by Michael Rubinkam, The Associated Press
Customers were watching CNN on a Burger King television when news scrolled across the screen that police were searching for a missing school bus.
“That’s weird,” 13-year-old Josh Pletscher thought, “another bus is missing.”
Pletscher’s school bus had left its route four hours earlier with him and a dozen other religious-school students aboard. In what authorities call a kidnapping, their driver, with a loaded rifle behind his seat, said he wanted to show them the nation’s capital.
Slurping his milkshake, Pletscher didn’t feel like he had been kidnapped. It didn’t occur to him that their strange trip was national news or that a massive search might be under way.
As the children ate lunch at the Burger King in Delaware, a helicopter swept across rural Berks County, Pa., and frantic parents gathered at a municipal building.
Where was Bus No. 22? Had it been in an accident? Was it hijacked? Were the children still alive?
It was 7:30 a.m. on a foggy, rainy Thursday morning when the students, ages 7 to 15, boarded the bus in Oley, Pa., for the 20-minute drive to Berks Christian School.
Their usual driver, 63-year-old Otto Nuss, opened the door.
Nuss, who had worked at a pie factory for 42 years, took the bus job last fall. He was described as conscientious, even putting chains on the bus’s tires and shoveling a path for the children. But friends say he also had been treated for psychiatric problems and recently told them he had stopped taking his medication.
Instead of heading south on Route 662 on Thursday morning, Nuss began driving east, away from the school.
He announced minutes later that he was taking them on a field trip to Washington, D.C., “to show them something.”
Back in his seat, Pletscher wrote “help” on the fogged window, but he was more curious than concerned. Nuss never had acted strangely before, and he seemed harmless.
A little girl in front then spotted something behind Nuss’ seat — a rifle.
Robert Becker, administrator of Berks Christian School, got to work at 7:30 a.m. for the customary, 15-minute staff prayer session. He had worked at the small religious school for 25 years.
Class started at 8:10 sharp. Secretary Eileen Lyle began compiling the attendance list and realized no one from the Oley area had arrived.
She called transportation officials at the Oley Valley School District, who tried to raise Nuss on the bus’ two-way radio. When they received no response, they called the police.
Transportation coordinator Dan Beacham headed out to look for the children.
About 9:45 a.m., he gave Becker the bad news: “I’ve driven the route, and I can’t find them.”
Becker began calling parents and spoke briefly with Gov. Mark Schweiker.
While parents rushed to the Oley Township municipal building, Berks Christian School’s 200 students were called to the chapel and told the bus was missing. Children cried and began praying.
News of the rifle quickly spread on the bus.
Pletscher and his buddies Chris Mast and Tyler Rudolph, both 15, began moving the youngest children to the back.
A small girl with blond hair asked Nuss about the gun.
“Don’t touch it,” the students say he replied. “It’s a symbol to bin Laden. Don’t worry, nobody’s going to hurt you.”
Mast and Pletscher whispered back and forth, formulating a “half-joking, half-serious” plan to take action if Nuss reached for the gun. But Nuss was calm and still buckled in his seat.
They pulled into an Old Country Buffet restaurant near the Delaware state line around 10 a.m., and Nuss let the children out to use the restroom. He stayed in his seat until they returned, then went in by himself.
Pletscher and Mast said it never occurred to them to call for help. Pletscher even opened the bus door for Nuss when he returned.
During a stop about an hour later at the Burger King, where Nuss bought the children lunch, another boy tried to call his parents, but the pay phone didn’t work.
Back on the road, Pletscher and Mast were enjoying themselves, pumping their fists to persuade truckers to honk their horns. In the back, the younger children sang songs and played games.
Around 2 p.m., a seemingly lost Nuss pulled into the parking lot of a Family Dollar discount store in Landover Hills, Md., a few miles from Washington, D.C. There, he surrendered to an off-duty police officer who was in uniform.
Officer Milton Chabla put Nuss in handcuffs and retrieved the rifle as police cars swarmed the scene.
“The bus has been found. All the children are OK,” Oley Township Police Chief George Endy announced in Pennsylvania.
Relieved parents boarded a bus to the Prince George’s County police headquarters in Maryland to reunite with their children.
When they arrived, the students already had gorged themselves on pizza, and police officers had given them T-shirts. David and Ruth Mast wrapped their son in a hug, and Fred and Debra Pletscher cried.
As they boarded the bus — this time with a police escort — the children shook hands with officers.
Sixteen hours after they had left Oley, they arrived home.
Nuss was being held on federal kidnapping charges yesterday, and a judge has ordered a psychiatric evaluation.
During a hearing Friday, when asked if he understood the case against him, Nuss replied: “I’m not totally involved in it.”
Public defender Daniel Stiller said Nuss thinks he isn’t entirely responsible for bringing the children to Maryland and that there was a “setup,” though he refused to elaborate.
Rudolph, who helped move the youngest students to the back of the bus, said it seemed believable when Nuss told them they were going on a field trip.
“It just didn’t seem like he was kidnapping us,” the ninth-grader said. “He told us we all needed a wake-up call and that we were going to learn something. And he was going to learn something, too.”