A Few Bicycles More, page 17
No one answered her. All eyes were on the goose. Mr. Wolff hugged Nugget protectively. The haunted cat stopped washing its ears and looked intrigued.
“I don’t have any more raisins,” Cookie pleaded with Goose Lee. She pulled two pockets inside out to show it. Goose Lee advanced another step, clearly unconvinced that Cookie’s other pockets might not hold more tasty treasure.
“Don’t get her, get him!” Banana said, now pointing with both hands. “Isn’t it obvious who’s a good guy or a bad guy?”
“What are you doing?” Bicycle asked her.
Banana, trying to redirect the single-minded Goose Lee, said tensely, “We used raisins to lead Goose Lee here to scare Chuck into giving us our bikes back. Isn’t it obvious?”
Chuck said, “You thought I’d be scared of a goose?”
Goose Lee gave Chuck a squinty glare.
Chuck took a step back and said, “Is it just me, or does that thing look kind of like Clint Eastwood?”
The 713-D played a strain of music from the final standoff duel in the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Daff looked inspired. She stepped forward, holding her fist in front of her, and yelled, “I’m the one with the raisins. Can’t you tell us apart?” The goose whipped his head around and waddled her way.
Apple waved both her arms. “No, you dumb goose, I’m the one with the raisins!”
Goose Lee changed direction and headed for Apple.
Bicycle caught on to the goose-distraction game and jumped up and down. “No, it’s me!”
Mom stepped in, too. “Don’t you mess with my daughters,” she told the goose.
Dad came running in from the same direction as the sisters, panting. “Don’t you mess with my family!”
Goose Lee raised his wings and spun in a circle, honking furiously at each of them, announcing that if he needed to obliterate the entire Kosroy family plus the entire planet to get what he wanted, so be it.
No one backed down. Bicycle felt proud that these were her people.
The 713-C piped up with its my-mouth-is-full voice. “I haf de raisins!” Then it blew a bunch of nature’s candy onto Chuck. The dried fruits stuck like flies to the pie globs already studding his clothes.
Goose Lee’s beady eyes widened. There was no missing now that this was the person who had the raisins.
Chuck never stood a chance. The goose flapped up into the air and dive-bombed him. Chuck yelped and covered his head, which Goose Lee interpreted as an attempt to hog all the yummies stuck to the hat. Chuck turned and ran from the resulting whirlwind of screeching feathers. Goose Lee gave chase.
“Son!” yelled Mr. Wolff. Nugget barked valiantly and leapt to the ground. The two of them sprinted after Chuck and the goose. The haunted cat leapt down from the truck’s roof and padded behind them, tail high, looking like it hadn’t had this much excitement in millennia.
The girls immediately grabbed their bikes. Cookie told the 713-C, “You are a good bike, yes, you are! You’re my Fortune and I’m your Cookie, so together we’re a Fortune Cookie!”
Banana took the 713-B from Mom and said, “See, I knew our plan would work perfectly.”
“This was a plan?” asked Mom, frowning at the sounds of honking and yelling reverberating from the far side of the scrapyard. “Maybe we should go after them. I know geese don’t actually have teeth, but still.”
“I think Goose Lee will calm down once he eats,” Banana said.
Apple added, “But just in case that goose now has the impression that we are the source of the world’s raisins, we should probably get out of here.”
“I second that,” Dad said. “Can any of these other bikes grow an extra seat for me?”
Daff’s 713-D agreeably expanded the same way the Fortune had into a two-seater bike.
Dad said, “Just let me drop off the money for the bikes at the office before we leave.”
Bicycle told him Mom had already given Chuck forty-eight dollars, but Mom waved that information away and said, “Let that poor man save it towards his toothpick business.” Dad jogged over to the office trailer and back.
Just outside the entrance to the scrapyard, one of the free shuttle buses was waiting. The driver called to Dad, “Praise be, you’re okay! After I saw that creature chasing the girls, I didn’t know if I should call the police or what.”
