A Few Bicycles More, page 9
Bicycle said, “Quick, turn and look at me.” She gave the helmet cam a thumbs-up, hoping their parents would see this and know they didn’t have to come running to save anyone. “Now, don’t forget to keep both hands on the handlebars, and look where you want to go,” she admonished Beryl-Banana as her sister started pedaling again. “Your bike follows your face.”
“This is why I need a karate class. The teachers can show me how to direct my raw power.”
“Have you asked Mom and Dad if you can try it?”
Beryl-Banana answered, “It’s better not to ask. Besides, we’d all have to go, and Apple, Cookie, and Daff don’t want to do it. That’s when it’s cruddiest to have Quint Sense—trying to have fun while your sisters are suffering next to you. Wi-yah!” She took a foot off a pedal and did a front kick. “No one sees Karate Cyclist coming.”
A Karate Cyclist would be a fearsome foe, blinked the Fortune. She could strike and speed away. Your sister is interesting.
“I’ll show you how to be a regular cyclist first,” said Bicycle. She felt sad that her sister wouldn’t even ask to try something she really wanted to do. Well, she reminded herself, I can’t make it easier to ask our parents things, but I can help here and now. “Try to center yourself and not lean to either side.”
She advised Beryl-Banana on technique, and listened to her talk about how when karate practitioners fought, they knew how to refrain from actually injuring each other.
Beryl-Banana said, “I don’t want to beat people up, just use cool moves on them.”
They came in sight of their sisters.
“Unless I had to defend my family. Then watch out—ki-YAH!” Beryl-Banana tried a jab-and-kick combo that took her into the wall again. This time she ended up on the floor just outside of their apartment.
Bicycle stood over her and gave the camera a double-thumbs-up and a smile. She could feel her sisters taking in a collective breath and waiting to see if Mom and Dad would rush out into the hall to check on their girls. But the door stayed closed.
This was going to work.
HELP US
Cookie walked over and picked up the too-small bike, saying, “My turn now.”
“What if I were injured?” Beryl-Banana said, dramatically putting her hand to her heart.
“Quint Sense, remember? I know you’re fine. Hand over the helmet cam, Banana.”
“Beryl is my new name today,” she told Cookie before turning to Bicycle. “Thanks for the lesson, coach. Way better than Mom and Dad running and yelling.”
“You bet,” Bicycle told her. She was curious how the other training rides would go. “Ready, Cookie?”
Cookie ding-a-linged the silver bell. “Ready! What do I do first?”
“I’ll show you. Mirror exactly what I do, at exactly the same speed.” They started slowly down the hallway. “While we’re going, think about your answer to this question: If you could ride this bike anywhere, where would you want to go?”
Cookie said dreamily, “That’s easy. The farmers’ market eating contest! The farmers’ market is every Saturday except in winter, and once a month there’s an eating contest.” Cookie lowered her voice so Bicycle had to strain to hear. “Don’t tell anyone this, but any day other than Waffle Day, I want to eat one more of whatever I get. It’s not that I’m always hungry—I just love food. I don’t want to be greedy, so I usually don’t say anything after I finish my bowl of popcorn or my pork chop. It’d be terrific to be given so much food it seems like you can’t finish it all.” She looked into the distance. “I could finish it all.”
“Why not see if Mom and Dad will let you enter the contest?”
“I don’t want to do it with everyone, and that’s the only way we do everything. You know how we have Quint Sense? When one of us picks an activity that bores or annoys the rest of us, the pressure of sensing all that boredom and annoyance squishes the fun out of it.”
“Beryl mentioned that, too,” Bicycle said.
“I especially don’t want Mom and Dad watching me eat. I’d have to use good table manners, instead of letting my mouth and hands fly free.” She looked down at the little bike. “Am I doing this right?”
“You are.”
Cookie was a more careful rider than Banana, so they took their time. Bicycle figured that beyond cycling, she was also good at listening, so she listened to Cookie talk more about eating. She found out that the only food Cookie wouldn’t enter a contest for was eating hot dogs.
