A Few Bicycles More, page 12
“I hate to say this, but you’re not ready for riding down a road by yourself,” Bicycle said. “There’s a lot to know about traffic rules and how to stay safe.”
Daff looked crestfallen.
“If I could go with you, that would help,” Bicycle said. “My bike could even look out for your bike. But then there would be only three of you to pretend to be five of us. Is that even possible?”
“Oh! I could show you three how to aim the helmet cam to make it seem like a lot is going on,” said Daff. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
“I’ve got enough personality for at least two people,” said Banana. “Wait, I still get to play myself, right?”
“Who else could handle it?” said Apple. “Come on, let’s try it out right now. Bicycle and Daff, go do a road-rules lesson down that hallway”—she pointed down a hall running perpendicular to their own—“and the other three of us will try to be extra . . . lively. I’ll wear the helmet cam. We can see if Mom and Dad come out to check what’s going on; if they do, it’s easy enough to say you made a wrong turn and get you back.”
They tried it. Mom and Dad did not come out into the hallway. When practice was over, they tried wheeling all of the bikes into the apartment, but it quickly became clear that there wasn’t room for more than Bicycle’s Fortune. They leaned them in a huddle against the outside lockers, where Cookie taped up a sign that said PLEASE ASK THE KOSROYS BEFORE BORROWING.
Back inside, Banana asked Mom and Dad, “So, what did you think of our riding today? Did you notice how full of personality Daff and then Bicycle looked out there?”
Apple surreptitiously smacked Banana’s elbow.
“It looked like you were busy out there!” Mom said. “The camera was swooshing all over the place. Those new bikes didn’t make you ride faster than you were comfortable going, did they?”
“No,” said Daff. “I feel way more confident now. Did you know you always ride on the right side of a road or path and walk on the left side? ‘Ride right,’ Bicycle told me to commit to memory.”
Banana said, “Our new bikes are empowering. I feel like I’m twice the girl I used to be. Maybe even three times.”
Apple smacked Banana’s other elbow.
“I’m impressed with you girls,” Dad said.
That night, the Fortune got Bicycle’s attention before she went to bed. Your sisters are ready to try adventures for the first time. Are you ready to have them again?
“Going to the movies is such a small thing. I don’t know if I’d even classify it as an adventure.”
One can rarely be sure about how an adventure of any size will unfold. You cannot have forgotten the unpredictability of the open road, the Fortune blinked. Do you remember when traveling west you got caught in a storm in Colorado and had to spend the night in a ghost town? And in the same location traveling back east, you went to help an armadillo cross the street and it did not want your help?
Bicycle shuddered. The ghost town had been spooky and that armadillo had been ornery. “But this isn’t a cross-country marathon, it’s a mile and a half to a movie theater. How much could go wrong?”
72.6% of people who have said that statement then had things go wrong.
“Why are you trying to talk me out of this? And how could you know that?”
I know 77.3% of the things there are to know. Also, I am not trying to talk you out of it. The 713-D needs to go for a ride. So does your sister. I want to help you be aware of what you are getting yourself into.
“Did you know you sometimes sound like Sister Wanda? I’m as aware as I need to be,” Bicycle said. She knew that sometimes you had to move forward, even not knowing exactly what lay in front of you.
Saturday, two days later, was Halloween. The tradition for the day at Twintopia was that the littlest littles came around in costumes to each apartment with their parents to trick-or-treat between one and two o’clock, while the older kids made the rounds after dinner. Bicycle and her sisters had decided they’d go as simple versions of the five senses—Apple was Hearing, with big fake ears and a little portable radio; Banana was Touch, with boxing gloves; Cookie was Smell, with a Pinocchio nose and a pumpkin spice candle; Daff was Sight, with glasses that had huge bouncing eyeballs attached to them; and Bicycle was Taste, with a picture of a mouth with a tongue sticking out pinned to her shirt.
Answering the door to itty-bitty trick-or-treaters and their parents turned out to be highly entertaining. Some of the littlest little kids would stand at the door, mystified as to what they were supposed to do. Others would try to give the Kosroys candy instead of taking it from them. A few yelled “Treat!” and held out their hands with a smile. One little boy was dressed in white with black spots and had a bell around his neck. Bicycle asked, “What are you?”
