'You slept for quite awhile there young man,' the old man said. 'Time to wake up now though, I think.' The old man lowered his eyebrows.

'You're not telling me that was all a dream just now?' Peter-Bowman really hated it when that happened in a book. You can imagine how much more frustrating he found the possibility it had happened in his life. Whenever somebody awoke from a series of adventures and discovered it had all been just a dream in a book, Peter-Bowman always had an overwhelming desire to climb a coconut tree. At the moment he is considering finding a nice coconut tree and chopping it up for firewood. Fortunately the old man could reassure him that this was not necessary.

'No. It's much more complicated than that. And before you ask, no I am not a dream either. Neither are you, unless you'd like to be. Everything you have experienced has indeed taken place. Sometimes it's a little hard to be sure which place or time it was in. That's all. Let's leave it at that. I believe you wanted to tell me something.' The old man winked encouragement across the bus seats. Everybody else on the bus still seemed to be temporally deficient and so didn't notice.

'Yes,' Peter-Bowman had remembered what he had been on the verge of saying much earlier. 'It's not right, moving people around like that is it? I mean, who am I to say where people should sit on the bus? They should be able to choose their own seats.'

'Should they now? Why? You were quite right in your positioning by the way. The couple you have split apart are not happy. They would be much happier apart. In fact, the woman in particular. If she is not with her current partner she will get off the bus at the next stop and happen to run into a friend from high school who she hasn't seen for ten years. They will get married and be blissfully happy together. I can't tell you what will happen to the man, but he will at least stop pouring his energy into a dead relationship. And the couple you have placed together. They would indeed be blissfully, blissfully happy together. This is the only bus ride that they will ever share. Tomorrow the man will pick up his car from the repair shop and never catch this bus again. They would never meet again, except that you have placed them next to each other on the bus. The man who was yelling at the driver. He is quite a religious man. If he stumbles down the stairs in the midst of yelling abuse he will take it as a sign. He will become a reformed character, mild of manner, humble of heart. He will devote the rest of his life to the homeless and needy. Yourself. Well, you would not be happy with the lady you have placed next to yourself.' The old man grinned at Peter-Bowman. 'What do you think now?'

'Oh,' said Peter-Bowman. It all seemed very complicated for a humble man who just wanted to live in peace in his phone box and smile at the world. 'I don't know what to think. Do you mean that I did the right thing in moving the people around?'

The old man looked at him. 'That's entirely up to you, you know. Perhaps you should remember that I may have been lying to you about what the future holds for the people you have moved around on the bus.' Suddenly the old man looked very young, and Peter-Bowman recognised him as the Devil. And then he was Peter-Bowman himself, and for a breath taking moment he was Melissa. Then any number of other people, some of whom Peter-Bowman recognised, others he had no idea about. There was a girl with long blonde hair and green eyes who seemed to be trying to tell him something, but she was gone in an instant.

Peter-Bowman blinked. The old man peered at him with some concern. 'Do you like astronomy at all?,' enquired the old man. 'I find it a fascinating subject myself. The stars, you know.' The old man lapsed into silence with an air of great satisfaction.

'Um,' said Peter-Bowman. 'I ... I. No. I mean yes, astronomy is interesting.' Peter-Bowman had the feeling that he was missing something important. The old man was no longer paying him any attention but was instead looking out the window. Peter-Bowman followed his gaze and saw that it was indeed possible to see the stars. It was the first time he had ever seen them clearly in the city. He considered the matter carefully. 'How can I see the stars now? I shouldn't be able to see the stars. OK, time is stopped here. How does the light from the stars find the time in which to arrive at my eye?' Peter-Bowman had studied enough of the papers the scientist showed him to feel that at last he was on some kind of solid ground here.

'Oh? Is that right? Dear me, what a pity,' said the old man. The stars immediately blinked out in obedience to Peter-Bowman's well reasoned argument. The old man kept gazing out the window absent mindedly. He grinned at a comet. It grinned back.

'Look are you trying to tell me something here?' Peter-Bowman demanded.

'No. I'm just an old man on a bus. What could I possibly tell you?'

'It doesn't work, does it?' Peter-Bowman asked. 'Moving the people around I mean. Maybe you're lying to me, maybe you're telling the truth. Even if you're telling the truth I don't know that you're telling me the whole truth. Maybe the people will be happy, maybe they'll be sad. But they can do that much better for themselves without me making the decision for them.' Peter-Bowman abruptly stood up and became moving people around the bus again. He moved the obnoxious man who was about to fall down the stairs to a more stable position. He moved apart the lonely people and set right the man and woman in the relationship. Finally he picked up the lady with the legs and tenderly carried her back to her seat. From a certain angle she looked like Melissa, but he overpowered the urge to give her a parting kiss. With a sigh he returned to his seat as the bus began to move again.

'I think I've worked it out now,' said Peter-Bowman. 'Even if I get the chance I can't be going about mucking around with people's lives like this. People do what they want, I can't control them. I shouldn't try to control then, especially if I get the chance. Even if they choose to disappear in a puff of smoke and never see me again.'

'You're getting there,' said the old man. 'You need to learn to say it a bit less like a pompous ass, but perhaps that's just your personality. And I wouldn't dream of messing about with that.' The old man's lips twitched into half a grin before he stopped himself and looked at Peter-Bowman kindly. 'Go back to your phone box for a little while. I think it will help.' The bus stopped. Peter-Bowman alighted and discovered that he had only travelled the one stop from his phone box. He could still see it quite clearly from where he stood. He began to walk back down the road. Peter-Bowman was certain that he should avoid all bus travel in the future no matter how far he had to walk to get to where he was going. When he arrived back in his phone box, the phone was ringing.