“I like hot dogs, but the way competitive eaters snarf them down so fast is they dip the buns in water to squash them. That is plain gross.”
The Fortune blinked, I would not like anyone to describe that in detail to me. However, I would like to observe if Cookie can consume the mass quantities she thinks she can. Two of your sisters are interesting.
They were coming around to the end of the loop. One sister ran up to Cookie and held her hand out in a “stop” gesture. “My turn now. I’m totally Daff, and I am next in line.”
“No, you aren’t, you impostor,” said the real Daff, poking the Daff pretender. “You got to do two loops, you do not get another turn before me and Apple.”
The impostor, Beryl-Banana, shrugged. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
Cookie thanked the too-small bike for the ride before handing it and the helmet cam over to Daff. She then started searching her pockets. “Bike riding makes me hungry,” she said, pulling out a waffle in a baggie. “Want a piece?” she asked Bicycle, tearing off a hunk.
“Bike riding makes everyone hungry, especially if you talk about food while you’re doing it,” Bicycle said, accepting the hunk. She turned her attention to coaching Daff.
Daff wanted Bicycle to recite her advice twice before they started trying to ride. Then as they started to ride, she muttered, “I knew I would learn, but how quickly? I focused on my sister’s instructions like a laser.” She then repeated Bicycle’s advice to herself under her breath. Bicycle waited until she got quiet and then asked the ice-breaker question. It turned out that Daff wished she could go by herself to see the Halloween Horror Movie Festival at the Movie House in Harpers Ferry.
“They’re showing classic creepy movies all day and all night, including Dracula, a few different versions of Frankenstein, and some Alfred Hitchcock. At the film festival, I could study how horror filmmakers build suspense. I’d like to try making my own films, with scripts and plots, instead of just recording Historic Moments with the Kosroy Family. If Mr. and Mrs. Lakshmi don’t mind, I’m hoping to use their babies in a movie I’ll call Night of the Quadruplets. I’m halfway through the script already.”
“Why not make Night of the Quintuplets starring us?” Bicycle joked.
“Twelve-year-olds aren’t as scary as babies,” said Daff. “No one knows what a baby might do next, including the baby.”
“I bet you don’t want to ask Mom and Dad if you can go to the film festival,” Bicycle guessed.
“Nooooope,” said Daff, drawing out the word. “We’d have to go to it together, which won’t work. Even the tamest horror movies give Dad and Apple nightmares. Plus, the one time I convinced the whole family to attend the Classic Westerns Film Festival at a movie theater in New Jersey, my Quint Sense was on fire with how bored and restless our sisters felt. They didn’t even like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Do you know that one?”
Bicycle did, from watching it with the Mostly Silent Monks, who appreciated how the actor Clint Eastwood could communicate a whole lot by saying very little.
“How could anyone be bored by that?” Daff continued. “No one else in our family appreciates that all well-made movies—westerns, horror movies, it doesn’t matter—are art. We mostly watch animated films at home, which are fine, but not enough for me.”
Daff went on to explain things that she’d read about in books: camera angles and framing shots, and the importance of soundtrack music. “Music in movies helps the audience to understand what is going on. I wish we could have background music in real life.” Daff gushed about the genius of movie-score composer John Williams, who used powerful themes in music to hint about what was coming next and reveal characters’ emotions. “He’s scored dozens of great movies, including Star Wars, which Mom let me watch once when I was sick with the flu. He also created the super-sinister theme from Jaws. I listened to that score online and it gave me goose bumps.”
The Fortune played the famous a-great-white-shark-is-swimming-toward-you melody from Jaws. Bicycle hadn’t seen the movie, but she knew this menacing music. DA-duh. DA-duh. Dun-duh-dun-duh-dun-duh-dun-duh . . . A kid was opening his apartment door ahead of them. He startled and said in a shocked voice, “The shark bike is coming to get us!” Then he slammed the door.
