passengers, bringing hope back into their lives. On his own for the first time in his life, Peter encounters many interesting people while hitchhiking after his love.
About the Author
Malcolm D. Beebe was born just before the start of World War II. As the son of a lawyer and a high school English teacher, he spent his entire childhood in the quiet village of Kenmore, New York. He started writing poetry in high school and believed then that he should become a writer. Thirty-five years later he was given the time, while incarcerated in a Tennessee prison, to realize his teenage dream by writing his inspirational fiction. Malcolm earned a B.S. degree in Political Science from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, leading to a brief career as a computer programmer. The spirituality expressed in his writings is drawn from his early life and his experiences while raising two families.