by Natalie Hyde
I put out a fist and they came to sniff. Satisfied, they stood panting with their big fleshy tongues hanging out.
“How did you do that?” asked Fiona, still too terrified to move a muscle.
“I have a way with dogs,” I said, feeling a quick clench of my heart as I thought of Bandit. Was Shard looking out for him?
I stood back up slowly, still talking in low, quiet tones. Fiona started backing down the lane to the road. The dogs watched us go, and when we were on the road they turned and loped back to the barn.
“What now?” I asked. It was the only house we had seen all afternoon. But Fiona wasn’t paying attention to me; she was looking at her phone.
“Well, well, well. These people may have the meanest dogs in the world, but they also have cellphone reception.” She touched the screen and held the phone up near her ear.
I could hear ringing, but no one picked up. She tried another number. Same thing. And another. Still no answer.
“Is no one working today?!” Fiona yelled in frustration.
Then we heard something wonderful — the sound of a running engine. In a moment, a pickup truck came into view. We were saved! I was about to jump up and wave my arms, but before I could, Fiona grabbed my shoulder and whispered, “Don’t do anything.”
“Why? Isn’t this what we’ve been waiting for?”
Fiona never took her eyes off the pickup that was coming closer. “I have a bad feeling about this,” she said. “Put your helmet on. Quickly!”
My helmet? What was the point of putting on a helmet when the bike wasn’t running? But Fiona was clearly upset about something, so I did it.
As the pickup came beside us, I could see two guys inside. They were eyeing the Ducati pretty closely. I saw Fiona give them a friendly smile and wave and climb on the bike. I got on behind her. She pretended to dig around in her side bag, and I could see the guy in the passenger seat watch us until the pickup rounded the corner a ways down the road.
Fiona took her helmet off again. “We have to get out of here.”
I took mine off too. “What was wrong? Why didn’t you ask them to help us?”
Fiona started pressing the screen of her phone again. “I didn’t like how slow they were driving and how they were salivating over the bike. If they knew we couldn’t get it going, they might have grabbed it and thrown it in their truck.”
I was getting a headache. So far, I didn’t like life on the run. “Can I use the phone?” I asked. “I know who can help us.”
Fiona shrugged and handed it over. I pulled a crumpled scrap of paper out of my jeans and dialled.
CHAPTER 15
THE MUFFIN MAN?
You know how guitar strings are stretched tight so that when you pluck them, they make a sound? That’s how my nerves felt sitting there on the side of the road. Two hours crawls by when you are waiting for someone. I was ready to jump out of my skin at any sound. I was sure those guys in the pickup were coming back to get the bike, or that the crazy dogs from the farm down the road would suddenly decide to leave their yard and attack us, or that Family Services or the police would come screeching down to pick me up at any minute.
I don’t know whether I was starting to sweat because of the tension or because the sun was getting high in the sky. I pulled off my jacket and had a closer look at it. The dark spot on the back from an old patch was an odd shape. It was pointy on the sides, as if the image had wings. Maybe some more butterflies, like Fiona’s tattoos.
I knew all Fiona had on the back of her new jacket was a rectangular patch with the words Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History on it. I knew because I had been staring at it the whole time we were riding. I guess Fiona didn’t consider herself a “well-behaved woman.” Come right down to it, I don’t think my mother was either — leaving us like she did and never coming back. But I doubt she was going to make history, except maybe as a lousy mother.
I wondered how Fiona was not a well-behaved woman.
“What patch was on here?” I asked her, pointing to the dark spot on my jacket.
Fiona stared at it for a moment and then looked away. “Nothing.”
“Well, it was something,” I said, not letting up. After all, if she can make me talk about my mom, then she needed to come clean too. “Did it have wings? Was it your club?”
I’d seen enough biker jackets on guys in bars that I dragged my dad out of to know that’s what was normally on the back of a leather jacket.
