The Great Bike Rescue

by Hazel Hutchins

  It’s a spot that most people don’t notice, a little alcove—deep and narrow. Like everywhere else along the storefront, the plate glass is lined with posters. I sat with my back against the door and pulled in my legs. Instantly, I was hidden. Only someone looking directly sideways at the exact moment they passed the doorway would see me.

  But I could see out. By peering through the cracks between the posters, I could see the street, The Flame and a stretch of sidewalk in either direction. Perfect.

  The next minute, Riley walked around the corner and sat beside me.

  “Hey!” he said. “This is going to work great. It’s a stakeout, just like on the cop shows. We should have brought coffee and donuts.”

  “Where’s your bike?” I asked.

  “Locked at the back,” he said. “Bikes get stolen in front of this store, in case you haven’t heard. And I can’t watch it if I’m helping you wrestle some thief to the ground.”

  Wrestling wasn’t part of the plan. As soon as the thief laid a finger on The Flame, we’d both step out of the doorway. The thief would abandon his plan and take off. But I’d know what he looked like. Our city is big, but our neighborhood isn’t. I’d ask around and find out who he was. Maybe I’d even find out where he lived. I’d tell the police.

  Riley’s head was swiveling back and forth. “See anyone suspicious yet?”

  As far as I was concerned, everyone was suspicious.

  Two teenagers were pooling money at the bus stop. A bike, even one as small as The Flame, could save one of them the cost of bus fare.

  A summer student hurried down the sidewalk, headed to the college across the ravine. A bike would get her there way faster.

  A bottle picker ambled down the street, looking in garbage cans. He could tie his bulging bags to the bike and push it, like a cart. Way easier.

  Nope. None of them even looked at The Flame. But I wasn’t discouraged.

  If the bike thief needed a bike for transportation, he now had one—he had my bike.

  I should be watching for someone who wasn’t going anywhere. Someone who was hanging around. Someone who was stealing things because that’s what he or she did.

  The man with the black T-shirt was now walking back and forth on the opposite corner. I could see tattoos all down one arm. Definitely suspicious. And when I thought about it, I was pretty sure I’d seen him around before.

  A gray-haired man on a bench was pretending to scratch lottery tickets. I could tell he was doing a lot of peering around from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

  Two women wearing frayed jeans were looking in shop windows across the street. They could be using the reflection to case out opportunities. I held my breath as they crossed at the corner. Nope, they passed by without a glance.

  The only one who did look at The Flame was a little boy. If he’d taken it, his mom would have made him put it back.

  That’s when someone in blue jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt slid around the corner and sat down beside us.

  “Hey,” she said.

  I couldn’t believe it. Emily Grimshaw.

  Emily is tiny. She’d squeezed herself into the corner next to Riley, her knees hugged up tightly. With her sharp chin and bright eyes she looked like a rodent—a rodent in a wrinkled T-shirt. Riley looked at Emily and then he looked at me. Back and forth. Emily. Me.

  When I was little, Emily Grimshaw had made me so mad I’d felt like a cartoon character—you know, the kind with steam coming out of its ears? Instantly that feeling returned. Or maybe there really was steam, because the puzzled expression on Riley’s face shifted. He’d figured it out. He knew who she was. He waited for me to say something.

  I couldn’t. Emily was the last person I wanted to see. I didn’t want to be reminded of one thief—even if it was little-kid stuff—when I was trying to catch another! What was she doing here? What kind of weird coincidence was this? It was so weird, I couldn’t have thought of what to say even if I wasn’t already steamed.

  But Emily had no such problem. She was bobbing her head around, looking between the posters, this way, that way, up and down.

  “This is a pretty good place to hide,” she said. “Who thought of it?”

  No way was I going to answer. But Riley had become interested. He decided to jump right in.

  “Levi did,” he said.

  “Huh,” said Emily. “I guess he’s smarter than he used to be.”

  Riley grinned. I scowled.