As he spoke, Bicycle noticed a goose-shaped shadow arise from the scrapyard and flap its way west. Goose Lee appeared to be heading home. The shadow let out a victorious honk that filled the sky, and Bicycle knew that Chuck was no longer covered in raisins.
“No, we’re fine, we got the bikes and the, er, creature is gone,” Dad said. “Thanks again for giving us a ride.”
The driver waved both hands in an aw-shucks motion. “I had to help you. Can’t stand when someone cries, let alone four someones. Don’t forget to grab those helmets you left on the front seat.” Apple climbed the bus steps to gather them. “Stay safe. See you ’round.” He rolled up his window and drove away.
“You were smart to suggest that we turn on some tears,” Apple said to Daff.
Mom waved a hand above her head as if flagging down a taxi. She said, “I would like to say that I am very confused by many things that have happened this morning. Help me out.”
Dad told Mom, “I’ll tell you what happened after you left Twintopia: your girls were brilliant. First, they had me call the scrapyard and, when no one answered, everyone with the last name of Wolff in the phone book until we found the scrapyard owner. They told me to offer to bring him their saved allowance money to buy the bikes back. He said that would be plenty and we could meet him in the scrapyard. Then they ran down to see if we could switch days to borrow the commune’s car. When we realized the car was already gone, we went to talk to the shuttle bus drivers.”
Apple said, “That was your idea, Dad.”
Daff said, “But I came up with pretending to cry to convince someone to give us a ride to a location off the regular bus route.”
Cookie said, “It wasn’t hard to do—thinking of our bikes melting into sad little pools of metal.” She sniffed and patted the 713-C. “You can eat whatever you want.”
“Not eat, save for later,” the bike burbled.
“Where did that demented goose come from?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know.” Dad squinted at Banana. “Did that have something to do with the detour you told the bus driver to take, and Cookie throwing stuff out the window?”
“Yes!” beamed Banana. “I felt certain we could convince Goose Lee into supporting our righteous cause if we left him a trail of temptation.”
Mom studied Banana. She asked, “What else do I not know about my daughters’ lives?”
Banana answered, “Nothing important. Let’s hear more of what Dad is saying.”
Dad continued, “That’s kind of the end of my story. After we got here, that demon-bird came at us and we ran. Daff heard loud music playing, and we made a beeline for that. You know what happened next. So here we are.”
“Yes. Here we are, in a scrapyard. Early in the morning. Atop bikes I thought were Twintopia property, that you then bought over the phone, which we had to free from captivity,” Mom said. “We are going home now so that I can talk to each of my children and find out the ‘unimportant’ details that I’m missing.”
She gave Bicycle the same look she’d given when she’d heard about the counterfeit money, and Bicycle felt her face grow hot.
“Which way is home?” Mom asked.
Bicycle pointed.
Mom squinted at the road. “Ah. So it’s uphill most of the way back, then.” She climbed onto the Fortune’s back seat.
Bicycle answered, “Pretty much.” She wondered what would happen when they got home. They’d for sure have to tell their parents about their secret cycling trips. Would Mom and Dad decide they now needed to keep their daughters under closer scrutiny? Was this moment in the chilled November air their last taste of cycling freedom? She put her right foot on a pedal, but couldn’t make herself push it forward.
No one else started pedaling either. The family sort of shuffled around in the brief silence.
“I’m just going to say it,” said Apple. “I don’t want to go home.”
Cookie agreed softly, “Me neither.”
Daff said, “Me three-neither.”
Banana said, “I don’t want this morning to end. I mean, think about what we did. Look at us here, right now. A family on a real adventure! Once we get back to normal life, what are the odds Mom is ever getting on a bike again?”
Mom huffed.
Bicycle felt compelled to tell her sisters, “You should have seen her. She figured out how to ride in no time. And she’s not afraid to go fast. In fact, she wasn’t afraid of anything we faced.”
Dad said, “I knew when I met her that Stella Kosroy was an unstoppable force.”
