A Few Bicycles More, page 10
Wolf. Hid. Us. Will. Melt. Us.
Bicycle jammed her fingernails into her palms. “It sounds like some bikes are going to be melted at Wolff’s scrapyard. Can you ask if that’s right?”
I am working on it. This is not easy.
Morning. Sunbeam. Hits. Window. Short time. Power. Will. Shut. Off. Soon. Please. Come. The sound became quieter.
“Come where?” Bicycle said.
Help. Us.
The speakers fell silent.
A FORTUNE OF FORTUNES
“That was weird,” chorused four voices behind Bicycle. Her sisters had followed her out of bed.
“Did you hear the whole thing?” she asked.
Banana summed things up. “Someone needs help getting out of a trap and there’s a wolf involved.”
“Wolff is the last name of the scrapyard owner. I was right. The message must be coming from there,” Bicycle said.
Apple said, “Can I ask your bike a question?”
Bicycle made a be-my-guest gesture, and Apple approached the Fortune.
“Good morning. Do you get your energy from the sun?” She read the Fortune’s reply on its screen.
No. My energy comes from static electricity. Some earlier Wheels of Fortune models were solar-powered, but our inventor realized this limited our capabilities.
Apple asked Bicycle, “Did you notice that message said something about a sunbeam hitting the window for a short time and then power shutting off? It made me think that maybe the message-sender was using solar power to communicate.”
Cookie added, “It also said they’d been hidden. They might be somewhere that only gets a little sunshine.”
“It mentioned morning sun.” Banana snapped her fingers. “That’s why you haven’t heard anything for a while, because it’s been crazy rainy. They didn’t have enough solar energy to keep talking to you. See? We’ve got it figured out.”
Incoming data, the Fortune blinked. I have accessed the scrapyard security video link. Images of the scrapyard flitted across its screen: the cranes, the piles of stuff, the trailer. A small shed marked PRIVATE came up on the screen. There, the Fortune blinked. The transmission came from in there.
It zoomed in closer on the image, centering on the shed’s one window. Most of the glass was clouded by grime, but one slim section was clear—a section so slim it probably let in no more than a brief shaft of morning sunlight. The Fortune zoomed in another level, and Bicycle choked at what she saw inside.
Four bikes. Inside the shed there was just enough light to see the names emblazoned across their top tubes in gold.
The Wheels of Fortune 713-A. The Wheels of Fortune 713-B. The Wheels of Fortune 713-C. The Wheels of Fortune 713-D.
No wonder these bikes could communicate with hers. They’d been made by the same inventor.
On her cross-country trip, Bicycle had met the inventor of the Wheels of Fortune, a brilliant scientist named Dr. Luck Alvarado, who had been hired by the government to create a perfect traveling machine. She knew he’d made several versions of the bicycles, improving each new one with added abilities. He’d included a lot of features that the government didn’t care about, like music databases and the ability to track the rider’s good and bad luck, and had refused to add features they did care about, like machine guns. They’d canceled his contract and never picked up most of the bikes.
The Fortune blinked, We are getting them out. Failure is not an option.
Bicycle couldn’t begin to guess how these four bikes had ended up here, but she agreed with the Fortune—not saving them was not an option. These were essentially her bike’s family, after all. She told her sisters, “Those bikes cannot, cannot, cannot get melted.”
Apple said, “Let’s call the scrapyard and ask if we can buy them. Maybe they thought no one wanted them.”
Bicycle recognized this was a good idea, even though her instincts were telling her to leap onto the Fortune and pedal headlong into a rescue mission. Cookie peeked in at their parents and reported they were still conked out. Daff looked up the number and Bicycle tapped it into the phone, hoping someone would answer at this early hour. Her sisters crouched close around her so they could listen as well.
“Wolff’s Scrapyard, Chuck speaking.” Bicycle was expecting to hear Mr. Wolff’s deep, gravelly voice. Chuck sounded quite different—younger and somehow wispier.
“May I please speak to Mr. Wolff?” she asked.
“My father’s not here today. He said he could hear some striped bass begging him to come fishing.”
