The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle

by Christina Uss

  Blue Hair chimed in, “We don’t take kindly to bike thieves around here.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and looked for a moment like a punk sheriff.

  The woman spoke for the first time, exclaiming, “What? Bike thieves? How dare you suggest I’m a bike thief!”

  Her voice gave Bicycle a weird feeling. She peeked around Carlos’s shoulder.

  The woman had managed to turn partway around, still tangled in the net, one hand braced on her handlebars. “I’m not here to steal anything from anyone. I’m here to rescue a girl!” She wiped some of the tomato goop and plastered hair off her face to glare at the boys, and Bicycle gasped in utter horror.

  It was Sister Wanda.

  The nun’s frosty blue eyes zeroed in on her. “That girl right there, in fact.”

  Bicycle swallowed hard.

  Carlos sneered. “Yeah, right.” He pushed Bicycle forward, saying, “You go ahead and tell her to leave you alone. We won’t let her do anything to you.”

  Sister Wanda had bits of rotten tomato stuck like nasty-smelling glue all over her black Nearly Silent Nun’s robe. This wasn’t her everyday robe, though, but one that was cut shorter and snugger for use when exercising. It looked like she was wearing black spandex cycling knickers underneath. Bicycle tried to make her mouth say something.

  “I’m…sorry…,” Bicycle managed to whisper.

  “Sorry? Sorry?” demanded Nose Ring. “What are you talking about? Isn’t this your bike thief we got here?”

  “No,” said Bicycle miserably. “This is Sister Wanda. She’s a nun from the monastery where I grew up.” She stuttered, “A-a-actually, she’s the one who taught me that stealing things is wrong.”

  “Sister Wanda? This is a nun?”

  The three boys’ eyes went wide.

  “Holy cow—we’re breaking like seven different commandments!” shouted Carlos. “Let’s get outta here!”

  The boys scrambled for their bikes and rode off in a cloud of dust. Bicycle was left alone under the silent gaze of Sister Wanda.

  For one fleeting moment, Bicycle thought about hopping on the Fortune and riding off after the boys. Instead, she found her backpack and fished out the penknife she had packed. She brought it over to Sister Wanda, who used it to make short work of the net. Before long, she was standing before Bicycle, her pink cruiser bike leaning against the billboard. Despite the tomato guts trickling down her skin and clothes, the retired nun was as imposing as ever.

  “You thought I was some other person, someone trying to steal your bicycle?” she asked, arms folded.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bicycle said miserably.

  “So you got your comrades back there”—she waved in the direction the boys had disappeared in—“to set up a trap for a bicycle thief. Is that correct?” She walked over to the Fortune. “And this machine here somehow shoots out nets to capture people?” She tapped the Fortune’s frame with one finger and then focused her skin-melting gaze back on Bicycle.

  “I hardly know those boys—I met them yesterday in an ice cream shop—but that’s about right.” Bicycle looked down and shuffled her feet in the sand and sparse grass. “I’m so sorry, Sister Wanda, I had no idea it was you.” Her apology sounded woefully inadequate in the presence of the smell oozing off Sister Wanda. “Really.”

  “Mmmm-hmmmm,” said Sister Wanda. “Well.” A small smile crept over her slime-splattered features. “It looks as though you hardly needed rescuing at all.” She suddenly reached out her arms and grabbed Bicycle, pulling her into a warm, gooey hug. “You foolish girl!” she said.

  Bicycle exhaled in a huge, relieved whoosh and hugged Sister Wanda back. “You forgive me?”

  “Of course, my dear. I’m not a monster. Now, if you had known it was me and you did this, that would be another story,” she said. “You would be in trouble so thick you could spread it on toast. But as it is, I’m rather impressed. You know what I have learned here? For a twelve-year-old who has never traveled before, you have some very good survival instincts. Plus a knack for finding help in unexpected places.” Sister Wanda let Bicycle go. “Well, we both need to clean up before this old-spaghetti smell becomes permanent. I remember seeing a sign advertising a gas station that’s supposed to be around this next bend.”