Bicycle was the only one close enough to Mom to hear her murmur, “I’m still an unstoppable force.” Bicycle thought about her mother pushing her pedals harder on the downhill. She thought about her striding into the unknown dangers of the scrapyard. She saw her picking up Nugget’s leash even though she didn’t know if Nugget was a rabid watchdog. Maybe the third rule of family belonging wasn’t Be Who They Need You to Be. Maybe each member should help the others Be Who They Already Are.
Bicycle craned her face over her shoulder to catch Mom’s eye. “Let’s show them.”
Bicycle found the emotions darting across her mom’s face hard to read. What mattered most, though, was the final one that landed in place and held fast: determination.
Mom settled her glasses more firmly on her nose and placed her foot on a pedal. “Where to?”
“We could go to a karate dojo,” said Banana.
“We could visit the animal shelter,” suggested Apple.
“Is anyone hungry? We didn’t have breakfast yet,” mentioned Cookie. The 713-C gave her something that looked like a handful of Skittle pie.
“Too early for a movie matinee,” sighed Daff.
“A cup of hot coffee would hit the spot,” said Dad.
Bicycle let everyone else’s comments sail past. Then she answered Mom’s question with a question. “If you and I could ride this bike anywhere, where would you want to go?” She opened her heart to listen, really listen, to the answer.
Mom looked up at the sky. “Somewhere that I can have fun with my family.”
Turn right, suggested the Fortune.
Bicycle wasn’t sure where that would lead them. The Fortune showed her a map, and she saw a great idea. “Okay. We’re turning right. Downhill, at least at first.” This was her chance to show Mom and Dad that bicycling didn’t have to be done only in hallways or on emergency rescue missions. She turned and felt the extra power when Mom’s pedal stroke joined hers. The rest of the family fell in behind, single-file. The girls whooped encouragement to their mother. Bicycle heard the 713-D begin playing an energetic, guitar-filled song.
Dad said, “Now this is how I remember cycling.”
Minutes later, they were on the C&O Canal Towpath, the paved trail that had led Bicycle to Harpers Ferry from Washington, D.C.
“How neat,” Dad said. “Where does this trail go?”
Bicycle pointed her arms out scarecrow-style. “To the left, it leads to Maryland. To the right, it goes to D.C. and my Mostly Silent Monastery, about fifty miles from here. The trail is basically flat, and cars are not allowed on it, and there are definitely no gopher holes. We could ride two-by-two, even three-by-two, as long as we always make room for folks coming the other direction.”
“Goodness, I didn’t know there were bike paths that went for more than fifty miles,” Mom said.
The Fortune blinked. The Mickelson Trail in South Dakota is 109 miles long. The Great Allegheny Passage through Maryland and Pennsylvania is 150 miles long. The Katy Trail in Missouri is 240 miles long. The East Coast Greenway leads 3,000 miles from the coastal tip of Maine to the islands of Key West, Florida.
Bicycle didn’t share any of this. The timing wasn’t right.
“We can totally ride fifty miles!” said Banana. “Let’s do it as fast as we can. If we go fifty miles an hour, we’ll be at Bicycle’s monastery in an hour. Is that normal cycling speed?”
“No, normal speed is closer to ten miles an hour,” Bicycle told her. “I didn’t mean we should ride fifty miles—”
Apple interrupted, “If we can average ten miles an hour, we could be in Washington in five hours. That’s not too much.”
Daff said, “The movie theater is a mile and a half from home. I think I could do that twenty-five times.”
“We are not riding fifty miles!” Mom protested. “We don’t have anything to eat, we might get lost, and Dad and I are in our pajamas, for heaven’s sake!”
Bicycle knew this was pushing too far, too fast. She tried to rein in her sisters’ enthusiasm. “I thought we could ride a mile or two together, that’s it.”
“This is a great place for us to show that we’re way more independent and capable now than they realize,” Apple told Bicycle. She then addressed Mom. “Dad explained that your priorities changed when you had us. That means they could change again.”
Banana said, “You don’t need to take care of us like we’re little kids anymore.”
Cookie said, “We can try new things, and do some of them on our own.” Her stomach let out a loud grumble.
“I help,” announced the 713-C. It vooped and gave each of them a tube of bread filled with something.
