Sylvia just pointed out to me that there's insufficient information to solve this problem, because "8 get on the bus" doesn't specify that the 8 who get on the bus are people and not cats.
@lea it *is* the case that "some people are kitties" is one of the things we say in our house (serving approximately the same sociolinguistic purpose as "you're a kitty!")
Lindsey Kuper
Lea