  Sister Wanda arranged her exercise robe primly over the top tube of her pink cruiser bike. The bike had three speeds and looked like a real antique, old enough to have been ridden on a road from ancient Egypt through the Middle Ages to finally reach today.

  Bicycle mounted up to follow her, full of questions. “How did you get here, Sister Wanda? I didn’t think you could leave the monastery with no one to run things. And why are you on a bicycle? Did you ride here from D.C. like I did?” Sister Wanda had often worn her exercise robe to jog, but Bicycle had never seen her ride a bike before.

  “Trying to track you down has been an adventure in and of itself,” replied Sister Wanda, starting to pedal on the dry stretch of road. Bicycle fell into place next to her. “After I read your note about leaving for California, I thought for sure you’d give up and come home that first night. Then I was sure you’d be back the following day. Then I did call the police to go look for you, but you were nowhere to be found in D.C. And several days later, what turns up in the mail but a postcard itemizing the number of cows in Virginia!

  “So I called the police in the town in Virginia where the postmark was from, and they informed me that finding a girl on a bicycle would be like finding a needle in a haystack because there are kids on bikes everywhere you look. I convinced them to try, but to no avail. I kept using your postcard postmarks to call police from one end of Virginia to the other, but I suppose we were always a step behind. You moved faster than we anticipated.”

  Bicycle grinned with pride but quickly closed her mouth and tried to look more penitent.

  “After nearly two weeks of your absence I thought there had to be a better way. Then your postcard arrived from Kentucky. You know the Mostly Silent Monasteries don’t believe in owning cars.”

  Bicycle did know that.

  “So I took money from the emergency fund to pay for a train ticket to Louisville, Kentucky; borrowed this bike from a nun at a Nearly Silent Nunnery there; and took matters into my own hands. I figured you’d want to watch the Kentucky Derby, but what a crowd! I scarcely paid attention to the race, searching for you, but I didn’t see you there.”

  Bicycle figured after she got her own questions answered, she’d explain what had happened at the Derby with The Cannibal. She asked, “You said you borrowed that bike to find me?”

  “That and some camping gear. It wasn’t as though you were going to ride next to the train tracks so I could see you out of the window. I asked myself: If the police can’t find her, what can I learn from that? I answered myself: The proper way to track down a bicyclist is to become a bicyclist. I thought with the same wind in my face and the same cows in my view, I’d get the best sense of where you might be.”

  Bicycle nodded, seeing the logic.

  “I left Brother Otto in charge, and the Top Monk absolved him of his Mostly Silent vows until I could get back. Honestly, he seemed much happier as soon as he was allowed to talk whenever he wanted to without getting the Mostly Silent Shush from the other monks. Anyway, I kept calling from pay phones to check in with him. (Along with cars, the Mostly Silent Monastery didn’t believe in cell phones.) He reported on your postcards, and I added every new postmark from you to my own map to judge when I was getting close.”

  “So you’ve been riding behind me since Kentucky? But how could you be sure you’d pick the right roads?” Bicycle asked.

  “Who taught you to read a map, hmmm?” Sister Wanda asked. “Who explained to you that the thickest, straightest lines are the interstate highways, where no bicyclists are allowed, and that the skinnier, wiggly lines are the more scenic ways to travel? Plus, by using your postcard postmarks, I was able to estimate your average velocity and likely route. And once you sen
t that big SlowDown Café postcard from Missouri with a map of the restaurant locations, I had Brother Otto forward that to me under General Delivery to a post office in western Missouri.

  “Somehow, though, you got way ahead of me in Kansas, because Brother Otto started getting postcards about a hundred miles farther along than where I estimated I’d find you. I tried, but I couldn’t seem to ride fast enough to close the gap. I ended up getting a lift at the Colorado border from a nice woman who was visiting her Nearly Silent twin sister at the nunnery there. She loaded my bike into her trunk and drove me across the Rocky Mountains. And now here I am.”

  They arrived at the gas station and convinced the clerk to let them use the restroom to clean off the tomato splatters. A few minutes later, both cyclists emerged from the restroom in fresh clothes. Sister Wanda had rinsed her face and hair in the sink, and put on a clean exercise robe and new knickers, plus a neat pair of sky-blue socks with the Sacred Eight Words embroidered around the cuffs. She’d cleaned the tomato off her white sneakers as well as she could, although a few pink splotches remained.

