Or at least, all over the bus.
Soaking in the rays on the sun-warmed yellow metal. On the windows, on the door, on the ceiling, crawling across the seat backs.
Add several dozen kids, the inevitable proportion of them still harboring a child's alarm at anything creepy-crawly, the predictable number unable to inhibit their excited reflexes for even a moment.
Bedlam in the bus.
Get on the mike, explain that they're harmless, that they don't attack people, that they don't bite. Or sweep sand off the beach - it's about as effective.
So just shrug your shoulders and laugh ... and hope they don't squish any of them.
For the record, they're harmless to humans, but they are pests. They're a recently introduced species (probably in the 1990s or 1980s) from Asia, and they are a problem for farmers. But really, they're not a danger to school kids on a bus!
(For all you ever wanted to know about stink bugs - more properly, Brown marmorated stink bugs (Halyomorpha halys), go to this web page from Penn State, which is also the source of the lovely portrait above.)
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