Fiona sighed. Not a sad sigh, more like an angry sigh that I wouldn’t leave her alone. “Yeah.”
“So what club was it?”
“Ladyhawks.”
“Who are they?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“Why didn’t you put the patch on your new jacket?”
“I burned it.” Fiona said this with a lot of bitterness in her voice.
“Oh.” I thought that would have to be a big deal. People don’t leave their biker clubs and burn patches just because they’re having a bad day. Something must have happened. “Why?”
“Because they burned me,” Fiona said, getting up and walking down the road and shading her eyes with her hand, indicating that the conversation was over. Except now I really wanted to know why she left her club. And did they burn her, like with fire, or burn her, like betray her? I didn’t have a chance to ask because just then we heard the sound of an engine. There was a bend in the road, so we heard it before we could see it.
We both put on our helmets automatically, and I slipped on my jacket in case we had to pretend like we’d just stopped for a pee break or something and would be on our way. If it was the pickup truck again, they would know we were broken down and we’d be sitting ducks.
It wasn’t the pickup. It was a white cube van that was coming straight for us. As it got closer I could see that there was a big guy driving, and a shorter person in the passenger seat waving frantically.
Shard.
I can’t even say how happy I was to see her. And I would never tell her, because she has a big enough head already.
“Is it your friend?” Fiona asked.
“Yup. But I don’t know who’s with her.”
The truck was still rolling to a stop when the passenger door flew open and Shard hopped out. “Could you find a more remote place to break down?” she asked.
“No, we tried,” I answered sarcastically.
“Seriously, it took us three tries to figure out what exit you took, and how far down you were—”
The man had gotten out of the driver’s side and was coming over with his hand extended and a huge smile on his face. “Well, hello! So glad we found you.”
He shook Fiona’s hand as she stood gaping up at him. He was a full head and shoulders taller than her. “And you must be Chris,” he said, coming to me next. He pumped my hand up and down so hard I thought he was going to dislocate my shoulder. His smile got wider the more he pumped. How can anyone be that happy?
“Must I?” I muttered, taking off my helmet and wishing I could have corrected him to call me Dirk. But then I remembered I called myself Wally to the police. It was getting hard to keep track of who I was.
“This is my Uncle Vinnie,” Shard said. “He can fix anything.”
Fiona looked unsure about letting him near her precious Ducati, but with his puppy-dog smile, I guess she found it hard to say no. She took the cover off the engine and pointed to something inside. They bent over it and I heard her say something about switches and wires and plugs. I had no idea what they were talking about. Vinnie loped back to the truck, opened the driver’s side door and brought out a red toolbox.
“He’s a mechanic?” I asked.
“No,” Shard said, pointing to the side of the truck. “He’s a baker.”
On the side panel there was a huge picture of Vinnie, smiling of course, holding a basket of pastries with a banner over it that read The Muffin Man. Underneath the image were the words, Now you know him.
I�
��m not sure I wanted to know him.
“A baker who fixes motorcycles?”
“He’s very handy,” she said, folding her arms and daring me to argue with her.
I didn’t. Besides, having a Mr. Fix-It uncle with his own business sure beat my uncle. My dad’s brother was the world’s worst minister. I say world’s worst because he had been “let go” from five different congregations so far. How can you fail at being a minister? Well, if you’re a Dearing, you can. Now he was the minister for prison inmates. I guess that was the only place where he wouldn’t be fired.
Vinnie tinkered with Fiona’s engine for a while longer, with her hovering over it like a mama bear and her cub.
Shard and I walked over. “Can you fix it?” I asked Vinnie.
“Oh, I can fix it all right,” he told me. “If I had the part I needed. But this’s gotta be ordered special. This here’s no ordinary bike.”
At that, Fiona beamed. It was odd to see her smile. It changed her face completely.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked. There was no way I was staying on the side of this deserted road any longer.