  “Much better,” she sighed. “Now, what’s this about a bicycle thief?”

  “A SlowDown Café chef in Colorado told me that a lady dressed in black was asking about me. I thought it was this woman I saw at an auction in Kansas who wanted my bike. I’ve been trying to avoid getting caught since then,” Bicycle said.

  “Have you? Well, that explains the difficulty I had pinning you down. I kept thinking you’d be right around the next bend in the road.” She was about to swing a leg over her pink cruiser when the front tire let out a loud pop! and a violent hissing noise.

  “Let me,” Bicycle offered. “It’s the least I can do to make up for catching you in a net like a tomato-covered fish.”

  “Indeed, the very least,” agreed Sister Wanda.

  While Bicycle located her flat-fixing tools and set to work, Sister Wanda walked over to the Fortune leaning on its kickstand.

  “This isn’t Clunk. What is the story on this bicycle? It looks fancy.”

  Bicycle yanked the flat tube from the inside of the tire and pondered how to explain the Fortune. “Clunk got run over by a pig parade, and I had to leave him behind. I got this one at that auction in Kansas. It’s got some neat features, like a tent and emergency food supplies.” She checked the inside of the empty tire and found two small thorns embedded in it, pulling them out and tossing them far into the brush.

  “Clunk was in a parade, you say?” Sister Wanda commented absently as she examined the Fortune’s computer screen. “Look at all these buttons. So high tech. I wonder what this one does?” She tapped the red button on the side. When nothing happened, she tapped it again and again.

  Missile launch sequence initialized. Countdown begins: Ten…Nine…Eight…Seven…

  “Missile launch? Missile launch! Bicycle, how do you shut this thing off?” Sister Wanda yelled as the bike began counting down.

  Bicycle rushed over and frantically jiggled the red button, then pressed every other button on the bike she could see. Nothing made any difference. The bike kept counting.

  “I don’t know how to stop it! Fortune, what are you doing?”

  There is no override for the missile launch. Four…Three…

  Sister Wanda grabbed the bike’s handlebar stem and shook it back and forth like she was choking it. “You stop counting down this instant!” she commanded.

  Two…One…Launching now.

  Sister Wanda released the Fortune and took a big step backward, pushing Bicycle behind her. The Fortune fell to the ground and buzzed, opening a panel in its frame. Out of the panel emerged a long shaft of silver metal, pointed skyward. The buzzing became a whoosh, and a long, spotted tube shot out of the shaft. It flew straight up in the air for several hundred feet, slowed down, and then started to fall right back toward where they were standing.

  Sister Wanda yelled, “Look out!” and she and Bicycle dived into the dirt.

  The spotted tube landed in a clump of weeds, and they squeezed their eyes shut and clapped their hands over their ears, waiting for the blast. None came. Minutes passed.

  Bicycle half opened one eye. She watched Sister Wanda climb to her hands and knees and creep over to the clump of weeds. The nun bravely pushed the weeds aside. Then she snorted. She reached down and plucked out a spotted rubber snake, the springy kind that pops out of trick cans of peanuts.

  Rubber snake dangling from one hand, Sister Wanda walked over to the Fortune and pulled it back upright. Then she gave it a look. Bicycle thought the Fortune, inanimate object or not, could sense the danger in that look.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Sister Wanda asked.

  My inventor failed to include missiles in my frame. Rubber snakes are all that was loaded before he discontinued work on me.

  Sister Wanda slapped the snake against one palm. “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, Mr. Fancy Bike, you’re going to be missing more than missiles. Do we understand each other?”

  Yes.

  The Fortune didn’t add anything else. Bicycle didn’t blame it. Getting on Sister Wanda’s bad side would make anyone or anything go quiet.

  Bicycle finished fixing the flat, and Sister Wanda climbed on the pink bike.

  “So.” She gazed around her, orienting herself. “We will continue west.”