The Fortune blinked, Maybe you can ask if I can star in a movie called Shark Bike. Perhaps Daff can build suspense about whether I am a bike or a shark. Three of your sisters are interesting.
When they got back to their front door, Apple pushed Beryl-Banana out of the way before she could pretend it was her turn again. Apple switched places with Daff and said, “Before we start, can you tell me the physics behind why bicycles balance when they’re in motion but fall down when they stop?” She had a little notebook and a pencil.
Bicycle tossed this question over to the Fortune, whose screen filled with details on gyroscopic theory.
It added, Cycling is a partnership between a rider and a bike. We need each other to move forward.
“Cool beans,” said Apple, writing this down. “How can I be a good partner?”
Bicycle gave her the same instructions as her sisters. Apple put the notebook and pencil in the little bike’s wicker basket, and they set off. Apple asked a lot of questions about how to properly sit on the seat, grip the handlebars, align her shoulders, and push the pedals. She kept stopping to take notes. Around North Carolina, the Fortune offered to keep track of the conversation for her so she could write it down at the end, which she agreed would work better.
Bicycle was hoping they wouldn’t spend their whole time talking only about cycling technique, and was glad when Apple brought up the ice-breaker question on her own. “I know what you’re going to ask me—where would I ride this bike if I could go anywhere I wanted?”
“Did Beryl and Cookie tell you I asked them that?”
“They did.” A light sparkled in Apple’s eyes.
Bicycle wondered if Apple would be the sister to answer with a glamorous, exotic dream destination. Maybe she’d want to bike to another state, like Alaska, or another country, like Canada, or another continent, like Africa.
“I want to walk a dog,” Apple said breathlessly. “I don’t care what kind of dog. The website for the animal shelter in town says they’ll accept junior volunteer dog walkers that are ages twelve and up and over five feet tall to walk dogs weighing less than twenty-five pounds. I’d bike there and tell them: Give me a fluffy dog like a Shetland sheepdog, a short-hair dog like a beagle, or a tiny dog wearing a sweater like a chihuahua. I can walk with anybody.”
“Doesn’t anyone in the commune have a dog you could walk?”
Apple shook her head. “No one here owns a pet beyond a few goldfish. I think our families have their hands full taking care of their kids. Did you know that dogs with ears that stand up straight are closer genetically to wolves, and dogs with floppier ears have been domesticated longer?” She outlined the history of dogs and humans. “When I have my own house, I’m going to have two dogs, a cat, an indoor bunny, and a flock of chickens. The chickens won’t be indoors, though, because of the mess they’d make. Except maybe if one of them wasn’t feeling well and needed special care. If you need to keep a chicken indoors, she can wear an invention called a chicken diaper.”
I have never learned so much on such a short ride, the Fortune blinked. All of your sisters are interesting. However, I do not share Apple’s enthusiasm for dogs. They tend to regard bikes as something to chase. Perhaps she can look into chicken walking instead. It played a chorus of “The Chicken Dance.”
“You haven’t asked Mom and Dad about doing dog walking because they’ll say dogs are too dangerous, right?” said Bicycle.
“Right. Mom has a scar on her chin from an accidental dog bite. She doesn’t want us too close to any creature with sharp teeth and a mind of its own,” Apple said. “Plus, the entire family would have to do it together, and how would that work? We’d have to take turns walking the dog, or we’d have to each walk a dog from the shelter at once. Mom would never let us be around that many dogs.” She sighed. “One of our neighbors told me their twins were dressing up as puppies for trick-or-treating and that they’d let me walk them with those kid harnesses.” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be the same.”
The Fortune switched to playing “Who Let the Dogs Out?” They crossed Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and Mississippi, Bicycle thinking to herself that it didn’t matter who let the darn dogs out. It mattered who would let her sisters out. Would they have to grow into adults before they could have individual adventures—even very small, very tame adventures? Too bad Bicycle had to focus on how to fit in and be the person her family needed her to be—she could have taught Apple, Beryl-Banana, Cookie, and Daff a lot more than how to balance on two wheels.