“Well, there’s a little town a few kilometres down the road. We passed through it when we were looking for you. There’s gotta be a garage there where they can help us,” Vinnie said.
A few kilometres down the road? How were we going to push the bike for “a few kilometres”?
“Let’s just get this baby loaded up and we’ll be on our way,” he said.
“Loaded up? Where? In the truck?” I asked.
Vinnie grinned and loped to the back of the bakery truck. He swung the doors open and the most heavenly smell of cinnamon and peaches and chocolate wafted out.
“Have you got room for her in there?” Fiona asked nervously.
“Oh, sure. I had just finished two stops when Shard called me,” Vinnie said.
“Two stops?”
“Yup.” Vinnie proudly pulled me around to the other side of the truck where I could see a window with a small ledge under it. “I drive around town and when I find a good spot, I pull over and open up my shop.”
I went around to the back and peered inside. There was a long counter on the wall opposite the window, with cupboards above it. Under the counter was an oven, a small fridge and more storage. At the far end was an opening to the cab and on either side were big sacks of flour piled on the floor. On the wall with the window were rolling racks tied to the wall with bungee cords. And on every available countertop were plastic muffin trays stacked up. Some had slid onto the floor and Vinnie climbed in to tidy up. He restacked the trays and shoved them into the cupboards.
“Okay, you two—” He pointed to Shard and me. “— hop in, and when we hoist the bike in there, you secure it to those rings on the walls with the extra bungee cords in that box over there, okay?”
Fiona paled a little, and I was about to argue that maybe we shouldn’t be touching the Ducati, when Shard jumped in. I really had no choice, so I hopped up and joined her.
“Now, we’re going to slide this beaut down the middle and you guys guide it in straight.”
It was a delicate operation with Fiona having fits that the racks, the cupboards, the trays or the cords were going to scratch her precious Ducati. Finally it was all snug and tied down. We backed up into the cab but I saw that we had a problem. There were only two seats and four people.
“Uncle Vinnie?” Shard called. “Where should we sit? On the Ducati?”
“NO!” yelled Fiona. “There’s no sitting on the Ducati.”
“It’s a motorbike. You’re supposed to sit on it,” I said.
“I’m supposed to sit on it,” Fiona said. “No one is going to just ‘hang out’ on her.”
“You can sit on the flour sacks,” Vinnie said, a smile in his voice. “They’re pretty comfortable.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” I asked, eyeing them. They looked about as comfortable as concrete blocks. And I wasn’t too keen on staying in the back, closed in like that, either. Up front there were windows all around, and I wouldn’t feel like the walls were closing in on me. The space in the back wasn’t nearly as small as a trunk, but my heart was already starting to pound at the thought of those doors shutting.
“Nah. You’re fine. Have a leftover muffin or two from the trays.” With that he slammed the doors shut. He climbed in the cab with Fiona and turned the motor over. With a jerk, we started to move.
I tried to concentrate on keeping my balance on those rock-hard flour sacks with nothing to keep me from bouncing around the inside of the truck like a Ping-Pong ball.
“Are you okay?” Shard asked, probably hearing me breathing heavily.
“Sure,” I said, pretending nothing was wrong. “Hey, I heard the word muffin, and I haven’t eaten since Fiona and I had breakfast at the truck stop.”
The big space and the window on the side for selling helped me keep my fears under control. As soon as we were moving smoothly, I scooted over to the bungeed trays that were still lined with muffins.
“A Little Miss Muffin?” I said, reading the tag on the front of the tray. “What’s in that?”
“I dunno,” Shard said. “Curds and whey?” She rooted around in another tray. “I’m trying one of these Hot Cross Bunnies carrot muffins.”
In the end, we tried one of every kind. My favourite was the Better Than Apple Pie muffin. It had a streusel topping with cinnamon and brown sugar. It really was better than an apple pie, in my opinion.
