Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Pamela Barmore is asked by her daughter’s school to volunteer as a chaperone for the bus. Although she is reluctant to take the job, she accepts because her daughter is one of the school's scholarship students. On the morning of her first day as a chaperone, she awakens from a terrible dream and shares its details with her husband. She recounts how she dreamt that the inside of the bus was a coffin that smelled strongly of death. Her husband pushes her to call off on her chaperoning duties for the day, but she goes anyway. Multiple third-graders board the bus in good spirits, and Pamela is happy to recognize some of the children. Lucy, a very small and happy girl that Pamela is familiar with, sees a group of high school girls who stand on the street. As the bus passes them by, Pamela hears Lucy mutter something. When she asks what she said, Lucy repeats the derogatory statement she made about the girls being Jewish. Pamela feels that the bus is filled with that same smell of death from her dream.