  “Except you’re using the red bike for bait, aren’t you?” said Emily. “That part’s not so smart.”

  “It isn’t?” asked Riley.

  “Nope,” said Emily. “But I guess you come up with all sorts of crazy ideas when someone steals your bike.”

  “Yup,” Riley agreed. “How did you hear about it anyway?”

  Good question, Riley! But Emily answered without missing a beat.

  “You guys told everyone,” she said.

  “We didn’t.” I tried to say it softly, so only Riley would hear.

  “We kind of did,” he answered in a normal voice. “We told the store clerk and the garbage crew and that AJ guy at the service station, and I told my cousins, who all said they’d spread the word. And we told the perfect sisters. They’ll tell at least a hundred people, and…”

  Emily smiled as the list grew longer, but her eyes were also scanning the street.

  “Sssst!” she hissed suddenly. We followed her gaze and immediately saw what had got her attention.

  Steve Morrow and three of his friends were strolling along the sidewalk like they owned it. If they were the thieves, we were in big trouble. Actually, we were in trouble anyway. Steve likes picking on kids younger than him, and here we were, already cornered.

  It was too late to get out of the way. All we could do was hope they didn’t glance sideways as they passed. All three of us froze in place and held our breath. Their strides brought them closer and closer. One, two, three, four, five…

  Whew. Strides six and seven took them directly past our doorway, but they were too busy joking among themselves to bother glancing sideways. They went right on by. They passed the rest of the storefront as well. They didn’t steal The Flame.

  But at the last moment, just when I thought we’d escaped completely, Steve gave a quick backward kick. It expertly caught the tip of the little bike’s back tire. The Flame crashed to the ground. All four sniggered as they stepped out to cross the street.

  “Jerks,” muttered Riley a few moments later, when we were sure they were gone and we had emerged from our hiding spot.

  I picked up The Flame. It wasn’t hurt, but I was surprised by how fast it had all happened.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all,” I said. “Come on, Riley. Let’s grab your bike and head out.”

  “Good plan,” said Emily. She followed us around the corner toward the alley. “You could have lost that little bike. I mean, you might have caught someone walking by who tried to ride away. But what about someone in a pickup truck or a van? All they’d have to do is throw the bike in and drive off.”

  Okay. I hadn’t thought of that. Suddenly, I knew the answer. For once I was going to get the best of Emily Grimshaw.

  “Even better,” I said, stopping to talk to her directly. “We’d have gotten a license plate number from the vehicle!”

  Emily sighed and shook her head.

  “Except it’s not the actual thief you want. Not if you want to get your bike back,” she said. “You’re not thinking this out properly. People who steal bikes don’t keep them. They—”

  “Nooooo!”

  The shout came from the back of the store. It was Riley’s voice. It sounded as if he was in pain. We took off at a run. We rounded the corner. Riley didn’t look like he’d been hurt. He was just standing there. No muggers. No pack of wild dogs. No blood. What was wrong?

  And then I saw the bike stand. Riley’s chain lock was wrapped around it, the lock securely fastened.

  But th
e bike itself was gone.

  Chapter Four

  “They figured out the combination. They took my bike and left my chain lock behind. They even did the lock up again!”

  Riley’s bike had been locked and he had a story to tell. If you ever have your bike stolen, that’s the way to do it. Everyone gives you sympathy—the store clerk, the girl at the café, the lady out walking her dog again. The perfect sisters were synchro-biking around the neighborhood and even they felt sorry for Riley. And when he got home, an entire army of people jumped in to help him.

  His brother and cousin drove around looking in parks and alleys in case someone had taken the bike for a joy ride and already dumped it. His dad found the receipt with the bike’s serial number for the police report. His mom called their insurance company. I knew all about it because Riley phoned me just after supper.

  “The police said lots of bikes have gone missing lately,” said Riley. “We’re part of a crime wave. That’s what your friend was trying to tell us.”