When cycling practice was over, the girls went back into the apartment to find their parents math-editing and crossword-puzzling side by side in front of the computer screen. Their mother looked up and did a double take. “I just saw myself on the screen when you walked in. I’m sorry I didn’t come out into the hallway to check on you—it turned out to be so interesting to see things from your perspective.”
Apple took off the helmet and shut down the camera.
“It didn’t make you want to run out and catch us?” Beryl-Banana asked.
“It was a little confusing at a couple of points, but then we’d see Bicycle looking confident, so that helped,” Dad said. “My favorite part was when each of you turned the camera toward your sisters. Want to hear something funny? It was hard to tell you apart on video—thank goodness we never had that problem in real life.”
“You really never mixed them—us—up?” Bicycle asked. With identical kids, this seemed bound to happen.
Apple explained, “They say our voices are unmistakable. One time for Halloween we dressed up in identical outfits. That threw them at first, but as soon as we said ‘Trick or treat,’ it was like we’d painted our names on our foreheads.”
Bicycle asked, “What about when we were really little?”
Mom said, “Even when you could babble only nonsense sounds, you were unique. Apple would sigh, Banana would grunt, Cookie would peep, Daff would gurgle, and you would moo.”
“I would moo?” Bicycle said.
“There’s no better word for it,” Mom said. “We’ll dig out some home videos and let you listen.”
“It’s a shame our voices stopped us from pulling any Parent Trap–type capers on anyone,” said Daff.
Dad said, “It’s been a huge relief. When the doctors tell you you’re having identical quintuplets, one of the first things you worry about is mixing them up. Watching you in the silent movie from the helmet cam was definitely strange. So, what’s the verdict?” he asked Bicycle. “Are your sighing, grunting, peeping, gurgling sisters going to be good cyclists?”
“They are picking it up fast,” Bicycle said. “When we can find them bikes that fit properly, they’ll be great.”
“I’ll check the property room again when I get the chance,” promised Dad.
That night as the girls lay in bed, Beryl-Banana said, “We realized none of us asked you the question of where you’d ride your bike if you could go anywhere you wanted. So, what’s your dream ride?”
Bicycle had many answers to that. “I’ve pedaled in ten states, so the next forty are on my list, starting with this famous group ride across Iowa. I want to ride from Vancouver down the Pacific Coast to Mexico. I want to ride the route of the Tour de France. I want to ride in Poland, New Zealand, Japan, and Holland. For starters.”
The four other girls chorused, “Wow.”
Apple added softly, “Those rides sound . . . epic.”
Bicycle continued, “I’d also want to go back and visit the places I went this summer to see my friends again.”
Daff asked longingly, “What was it like to go adventuring on your own?”
Bicycle told them tales of meeting kind folks, eating excellent food, seeing stunning sights, and sometimes wanting to give up but discovering the path to the next pedal stroke forward. They listened in spellbound silence until sleep claimed them.
Bicycle’s dream that night was that she and three of her sisters had turned into animals: Banana was a pig, Cookie was a chick, Daff was a fish, and Bicycle herself was a cow. She was trying to teach them how to ride but could only moo instead of speak. Apple kept looking at them and sighing, “We’ll never make it across Iowa now.” She was almost glad when a bright and brassy school-bell alarm let out a BRIIIIIIING! at dawn the next morning to wake her up.
Daff asked sleepily, “Is that the building or your bike again?”
“It’s my bike, sorry.” Bicycle stumbled through the curtain to the Fortune’s side. She whispered, “Is it another message? Did you find something out?”
The Fortune’s speakers stopped ringing and played a strange snippet of music. It sounded like five different words sliced from five different songs to form a phrase. It repeated and Bicycle listened hard.
Help. Us. We. Are. Trapped.
“Holy spokes,” Bicycle said. “What does that mean?”
Someone is trapped.
“Who is? Fortune, can you ask them who they are?”
I will try.
The Fortune was quiet as it concentrated. A different snippet of music played.