There was this question that had been on my mind most of the afternoon, but I hadn’t asked Shard yet. Part of me didn’t want to know and the other part was curious. Curiosity won out. “So, did Family Services come around again?” I asked.
Shard swallowed the last bite of a Grizzly Bear’s Lunch muffin (blueberry and walnut). “Yeah. This morning. She seemed mad too. Told my parents she was going to charge them with obstruction or some garbage like that.”
“Were your parents upset?” I asked. The last thing I wanted was for the Kents to get in trouble because of me.
“Nah. Mrs. Family Services was totally out-manoeuvred by my folks. They’ve dealt with these government types for years. In the end, she was sweating pretty good as they questioned her about following the rules of apprehension of a minor or something. It was almost funny.”
Shard chuckled, but I didn’t feel like laughing. This Mrs. Family Services didn’t sound like she was going to give up easily.
CHAPTER 16
THE ANSWER’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU
We were bouncing around the back of the truck pretty good. Just how far was this town, anyway? Because it felt like we’d been doing this for hours. I would’ve asked, but Vinnie had the radio up pretty loud and was singing along at top volume. He wouldn’t have heard explosives going off in the truck behind him.
Shard was talking up a storm, giving me the rundown on everyone in Sunnyview Terrace and what they were doing. I bet none of them were running from the law and planning to defraud the government by impersonating an adult.
I would have given anything to talk to my dad right then, but I knew from experience that you can’t call anyone in jail. They have to call you, and to do that, you have to give them your phone number, which, of course, I couldn’t do because I didn’t have a phone. And I wouldn’t give him that number even if I did have one because all those crime shows I watched had taught me that they could find you using the GPS in your phone. I really didn’t need to make this easier for Family Services. But I sure wanted to hear his voice and ask him how he was and whether or not I was doing the right thing.
Well, it was too late for that now.
“Looks like we’re here,” Shard said as the engine shut off.
I couldn’t wait to get out of there. As soon as the doors opened, I took a deep breath.
“How is she?” Fiona asked, putting a hand on the back wheel of the Ducati.
“Fine. She had a few muffins and we played cards to pass the time,” I said
, too exhausted to hide my sarcasm.
“Ahahaha,” Vinnie laughed, “that’s a good one.”
Fiona gave him a dirty look. “Just undo the bungees and be careful they don’t snap back and scratch her.” She wasn’t happy until the Ducati was safe on the ground and she gave it a thorough inspection.
“Where are we?” I asked. I expected us to be parked in front of a gas station. Preferably one with a bathroom. This was a low white building, with several decrepit cars parked around the side, squatting between an old red-brick factory of some kind on one side and a grey stucco welding shop on the other.
“We couldn’t find a garage in Hainsville, so we continued on to Strathcona,” Vinnie said.
I’d never heard of Strathcona and could only hope it had a great garage that could fix the Ducati quickly. Shard and I sat on the back end of the open truck and waited while Vinnie and Fiona rolled the Ducati into the garage.
When they returned, the look on Fiona’s face said it all. “They have to order the part,” she said. “It could take up to two weeks because it has to come from Italy.”
“Two weeks?” I yelled. “I can’t wait that long. By then the claim will be gone.”
“What claim?” Vinnie asked.
“His grandfather’s gold claim in the Yukon,” Shard said.
“Is that where you’re going?” Vinnie asked me.
“Didn’t Shard tell you?” I asked. I could only imagine what kind of story she used to get him to come.
“She just said her best friend was in trouble and needed my help. That was good enough for me,” Vinnie said, his already wide smile growing even wider.
“Well, now what are we going to do?” I asked. Was everything going to be ruined because of one small motorcycle part?
“I vote we just turn around and go home,” Fiona said.
“Isn’t your mother expecting you?” I asked. I didn’t humiliate myself shopping for pantyhose for nothing. “And Uncle Joey?”
“Oh, shoot. You’re right.” Fiona rolled her eyes.
“Why don’t you just rent a car?” Shard asked.