  “She’s not my friend. She’s my nemesis,” I said. “Remember?”

  “I kind of liked her,” said Riley.

  “What do you mean you liked her?” I said. “You don’t even know her.”

  “She doesn’t giggle like some girls,” said Riley. “And she’s way more interesting than the perfect sisters.”

  Great. Just great.

  “Even a nemesis can be right about some things,” said Riley. “Oh, and I forgot to tell you. My sister came up with a great idea. She’s helping me make lost-and-found posters to put up around the neighborhood.”

  Not lost and found, I wanted to correct him. Stolen and gone. But I didn’t say it. I felt awful about what had happened.

  “I’ll help you put them up,” I offered.

  “We’ve got it covered,” said Riley. “It’ll be faster by car.”

  Right. Especially since I’d be walking everywhere from now on.

  “I’m pretty sure I’ll get it back,” said Riley. “In a couple of days I’ll hear from the police or someone who reads the posters. I’ll have to ride The Flame to soccer camp for the first couple of days, but after that…” He paused and switched gears. “Hey, are you sure you can’t talk your dad into letting you go to soccer instead of that thing at the pool?”

  “Not a chance,” I said. I already knew how to swim, but overly responsible people like my dad make their kids take extra classes in drownproofing and lifesaving. Lessons were Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and Dad wasn’t going to let me get out of them.

  It was my night to clean up after supper. I don’t like doing dishes, but at least you can think about things. I played video games after that. Video games are good for not thinking about things but at the same time allowing ideas to settle into place. By the time I went upstairs to the office to say goodnight, I’d pretty much decided how I felt. I gave Dad an update on the things Riley was doing to try and get his bike back.

  “I’m sorry, Levi,” said Dad, turning to look at me. He had that glazed-over look people get after they drink too much coffee and stare for hours at a screen. “This new project has me too busy to think of much else. I guess you could try making posters.”

  “It wouldn’t work—that’s what I’m trying to say,” I explained. “It’s not like I dropped something and lost it on the street. Someone stole my bike, stole both our bikes, on purpose. And in Riley’s case, it wouldn’t just have been some kid going for a joy ride. Riley’s bike was locked, so it would have been a professional thief who probably knows how to break into vehicles and crack safes.”

  But Dad was shaking his head.

  “Not the lock that was on Riley’s bike,” said Dad. “I’ve noticed it when he’s been here. It’s an old-style combination chain lock—four numbers and basic mechanics. It’s better than nothing, but with a bit of practice, even a kid could open it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yup,” said Dad.

  “How old a kid?” I asked.

  “Well, let’s see,” he said, tapping the desk with one finger the way he does when he’s trying to remember. “It was Mr. Peterson, so that must have been grade…”

  His voice faded away.

  “Who was Mr. Peterson?” I asked.

  Dad didn’t answer right away. He must have been trying really hard to remember, because the tips of his ears started to turn red. When he finally looked up, he had the oddest look on his face.

  “Mr. Peterson was a teacher,” said Dad. “He rode his bike to school every day. He locked it up over beside the car park.”

  “And…?” I asked.

  “One day Mr. Peterson discovered his bike had been moved to a new location,” said Dad.

  The tips of his ears turned even redder. Weird.

  “You mean it was stolen?” I asked.

  “Not stolen, exactly,” said Dad, speaking carefully. “Just moved. It might have happened more than once. I can’t quite remember. But everyone knew it was a kid at school who’d done it. No one knew who, exactly…but it was a kid.”

  “Did the kid get caught?” I asked.

  “No. He was pretty fast at figuring out combinations, and he had a buddy who ran interference. At least, that what’s everyone said, and I’m pretty sure they were right,” said Dad.

  “A high-school kid?” I asked.

  “The school only went up to grade five,” answered Dad. “He would have been just about your age.”

  So much for my theory that whoever took Riley’s bike had to be a professional thief.

  “And did—” I began.

