"Everything is going to be all right!" I tried to reassure myself.

But it was gone. The bus had taken off without me. 

I couldn't believe it. Our teachers were usually quite strict and even counted whether all of us were present when we got back into the bus. So when I had been the last student waiting in line to use the toilet after a glorious day in the Matala sun, I had naturally thought they would wait up for me. 

They hadn't.  

Of course, I could have used the toilet earlier.

But then again, how often did you get to go to Matala, the legendary village in the southern part of Crete to which all the hippies had once flocked, the one with the caves? We were here on a very special school trip, and the beach day in Matala had been the highlight of our trip as it was less strenuous than the ancient palaces, churches and monasteries we had visited in the last couple of days. We had also gone shopping in a town or two on our time off, which was why I had used up all my European money and only had five dollars in American money.

I hadn't counted on being left stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Okay, it wasn't exactly that. There were Greeks around me, and a lot of them seemed to understand English really well, which was good because all my Greek amounted to "Kalimera." But would they be really interested in helping out an American teenager who had been stupid enough to miss her bus?

I considered my options.

I could simply wait here at the bus stop. There were public busses which could take me back to Heraklion. The question was whether they would do it.

I could go over to one of the shops and somehow tell them to call the police. No, that was a really stupid idea, no matter how helpful these people were here. I would be the butt of a joke when we returned back to the US if I did that.

I could also go back to the beach and wait there until my teachers noticed that I had gone missing and would then try to reach my phone, preferably before its battery died. If I stayed long enough, I might even see the sunset, which was said to be really beautiful in Matala. I had a change of clothes in my backpack, so staying here wouldn't be a problem, and it would provide me with some nice extra time in the water.

So I decided to do that. 

After all, it wasn't my fault that they had taken off without me. 

Why should I worry about the situation and not benefit from it?