The boy told her, “I’m a cow! Oink!”
“Works for me,” she said, and dropped a packet of Skittles into his sack.
Bicycle saw a lot of the families she’d gotten to know at mealtimes, but not the Lakshmis. She asked if they’d be stopping by, and Mom said, “Oh, no! Trick-or-treating with multiple six-month-olds is pointless torture for all involved. I’ll be sure to drop off a nice pile of candy for Mr. and Mrs. Lakshmi later.”
Finally, the commune’s littles were finished trick-or-treating and the girls could start their cycling practice. Bicycle and Daff quickly removed their costumes and hid them in a hallway locker so that Apple, Banana, and Cookie could take turns putting them on for acting purposes. They synchronized their watches, and Bicycle and Daff vowed they’d be back by six at the latest.
“Please be careful,” said Cookie.
“We’re all rooting for you,” said Apple.
“Don’t screw this up for the rest of us, okay?” said Banana.
Daff saluted them. “Thanks for letting me go first.” She turned to Bicycle. “Ready when you are.”
“Follow me, do what I do, and let me know the minute your bike starts talking, or glowing, or behaving in any way you don’t expect a bike to behave,” Bicycle told her. “Here we go.”
CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES
It was a crisp October afternoon, a fine day to pedal out into the world. Bicycle didn’t do what her body’s instincts told her to do—zoom!—but instead put on her brakes and went at sloth speed. She glanced over her shoulder every few seconds, wishing she had another set of eyes in the back of her head so she could both watch where she was going and make sure Daff wasn’t having any problems.
Daff asked, “Should I keep looking over my shoulder, too? That wasn’t something you taught us during cycling practice.”
“No,” Bicycle called back to her. “Do what I do except for that.” Looking backward was a sure way for a new cyclist to swerve into traffic. “I want to make sure I don’t leave you behind.”
“I promise to yell ‘Hey!’ if you’re getting too far ahead of me. In fact, you could go faster, you know. I keep having to put on my brakes.”
Bicycle smiled and sped up a fraction to zooming sloth speed. She then heard Daff speaking to herself. (“The air was cool and smelled smoky on the first day I ever rode a bike outside. . . .”) Daff continued narrating everything she saw and felt and thought. Bicycle stopped trying to grow back-of-the-head eyeballs—as long as Daff was talking about the color of the leaves and the sound of tires whirring over pavement, she knew her newbie cycling sister was okay.
They arrived at the Harpers Ferry Movie House without even the whisper of a problem. The movie marquee said HALLOWEEN HORROR MOVIE FESTIVAL—WELCOME TO THE FRIGHT FEST. There were black-and-white posters with zombies, werewolves, giant spiders, and a mesmerizing Dracula in a tuxedo with a cape.
“We made it!” Daff raised her arms and bowed to the posters. “Moviemakers, I am here to learn.” Then she turned and bowed to Bicycle. “Thank you so much for bringing me here.”
“You’re welcome, but don’t forget you brought yourself here. I officially proclaim you a cyclist. I just need to check something.” Bicycle asked the 713-D, “Hello? How are you feeling?”
It made a meep noise.
“Aw!” said Daff, and patted it.
“Was that a good meep?” Bicycle asked the Fortune.
The Fortune blinked, Yes. Its reboot has begun.
Daff checked the list of films that were playing and their start times. She said, “Can we go inside? The next movie up should be The Revenge of Frankenstein, and I don’t want to miss the opening sequence.”
Bicycle hesitated, and the Fortune told her, We will sit in the sunshine and I will monitor the 713-D’s progress. You may go watch Frankenstein have his revenge.
Daff used her allowance money to pay for their tickets and a satisfyingly large bag of popcorn from the concession stand. Daff and Bicycle entered the theater just as the lights were dimming and the sound of a bell tolling came from the sound system. The opening sequence was pretty grim, with Dr. Frankenstein being led to the guillotine. The popcorn was good, though—it had real melted butter on it.
