What happened to the school bus?

After the children are mud splashed by the "white" schoolbus, they return and dig a ditch across the area that fills with gully water and makes it look as if the road washed out from the rain.

After school, they rush back to the spot that they had worked on. As a result of hard rain during the afternoon, their "yard-wide ditch" has become a "twelve foot lake." They hide in the forest bank and watch as the Jefferson Davis schoobus approaches. Thinking that it is a puddle, the driver drives the bus straight into the hole, breaking the axle and waterlogging the engine.