Female kidnapper

A friend and I played after-school hockey. It wasn't a popular sport so our games took place at another school which was incredibly far away and pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The area didn't have any train stations, so we relied on 3 different buses to get there, and again to get home.

The games usually took place pretty late and ended around 7/8 pm when it was dark. All the other girls in our team got picked up by their parents, but we always bussed it together home. We didn't feel it was dangerous because there were two of us and being classic 12-year-olds, we thought we were mature enough to be independent.

Because we had to change buses three times, and we lived so far away, by the time we got to our 2nd bus stop it was usually pitch black. The 2nd bus stop was desolate, far out from the school, in front of some kind of abandoned building; and basically a bit creepy. The stop was small and wasn't sheltered; it was just a steel pole with a bus painted on the sign.

On this particular night, it was raining as well, so we felt extra miserable standing out in the cold. Australian buses are also notoriously unreliable, so it wasn't unusual for us to wait an hour at this bus stop. That night it definitely felt like we had been waiting there over an hour when a car pulled up in front of us.

A woman was in it, she rolled down her window and asked where we were going. I told her \*\*\*\*\* \[the suburb we lived in, which was an hr drive away\] and she said she could give us a lift if we wanted. If it had been a man I would've been immediately suspicious and legged it, but because she was a young-ish woman (looked about 40), it didn't raise any red flags in my mind. I remember thinking that she must be understandably worried about 2 young girls standing out in the rain at night. I smiled and thanked her and said it was okay, we would wait for the bus. She hesitated and then drove away.

Around a few minutes later she came back and pulled up in front of us again. She told us that her daughter was in a play at \*\*\*\*\* and that she was going there anyway to pick her up, so are we sure we didn't want a lift? My friend was almost about to get in (I guess because she wanted to get out of the rain), but I hesitated and basically said thank you but it was alright, we'll wait (*thank god for my parents drilling me on stranger danger)*. She was a bit pushier this time and asked us if we were sure quite a few times and mentioned her daughter again, but she eventually drove away. At this point, I think my intuition was telling me that it felt a bit weird she hadn't mentioned her daughter earlier.

Another few minutes later she came back AGAIN. This time she said that she had just driven past our bus further down the road and that it had obviously skipped our stop, so she offered to give us a lift to try to catch up to it. I wouldn't put it past Australian buses to skip small stops, but it also sounded unlikely to me. By this point, I was super suspicious. I didn't really have time to think so it was a bad gut feeling, rather than any logical reasoning *(In hindsight, I question how she knew which bus number we wanted to catch and also how she knew the bus' route so well that she could follow it and try to 'catch up to it'?)*.

With all politeness gone, I straight up just said no. I could tell my friend (who was about to get into her car before), was also starting to feel the heebie jeebies because she backed away from the road. The woman hesitated for a while - it lapsed into an awkward silence and I remember she kept glancing at her back seat (*?*). I remember holding my hockey stick tight and playing in my brain how I was going to defend myself. It honestly felt like forever before she finally drove away.

A few minutes later the bus came and I had never been so relieved in my life. By this point, we were absolutely soaked.

To this day I still don't know whether she was just a worried, good samaritan or a potential kidnapper. I flip between the two and I honestly can't decide. My friend also thinks it's a mystery and we don't know if we were just being paranoid.