Kid falls asleep on bus, tries to walk home

Houstonist remembers times when, as a kid, we'd fall asleep on our school bus. But we never ended up like 6-year-old Janeka Fulgham, who fell asleep on her bus Monday and ended up walking more than a mile down a busy street before someone noticed. (Usually, someone would gently wake us by giving us a wedgie or pouring their Capri Sun on our head. And after hearing this news, we're glad.)

Fulgham attends Accelerated Intermediate Academy on South Main, which isn't affiliated with HISD and contracts with Heights Transportation for bus service. When she woke up Monday morning, the bus was parked and empty, so Fulgham got off the bus, crossed South Post Oak and walked more than a mile along Fuqua — she was trying to get home, of course, but she didn't know where it was. Eventually, a passerby picked Fulgham up (even though she didn't want a stranger to do that) and took her to an HISD district office, where her mother Nguzi picked her up. "Somebody could have kidnapped her. She could be dead, hit by a car, anything," the mother said.

Accelerated Intermediate Academy said it's investigating the incident. Heights Transportation didn't return calls from KTRK.