“Oh, okay. I wanted to buy the four bikes you have.”
“The bikes are gone, sold or scrapped, sorry. Have a nice day.”
“Wait!” Bicycle wished she’d planned what she was going to say before she’d dialed. “I think you might have made a mistake. I know that some were . . . set aside.”
Chuck’s wispy voice got cagey. “You heard that, huh? From who? I’m telling you, everything was sold.”
“But . . . but . . . I really . . .” This was not going well.
Banana grabbed the phone from Bicycle. “Look, sir, I’m a busy woman. Let’s get down to business. It doesn’t matter how I know you’ve got some bikes, just that I do, and that I want them. Are we making a deal this morning or what?”
This made Chuck laugh. “I already have a deal, and I doubt you can beat it. You got more than four hundred thousand dollars?”
Apple, Cookie, Daff, and Bicycle gasped.
Banana seemed unfazed and declared, “Four hundred thousand is chump change to me. I spend a half million every month to swap out my gold-plated limousine for a fresh one. But I need to be sure these bikes are worth it. These are the solar-powered kind, right?”
“I don’t know, but I could tell right away they weren’t ordinary bikes. Can’t believe we only paid twenty bucks for the lot. I had their frame metal tested and found a lab that’ll pay top dollar for the chromoly titanium they’re made out of. I’m going to strip the frames of the extra pieces before I melt them for the lab.”
“When are you melting the frames?”
“A week from Friday, when the crucible arrives.”
“I’ll be down there before then with cash in hand,” Banana told him. “Don’t sell those bikes to anyone but me.”
“And your name?” Chuck asked.
“Belladonna Kosroy. Don’t you forget it.” Belladonna-Banana slammed down the phone. “And that’s how it’s done.”
“How what is done?” Bicycle asked. “Why did you say those things?”
“Pretty good, right?” Belladonna-Banana grinned. “Daff had me practice some lines from her script for Night of the Quadruplets, and I was channeling the obnoxious billionaire who gets eaten in the opening scene.”
“I don’t think that helped,” Bicycle said.
“Of course it did. We know that he’s not going to melt the bikes for a week and a half,” Belladonna-Banana said.
“But we’re not going to come up with four hundred thousand dollars by then,” Bicycle said. Then she considered that her family might have some secret stash of jewels they could sell in an emergency. “Are we?”
“Apple will figure something out,” Belladonna-Banana said breezily. “She’s the smart one.”
Apple said, “We’re equally smart, you dope. And smartness has nothing to do with the ability to pull money out of thin air.” She looked sadly at Bicycle. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do. Let’s get dressed.”
Bicycle nibbled a fingernail. She knew someone who could pull money out of thin air. Sort of. While her sisters were changing, she wheeled the Fortune over to the corner of the apartment farthest from the bedrooms to talk.
The Fortune had heard everything. It blinked, Dr. Alvarado used nothing but the best materials in us. Those Wheels of Fortune models deserve a better fate. We must free them.
“You’re right,” Bicycle told it. “We will find a way.”
Or we will make one.
The Fortune printed a bill. Bicycle grabbed it fast. She saw the denomination in the corner: $100,000. She had no idea that bills came in such large denominations. The bike printed three more, and she stuck them in her pocket with the single dollar bill from the other day. This time, she didn’t scold her bike about creating counterfeit money.
Bicycle fidgeted with her lentils and rice over lunch. She tried saying things in her head, like Hey, I happened to find four one-hundred-thousand-dollar bills in the hall. Can we use them to buy these awesome bikes? She couldn’t imagine Mom and Dad saying what she wanted them to say next: What good luck! Of course we’ll use the money to buy those awesome bikes! There was no way any responsible adult would embrace a windfall like this without some serious questions.
As usual, the conversation popped around the table like popcorn cooked in a pot with no lid. Bicycle didn’t do a very good job of talking, or of listening, either. There didn’t seem to be any way around it—she was going to have to somehow go to the scrapyard by herself and buy the bikes’ freedom, even if it meant going against her family’s rules. She wished she could talk to Sister Wanda about this. She thought about how she’d snuck off and done things that were against Sister Wanda’s rules in the past—for instance, taking off on a cross-country bicycle journey instead of going to camp. Of course, she’d known Sister Wanda wouldn’t be thrilled, but she hadn’t worried that her actions might hurt the nun or ruin their relationship.
