by Bill Harley
All the days that Darius was rebuilding his bicycle, Aunt Inga never once woke up before ten o’clock. Darius always arrived home a quarter of an hour before she got up. Darius knew how lucky he was to have this time free. Sometimes he wondered what would happen if Aunt Inga rose early one day and noticed that he was missing. But he decided to worry about that when the time came.
Still, even though he spent the early mornings with Daedalus and some of each afternoon at the library, there were hours and hours of the day that needed to be filled. You can really only spend so much time by yourself before it begins to drive you crazy.
Darius could think of many things he would like to do rather than sit alone in the basement at Aunt Inga’s.
He would have preferred to travel with his father to Borneo.
Or to throw water balloons off the roof with Miss Hastings.
Or even to be in school with other kids. Imagine that.
But Darius had no power to do these things. That is the problem with being a kid—very little money and no car keys.
Sometimes he thought about how nice it would be to spend the afternoons and evenings at Daedalus’s house. But his friend had made it clear—the afternoon was his time to think. Darius couldn’t imagine anyone doing nothing but thinking all afternoon every day, but he was sure that if anyone could do it, Daedalus could.
Since the unpleasant incident with Anthony, Darius had done his best to avoid him. But Anthony was the only other person around who was anywhere near his age. Every day Darius could hear him outside, yelling and riding his bike back and forth over the ramp he had made in the middle of the street. It always sounded like he was having a great time. Finally, one day, Darius couldn’t stand it any longer.
He walked out to the street and watched Anthony ride over the ramp time and time again.
“Too bad you don’t have a bike,” said Anthony for the millionth time. “You could fly like me, except not as well.”
Why does he have to make everything into a contest? Darius wondered. Darius was sick of Anthony’s bragging, but he bit his tongue. Even though he knew that Anthony’s ordinary bike and puny jumps were nothing compared to what he had seen, Darius didn’t say a word. He didn’t want to tell Anthony about Daedalus and his wonderful workshop, and he certainly didn’t want this bully to know that he’d seen a bike that really flew. Still, the urge grew; he really wanted to ride Anthony’s bike just once.
Darius stepped off the curb just as the teenager came by. “Hey, Anthony,” he said.
The boy ignored him as he rode past; he pedaled faster and flew over the ramp.
“Hey, Anthony,” Darius called out. “Good jump. Could I try your bike?”
Anthony slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in front of Darius. “What do you want? Did you say something?”
“Could I try your bike, for just a minute?”
Anthony screwed up his eyes, squinting at Darius. “What’ll you give me?”
“Give you?” said Darius. “What do you want? I don’t have anything.”
A sly smile spread across Anthony’s face. “I’ve got an idea. You could do something for me.” The words hung in the air.
“What?” asked Darius, afraid to find out.
“You could lie down just at the end of the ramp, and I could jump over you on the bike, like at a circus or something.”
This sounded like a crazy and stupid idea to Darius. “Lie down?” he said. “What if you run over me?”
“You won’t get hurt. I’ve seen people do it all the time. I’ll fly right over you.”
Darius frowned. This wasn’t just crazy; it was a terrible idea.
“Suit yours elf,” said Anthony. He pushed off on his bike, pedaling down the street, getting ready for another trip over the ramp.
“Okay!” Darius shouted. “I’ll do it.” He knew it was ridiculous, but Darius was desperate to ride the bike.
Anthony circled back. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll let you try it. But you’ve got to let me do it five times.”
“You said once!” Darius protested.
“No. I didn’t say how many times, and it’s my bike. Five times or nothing.”
What could Darius do? He thought about walking away, about going back down into the basement and spending the rest of the afternoon on his cot. But now he was already in the middle of this stupid game. “Okay,” he said, “but just five.”
“Sure,” said Anthony. “Go lie down by the ramp.”
Darius stretched out on the pavement. Anthony picked up a stick from the side of the street and handed it to Darius. “As soon as I touch down, put this stick where my back tire landed so I can see how far I went.”
“Okay,” said Darius, “but just those five times.”
“Yeah, right,” said Anthony.
When you are dealing with a slippery character like Anthony, there is one sure thing: whatever he says is not what he means. If you know someone like Anthony, deep down you know it is best to avoid him. And you also know that once he draws you into one of his schemes, it is very hard to get out of it.
Darius lay helplessly on the street, face up in front of the ramp, as Anthony flew over him on the bike again and again. Each time he flew over, Darius marked the landing place with the stick. After the fifth time, Darius sat up. “Okay, all done. Now it’s my turn.”
“Just a couple more,” said Anthony.
“You said five,” said Darius.
“Come on, don’t be a chicken. Just a couple more. Let me try and beat my record.”
“No. That’s not fair.”
“Then forget about riding the bike.”
Again, what could Darius do? It was Anthony’s bike and Anthony’s ramp. Darius gave in and lay back down by the ramp.