  But Dad gave a giant stretch and yawn.

  “Look at the clock, Levi. Time for bed.”

  My thoughts were still going about a mile a minute when I turned out the light. A buddy who ran interference—Dad meant a friend who acts as a lookout or causes a distraction. Kids did that at school all the time when they were trying to get away with something, even minor stuff.

  Was that what Emily Grimshaw had been doing? Had she been buying time so one of her friends could unlock Riley’s bike? Except I’d never seen Emily with other kids. And usually, once something has been stolen, everyone who’s had anything to do with it is long gone. Emily had stuck around.

  Steve and his friends had been distracting and were definitely long gone by the time we noticed that Riley’s bike was missing. But Steve’s posse is usually only two or three kids, and they’d been with him on the street. Had he recruited more friends over the summer?

  And the tattoo guy? I was pretty sure he’d taken off. Vanished. Just the way a thief would.

  I couldn’t remember much about the guy with the weird eyebrows. He may have been there and he may have been gone.

  But the kids at the bus stop…I knew at least one bus had come, and they hadn’t got on. Sitting at a bus stop would be a pretty good cover for a couple of lookouts.

  I tried to picture it all again in my head in flashes, the way they sometimes show things on the crime shows on TV. It didn’t work. Apparently, my brain isn’t a TV camera.

  But something else was filtering through my thoughts. I’d gotten as far as figuring out that if a lot of bikes were being stolen, it wasn’t because the thief was taking them for a quick ride. Emily had taken it further. People who steal bikes don’t keep them— that’s what she’d said.

  They were selling them! I should have figured it out myself! If I wanted my bike back, I had to find the person who was buying the bikes.

  On the cop shows you hear about someone called a fence, someone who buys things from thieves. Pawn shops sometimes get accused of fencing stolen goods. There aren’t any pawn shops in our neighborhood, but there is something else.

  First thing the next morning, I called Riley and arranged to meet him there on his way home from soccer.

  Chapter Five

  “An undercover operation,” said Riley. “That’s way more interesting than a stakeout.”

  Spoke and Rim was a secondhand-bike shop in
an older area on the other side of Battersby Street. Brightly colored storefronts stood next to buildings with peeling paint and drooping hedges. The way I saw it, it was the perfect place for an operation dealing in stolen bikes.

  “We’re not going undercover. That would mean working here,” I told Riley. “We’re just a couple of customers doing a little extra snooping around.”

  “Close enough,” said Riley.

  He locked The Flame to a No Parking sign near the front of the store. He was using his brother’s double-deadbolt Krpytoloc—a zillion times better than his old lock. Safe.

  The bike store must have been a gas station and car garage a million years ago. On the left side was a small area with windows where the till and office were, along with a few posters and a couple of fancy new bikes. On the right was a larger area that would have been used by car mechanics but had been turned into the shop itself.

  There were wide doors front and back, and inside was a cool cement cave. It was hard to see at first, but all my other senses knew where we were. Smells of oil and rubber. The clink of tools. The whir of a chain being freewheeled and a soft click as it smoothly slipped from one gear to another.

  Gradually, objects grew out of the shadows—a workbench, scattered tools, bikes partly assembled…or partly disassembled. It was hard to tell which. There were two men working in the shop but no other customers. The secondhand bikes were along the far wall. All kinds. All sizes. That’s where we headed.

  “Look them over really carefully,” I whispered to Riley. “They might have decals or spray paint to disguise them. Or parts switched up. Like the neat seat you had on your bike switched over to a different bike entirely or—”

  A gruff voice interrupted.

  “Forget it. We stay away from that kind of business.”

  Riley and I jumped about a foot. An older man was standing behind us, wiping his hands on a rag. He wasn’t pleased.

  “I don’t deal in stolen bikes. Or parts from stolen bikes.”

  “We don’t mean on purpose,” said Riley. “But you might get fooled sometimes by someone else who brings one in.”