When bike-riding practice time came around, she was still jittery and discombobulated. She kept hearing the words Help us echoing in her head.
The Fortune blinked at her, I want to go right now. Can we go now? Let us go right now. I can use my Pied Piper setting to lead the bikes home: any Wheels of Fortune bike can use a radio signal to guide the others along a road even if they have no riders.
I can’t do this, and I can’t not do this, Bicycle thought. “How long would it take us to get there and back?”
An hour at most. We are fast.
An hour wasn’t much. Doing one against-the-rules thing didn’t mean she was choosing to be a rule breaker forever. In fact, if she didn’t try to save the Fortunes, she’d be too miserable to follow the Rules of Family Belonging. She told herself, I’ll do it. But after this, I’ll go right back to working hard at being a well-behaved, stay-close daughter. That way, Mom and Dad could enjoy the pudding of living with her, never needing to know the recipe, which included a dash of adventure and a glug of independence.
Not getting caught was the trick, though. There might be a way, but she couldn’t do it alone.
Bicycle and her sisters went out into the hallway. Her sisters did rock-paper-scissors to determine who would cycle first today. Belladonna-Banana cut Apple’s paper, covered Cookie’s rock, and crushed Daff’s scissors.
“What are we learning today, coach?” Belladonna-Banana asked Bicycle, strapping on the helmet cam.
“What do you do when one of you really needs help?” Bicycle asked.
“We help, duh,” said Belladonna-Banana.
“We’re sisters,” said Cookie.
“We’ve got each other’s backs,” said Daff.
“What do you need help with?” asked Apple, cutting to the chase.
Bicycle bit the bullet and asked, “Can you cover for me so I can ride to the scrapyard right now and rescue those bikes?”
“Oh, no,” said Cookie. “What if Mom comes out here? What are we supposed to say?”
“That I’m in the bathroom?”
“Like that helps,” said Daff. “She’d just go look for you in there.”
Bicycle said, “Maybe tell her my stomach’s upset and I need some alone time. I only need you to do this for a little over an hour.” She figured it couldn’t take very long to hand over the money. “Please.”
Apple shook her head no. Then she paused her shaking and frowned into space. “Wait. Wait one second.” She gave Bicycle a hard look. “You’re not scared of doing this? You really think you can pull it off? What about the money?”
“I’m not scared. I have to try. I’m going to jump out of my skin knowing those bikes are in danger of being melted when I might be able to stop it.” Bicycle hated to lie about the counterfeit money, but she didn’t see any way around it. She fudged by saying, “I’ll find a way to persuade Chuck.”
Apple tapped her lips with one finger. “There’s only one way to see if it’ll work. Give us a thumbs-up,” she said.
“Huh?” said Bicycle.
“Show us exactly how you gave the helmet cam a smiling thumbs-up yesterday to show our parents confidence,” said Apple. “We need to duplicate it if we’re going to pretend to be you. You heard Mom and Dad say they couldn’t tell us apart on video.” Apple exchanged an enigmatic glance with Belladonna-Banana, Cookie, and Daff. After a moment, each of them nodded.
Bicycle gave them the most heartfelt thumbs-up ever. “I owe you big-time,” she said as they emulated her.
“We’re sisters,” said Cookie.
“We’ve got each other’s backs,” said Daff.
“I’m Bicycle,” said Belladonna-Banana in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like any of them. “I’m foolhardy but brave, and I love bikes. I will do everything I can to not get my sisters in trouble.”
“No, I’m Bicycle first, you can be Bicycle next,” said Apple. “Go,” she said to Bicycle. “We’ve got this. Don’t be late.”
We are fast, the Fortune blinked again.
“We’ll fly like the wind,” Bicycle promised.