  Bicycle let out an “Oh!” of relief. She had been so focused on apologizing to Sister Wanda for the tomatoes, and then the Fortune’s rubber snake launch, that she hadn’t let herself think about what was going to happen next. “You mean you’re coming with me to California? Thank goodness! We’re not too far from the state line, and the Blessing of the Bicycles should be pretty amazing, and I can’t wait to see the Pacific Ocean—”

  Sister Wanda cut her off. “You misunderstand me, child. We’re not continuing west to California. Only to Calamity, Nevada.” She began pedaling and Bicycle had no choice but to jump on the Fortune and keep up. “The Friendship Factory was very understanding. They agreed to transfer your credit toward attending camp to whichever of their facilities was closest when I caught up with you. I have a catalog of all of their locations, and the closest is in Calamity. I’m delivering you there. It is no more than four days’ ride from the Nevada border. You’ll stay there for the six-week summer intensive and the three guaranteed friendships. Once you are done, you’ll take a train home to the monastery.”

  Bicycle’s mouth dropped open. “What…what?…Friendship Factory?…Me?” The last word ended in a squeak. She couldn’t put together a sentence. She didn’t want to understand what Sister Wanda had just said.

  Sister Wanda wagged her finger as if they were back in the monastery classroom. “You know how much I worried about you, a child in that silent place, spending all your time with quiet old monks and a rusty old bike. It wasn’t healthy. Running away from your problems never solves anything, Bicycle. You must face them. You will learn to make friends, period. I would be remiss in my duty as your guardian if I didn’t see to that, and I am never remiss in my duties, as I’m sure you realize by now.”

  “But…but…I’m not running away from my problems, I’m biking toward the solution! I’m going to make friends with Zbigniew Sienkiewicz, Sister Wanda. You don’t have to do this.”

  “I beg to differ, my dear,” the nun said.

  Bicycle tried to think of a way to convince Sister Wanda otherwise. “I already made friends with a ghost, and he’d be here with me now to tell you so, except for the eight hundred and thirty-eight pigs that ran over him!” As the words left her mouth, she knew they were not helping.

  “Making up stories about imaginary friends is not going to change my mind. There is nothing more to be said,” Sister Wanda answered.

  “But I—”

  Sister Wanda silenced her with a look that was part pity and part steel. “I know you do not want to do this. However, you are too young to make such decisions for yourself. You need to be guided by the wisdom of yo
ur elders, dear, and that is that.” Sister Wanda ended her lecture with the tone of voice that meant discussion of the matter was closed.

  Bicycle’s eyes filled with tears, blurring the vision of Sister Wanda’s black-clad form, pedaling before her, blocking her way. This was much worse than being followed by a bicycle thief. Bicycle pushed her pedals mechanically. For the first time, she dreaded her progress. She was going to be sent to the Friendship Factory after all. Her escape had been futile. Her adventure was at an end. With Sister Wanda watching over her, this time there was truly no escape.

  After a long, fully silent afternoon, Sister Wanda announced, “I don’t see anywhere better to camp. This will have to do.” The nun and the girl slowed and pulled their bikes off into an RV park. Sister Wanda checked in with the front desk and was assigned a plain dirt campsite near a cinder-block bathroom. They saw no other tents or bicycles, only motor homes ranging in size from cozy to battleship.

  “Come help me set up my tent, and we can share it,” said Sister Wanda, unclipping a pannier from the side of her bike’s rear rack.

  The Fortune beeped to get Bicycle’s attention. Tell her to press the green button. Tell her that my tent is of the highest quality. Tell her there is room for you both, and tell her I can ensure that your shelter has a pleasant, relaxing scent.

  “The Fortune wants you to come over and try pressing the green button,” Bicycle said.

  Sister Wanda walked over to the bike and asked, “Oh? Can you promise there will be no snake missiles this time, Mr. Fancy Bike?”

  Please press the green button, the Fortune replied—somewhat meekly, Bicycle thought.

  Sister Wanda, a sleeping bag in one hand, looked at Bicycle, who nodded, and the nun pushed the green button. They stepped back while the Fortune did its tent-exhaling trick and Bicycle followed Sister Wanda inside the blue-and-yellow gumdrop.