Daff started off muttering notes to herself but ended up so entranced by the movie she became silent. They watched as Dr. Frankenstein faked his own death and then transplanted the brain of his assistant, Karl, into a new body. Naturally, things went wrong from there. The plot unfolded gradually. At first, there weren’t many jump-scare surprises that startled Bicycle. That changed about halfway through the movie.
Wha-hoo! Jubilant dance music resounded over the scene of Karl cramming his old body into a furnace. The whole theater jumped in shock. Popcorn pieces flew everywhere. Then the band Kool and the Gang crooned over the speakers about celebrating good times together.
“What is that?” theatergoers yelled. “Boooo! You mixed up the soundtrack!”
A bunch of folks craned their necks toward the back of the theater, so Bicycle did, too. She saw the shadow of someone dashing back and forth in the projector room. The music continued as if a wedding reception were in full swing. She turned back to face the screen, where Karl was running amok and not bringing any good times to anyone.
The film slowed and stopped. A voice came over the loudspeaker: “So sorry, film fans, we are experiencing technical difficulties. Our sound system appears to have been hacked. Let me see if this will work . . .” Now soul music poured out over the audience, James Brown letting the world know that he felt good, so good.
Bicycle squirmed, dumping some kernels of popcorn onto her lap. This unexpected music burst resembled what the Fortune had been doing. She scooped up the kernels, hoping with all her hoping powers that the music mix-up wasn’t the fault of hers or Daff’s bikes.
The film stopped again. The voice explained, “I am turning off the speakers while we work this out. In the meantime, please enjoy The Revenge of Frankenstein as a silent movie. Thank you for your patience.” The film restarted without any music or voices. Onscreen, Karl started losing control of his own body, looking tortured.
The theater was silent while the movie watchers assessed this new turn of events. It didn’t take long for some of them to pass judgment.
“Boooo! This is no good! I want my money back!”
“Wait!” shouted someone who stood up in the front row. “I am a big fan of this movie, and I know it all by heart. I can recite the dialogue if you’ll be quiet.” People settled down to give the big fan a chance. He started doing Dr. Frankenstein’s voice and turned out to have talent. He gave Karl a growly gargle of a voice that was more spooky than the real actor’s, and also did a believable falsetto for the leading lady’s lines. Bicycle stole a glance at Daff, hoping she was still having fun. She was frowning.
“He’s not doing the sound effects,” she whispered to Bicycle. “Or the tension-building background music. It’s like half the movie without those.”
A person behind them overhead Daff and said, “That’s true.” They shouted to the rest of the audience, “Who’s got loud shoes? Stomp your feet to make footstep sounds when a character walks. Whoever’s got a rasping voice, make a creaky noise when a door opens.”
“I can do the wind,” someone yelled back.
“I can sing eerie music. Deedly deedly deedly whooOOO!” came another voice. “Who will help me do that?”
At first, there was nothing more than a few half-hearted footsteps and a couple of whooOOOs. Then someone mimicked an excellent eeeeek door creak, and folks tittered and applauded them.
At that point, the audience really got into making a live-action soundtrack. A whole section of the theater took it upon themselves to hum dramatically. Some people started improvising, adding the sounds of neighing horses and clattering carriage wheels, then frogs croaking and crows cawing even when the action was taking place inside. Things went from interesting to noisy. Bicycle glanced at Daff to see what she wanted to do. Stay? Go? Daff wasn’t participating in the sounds, nor was she narrating what was going on, but she stayed put.
They watched through to the end when Dr. Frankenstein’s own brain gets placed into a new body. The manager gave each person exiting the theater a free ticket to come back and see something else. Daff rubbed her ticket between two fingers and said, “It’d be nice to see another movie in a normal way. I had this idea in my mind I’d absorb inspiration from the movie. Instead, it was . . . what it was.” She sighed as they went to get their bikes.
Bicycle didn’t really want to know if the Fortune had been the one to ruin the movie, but she asked it anyway as they started to pedal. “Did you happen to try to . . . communicate with us during the movie?”