A RESCUE
Bicycle and the Fortune raced away from Twintopia like they were being chased. Luckily, it was downhill most of the way to the scrapyard. (Bicycle tried not to think about what that meant for the way back.) They arrived at the weathered plywood sign on the chain-link fence in twenty-two breathless minutes.
As soon as they were through the gate, the Fortune let out a concert-level wail of R&B music. Passionate vocalists sang about no mountain being high enough, no valley low enough, and no river wide enough to keep them from getting to you.
“Is that a new message from the other Fortunes?” Bicycle asked.
No. It was from me to them. I wanted the bikes to know we are here to perform a rescue.
A young man wearing a cowboy hat and chewing on a toothpick came out from behind an old, upside-down school bus. He saw Bicycle and looked perplexed. “Were you . . . singing?”
“Yes,” Bicycle answered. “That was me. Mountains and valleys, woo-hoo!”
She saw the name embroidered on the young man’s blue coveralls—this was Chuck. Where Mr. Wolff had a beard and a ponytail, Chuck was clean-shaven and no hair at all peeked out from under his hat.
“Can I help you?” Chuck asked.
Bicycle pushed the Fortune behind her. She didn’t want him looking too closely at it. She said what she’d planned out on the way: “I, er, work for Belladonna Kosroy. You spoke to her earlier about four bikes she’d like to buy from you.”
“Oh, yeah.” Chuck scratched his chin and shifted his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. Bicycle noticed that it wasn’t an ordinary toothpick, but an extra-thick one with a word burned into it: TOUGH.
Bicycle tried to think of how an eccentric millionaire’s assistant might behave. She straightened her spine and put on an impatient face. “Ms. Kosroy sent me down here with four hundred thousand and one dollars to get those bikes today.”
Chuck snorted. “Four hundred thousand and one dollars in cash?”
“Cold, hard cash,” said Bicycle, although the bills in her pocket were now hot and wilted with sweat.
Chuck’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “She sent a kid here with that kind of money? I don’t believe it.”
Bicycle pulled out a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bill and waved it at him. “Believe it. Ms. Kosroy doesn’t mess around.”
Chuck’s eyebrows climbed even higher, disappearing under his hat brim. He pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wiped his hands with it, then reached for the bill. Bicycle gave it to him, hoping the Fortune knew what it was talking about when it said it was identical to U.S. currency in every way. She’d already made up her mind that she’d anonymously mail Chuck twenty real dollars—the price he’d originally paid for the Fortunes—to make up for passing him the counterfeit dough.
Chuck rubbed it with his thumbs and forefingers and bit down hard on his toothpick. The money must have been close enough to real for him. “I knew those bikes weren’t ordinary, I knew it right off the bat. Dad never needs to know about any of this,” he said mostly to himself. “Okay, kid. Your boss has got a deal.” He held out his hand for the rest of the money. “Have your truck come around to the east entrance and I’ll load everything up for you.”
“Right, our truck,” said Bicycle. She said the first thing that bounced into her mind. “It’s not available now because it’s . . . picking up a delivery of pigs.” She didn’t want the Fortune to demonstrate that Pied Piper setting in front of Chuck. The less he understood about how amazing and unusual these bikes were, the better.
“Your boss deals in pigs and bikes? What kind of business is she in?” He’d fanned out the money to admire it.
Bicycle imagined what Belladonna-Banana might say. “If you don’t know what pigs and bikes have in common, I don’t have time to explain it to you,” she said. This felt a bit rude. Then she remembered that this guy was going to melt her bike’s family and decided rudeness might be called for.
Chuck didn’t seem insulted. “I can deliver them to you tomorrow in the a.m. to any location within ten miles. Extra charge, though, twenty-five dollars.”
“No problem,” Bicycle said, giving him Twintopia’s address and mentally adding twenty-five more dollars to the amount she’d mail him. She knew she was supposed to feel bad about breaking the law, but couldn’t quite manage it. In this case, she felt certain the law would make an exception for the Wheels of Fortune if it knew they existed.
Chuck dug out a stubby pencil and receipt booklet. He signed and dated a receipt; had Bicycle sign it, too; and pulled off one copy for her to keep. “See you tomorrow.” He turned to leave.
