Give the step-by-step reasoning process and then the final answer. Every morning, Carla puts 79 apples in her backpack to eat for lunch. Unfortunately, Buffy stole some of Carla's apples on the school bus, and 26 apples fell out of a hole on the bottom. So at lunchtime, Carla only had 8 apples remaining. How many apples did Buffy steal from Carla?
Let B be the number of apples that Buffy stole. Then 79 - B - 26 = 8. Combining constants produces 53 - B = 8. Adding B to both sides produces 52 = B + 8. Thus the number of apples stolen by Buffy is B = 53 - 8 = 45.
The final answer: 45.