I did not. The 713-D did. Once its reboot was complete, it wanted to let Daff know how happy and grateful it was. It has the same music database that I do, plus broadcasting antenna with a wide range. It was the one who sent us all the SOS messages.
“Were my sisters right when they guessed why the SOS signals were so short and far between—was it because the 713-D got stuck in that shed where it could barely recharge itself when it rained so much?”
Yes.
Bicycle whispered, “Yay that it’s rebooted, but the noise kind of ruined the show.” She decided she wasn’t going to tell Daff that her new bike had wrecked her first-ever adventure. However, the 713-D broke the news itself. It chose this moment to blast Kool and the Gang’s “Celebrate” from its own speakers.
Daff wobbled in surprise. “Too loud!” she said. The 713-D immediately turned down the volume. “Why is my bike doing this? Did I get a musical bike like yours? Wait—why is it playing the same music that interrupted the movie?”
Bicycle tried to smooth things over. “My bike says your bike wanted to share how happy it was to be fully functional again. It sent the music into the theater to, um, thank you for riding it.” She hoped Daff wouldn’t be too angry.
Daff mulled this over as they started up a hill. She finally said to the 713-D, “I’m glad you’re working right again. You are fun to ride. But let me tell you why I don’t want you to play more music during movies.” She explained how much she’d looked forward to seeing a movie the way it was meant to be seen. The 713-D played cheesy horror soundtrack music in response, then something with lyrics about being sorry, so sorry. Bicycle knew it felt bad for ruining the movie and hoped it had learned its lesson about broadcasting musical messages into unfamiliar situations.
Daff then asked her bike, “Do you at least have a built-in camera?”
The 713-D sang the word No and a jazzy phrase about how it had got just about everything.
Bicycle asked the Fortune, “Does the 713-D speak only through songs?”
Yes. Dr. Alvarado programmed it to communicate through music rather than written messages.
“That’s too bad,” Bicycle said. It seemed like a lot of potential for headaches. “Did you find out where these bikes were before they came to the scrapyard, and where the other 713 models might be?”
These four bikes were originally picked up by the U.S. government from Dr. Alvarado to be tested for their value to the military. They languished in a warehouse until being sold online. Whoever bought them must have taken them to the scrapyard. Unfortunately, they have no data on the whereabouts of the models built between us.
Dusk was approaching, and although both bikes had bright front and rear lights, Bicycle pushed Daff to ride with urgency. When they got inside Twintopia, they sped through the hallways, skidding to a halt by their front door in time to see Mom’s head pop out. “There you are!” she said.
“Yes!” Bicycle said, her shoulders up around her ears. She was too flustered to read her mom’s expression—was she about to explode and ground the quintuplets forever?
“Can you wrap things up so we can head to dinner? I’ve been tempted to eat the bags of trick-or-treating candy,” Mom said.
“Tempted?” Dad’s head joined Mom’s. “The pile of Skittles wrappers next to the computer says you were more than tempted.”
Mom clucked at him and said to Bicycle, “Are your sisters right behind you? It’s dinnertime, period. Oh good, there they are.”
Apple, Banana, and Cookie coasted up, looking beat.
“We’re going to eat now. No more of this ‘one more time around the bend’ stuff. After that, you can go trick-or-treating.” She didn’t seem to notice that Apple was wearing Bicycle’s costume tongue shirt with her fake ears, or that Banana had both boxing gloves and goggles with springy eyeballs.
“Quick bathroom break and we’re right behind you,” Apple said, nudging Bicycle. The girls abandoned their bikes and crowded into the bathroom. Banana slid to the tiled floor as soon as the door was closed.
“Was it worth it?” Banana asked Daff, and immediately cut her off. “No, the answer is no, because being more than me for almost two hours is too much.”
“Mom came out to ask us questions three times,” said Apple, running her fingers through her hair so it stood out around her face like a dark lion’s mane. “We made Cookie do the talking because she was being herself most of the time, but it was stressful.”
Cookie’s eyes were intense as she said, “It felt like walking a tightrope.”