Cookie took a bite of hers. “This tastes like an egg-and-cheese biscuit. Where’d you get these?”
“Made them,” the 713-C said.
“From what?”
“Food,” it answered. “All food is made from food.” Another slot opened in its frame, from which a tray emerged. The bike presented Mom and Dad tiny ceramic cups full of black liquid.
The Fortune told Bicycle, The 713-C means that the molecules in any food can be rearranged into any other food. While it is unnecessary to make anything more than Complete Nutrition pellets, Dr. Alvarado must have programmed the 713-C to take in ingredients and transform them into any dish it chooses.
Dad sipped his cup. “Espresso. Thank you. These are really high-end bikes, aren’t they?”
We take good care of our riders, the Fortune blinked. Tell your parents they don’t have to keep you fed, sheltered, and safe by themselves. They have us now.
The 713-A sent out a ticker tape, and Apple read it. “My bike says wherever I go, it will help keep me pointed in the right direction. Then it says it in Polish.” Bicycle noticed that the compass needle was turning to point deliberately at each family member in turn.
The 713-B’s whatsis glowed, and Banana said, “My bike is telling us we never know until we try. Also, to turn right. Also, to snack.” She took a bite of her biscuit tube.
The 713-D launched into a medley of happy songs. Then it picked out three words and repeated them several times: “We are family. We are family.”
“My bike is singing what I would like to say,” Daff told the group.
“Is bike riding usually like this?” Mom asked Bicycle.
Bicycle answered truthfully, “It’s always full of surprises.”
Mom pressed her hands together over her heart and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. “I repeat, we are not riding fifty miles this morning. But I’ll make a deal with you. We can ride a couple of miles together on this pretty path. Then we go home, and we plan how we’re going to ride fifty miles on a family adventure to Bicycle’s monastery. We can do that, can’t we?” she asked Dad.
Dad grinned. “I think we can.”
Bicycle’s heart swelled. She couldn’t wait to tell Sister Wanda that her family was going to cycle to the monastery to meet everyone.
“Promise?” said Banana. “I mean, no matter what we tell you about the details of our lives later, you won’t change your mind?”
Mom cocked her head, considering. She said, “I promise. It sounds like you have a lot to say that you haven’t been saying. Dad and I will make sure we listen to you. I’ve known things had to change for a while now, but I guess I needed a kickstart.”
Or a nice long ride in the sunshine, thought Bicycle.
WOO
A week later, Bicycle woke up with the haunted cat on her chest.
When they’d left the bike path, the cat had come galloping up to them near the convenience store in Harpers Ferry. Apple had stopped to pet it, and it had jumped onto the rear rack of her bike to accompany them home. Throughout the week, it kept disappearing and reappearing all over Twintopia. It had met the Lakshmi family and proved itself mysteriously able to put all of the quadruplet boys to sleep at the same time by running its tail over their foreheads. Mr. and Mrs. Lakshmi showered the cat with love and tuna treats.
The cat had accompanied the family on a bike ride nearly every day. It always wanted to ride with Apple, so Apple borrowed the flowery wicker basket from the little bike in the property room and affixed it to the 713-A’s handlebars as a kitty carrier. These family bike rides had taken several forms: all seven Kosroys together, just one parent and one daughter, just the sisters as a group, just two sisters together.
One night when they were in their bunk beds, Bicycle asked Apple, Banana, Cookie, and Daff if they’d felt like these family bike rides were too much togetherness.
Cookie had answered, “If whomever you’re with is having genuine fun doing the same thing you’re doing, togetherness feels good. And doing more independent things seems more possible now. Like it’ll feel better to ask than not to ask.”
The other girls had nodded.
Bicycle freed one hand from under the sheets and rubbed the fuzzy top of the cat’s nose. It blinked one slow blink at her and began to purr. Bicycle thought its eyes seemed less haunted now. Their black depths swam instead with the question What should we do today?
This morning, the cat wasn’t the only visitor in the Kosroys’ apartment. Sister Wanda swept through the bedroom’s curtain. “Come, my slug-a-bed girl, a beautiful day awaits. Why are you the last one up?”