Anthony took half a dozen more turns, yelling “One more time!” on every jump.
Finally, Darius stood up. “That’s enough. I kept my end of the bargain. Now I get to ride.”
“All right, worm,” said Anthony, “if you have to have your way. But you’ve got to jump the ramp.”
“I just want to ride.”
“You have to ride over the ramp at least once,” said Anthony. “I’ll lie in front of it. See if you can go past where the stick is. You’ll never beat me.”
“You don’t need to lie down,” said Darius. “All I want to do is just ride your bike around the block.”
But Anthony had already sprawled out on the pavement in front of the ramp.
Shrugging his shoulders, Darius climbed on the bike and pedaled down the street, then turned and headed for the ramp. The bike was big for him, but by standing on the pedals, he got it going. It was the first time he’d been on a bike in days. He couldn’t help but smile. The ramp came closer and closer, and he could see Anthony lying on the other side of the ramp, his head sticking out from one side of the ramp, his feet sticking out from the other. Anthony was waving the stick in the air. Darius’s heart pounded as he hit the ramp, and just as he felt the bike’s wheels leave the board, he saw the stick poking up in the air, directly in front of him.
What was Anthony thinking?!
Nothing very intelligent, that’s for sure.
“Nooooooo!” Darius yelled. As he passed over Anthony, the stick jammed in the spokes of the back wheel and broke. Darius lost his balance. The bike twisted wildly to one side, flying through the air sideways.
“Owwww!” Anthony screamed as the stick was wrenched from his hand. Darius tumbled off the bike, falling one way while the bike bounced and twisted in the other direction. It careened across the street and crashed into a tree. Darius hit the pavement with a thud and slid several feet along the pavement. His arm and shoulder were scraped and bleeding. He raised his head to see Anthony sitting by the ramp rubbing his wrist.
“Man,” said Anthony, “that really hurt my hand.”
Darius was furious. “What did you do that for?” he shouted at Anthony. “You could have killed me—and yourself, too! What’s the matte
r with you anyway?”
Anthony wasn’t even looking at him—he had gotten up and walked over to his bike by the side of the street. The handlebars were twisted to the side, and the spokes of the back wheel were bent.
“Hey, man, look what you did to my bike! It’s all screwed up!”
“Me?” said Darius in disbelief. “What I did?”
“You were riding it,” reasoned Anthony.
“You stuck the stick in it!” Darius was beside himself. “How could you do something so stupid?”
“Not that stupid. I beat you, didn’t I? You didn’t even come close to my mark!”
At that moment, Anthony’s mother opened her front door, roused by all the yelling. She stood on her front porch with folded arms. “What’s going on?” Mrs. Gritbun, asked.
Anthony didn’t hesitate. “Darius was riding my bike over the ramp and messed it all up. He hurt my hand, too,” he whined. “And he didn’t even do a good jump!”
I’m sure you’re thinking of all sorts of things Darius could say.
You’re probably hoping he’d say, “You almost got us killed, you meathead!”
Or, “Too bad your head didn’t get caught in the spokes!”
Or even, “Liar, liar pants on fire!”
I wish Darius had said one of those things to Anthony. But the fact is that in situations like this, where someone says something so far from the truth, so distant from what really happened, we are often struck speechless. It’s only later on that we think of absolutely brilliant things to say. Darius was so taken aback, so flabbergasted and awestruck by Anthony’s ability to twist the truth for his own benefit, that he just stood there, open-mouthed.
Mrs. Gritbun waddled down the steps and out to the street. “Let me see your hand, honey,” she said, reaching out to her son.
Anthony held out his paw to his mother, and she stroked it. “That’s okay, Mom,” he said. “I think it will be all right.”
Mrs. Gritbun turned and glared at Darius, who was still standing in the street rubbing his shoulder. Then she looked back at her son. “Anthony, honey, why did you let this horrid little boy ride your bike?”
“I was just trying to be friendly,” said Anthony.
This was truly an amazing statement, but Anthony said it like he meant it.
Mrs. Gritbun put her arm around her son. “Come on in, honey, and we’ll put some ice on it.”
“My bike is all messed up, Mom,” Anthony said.
“Yes, honey, I see,” said Mrs. Gritbun. “Next time your father comes home, we’ll get you a new one.”
Without saying anything to Darius, they headed back to their house, Anthony wheeling his ruined bike alongside him.
“YOU MADE ME FALL!” Darius finally shouted.
Mrs. Gritbun turned back on him in a fury. “You listen to me, you little troublemaker. No one made you ride over that ramp—you did it yourself. Anthony shares his things with you, and look what you do. You shouldn’t have been riding his bike, anyway. You obviously don’t know how to ride properly.”
Anthony was standing behind his mother, making faces at Darius.
“And don’t go blaming my son for something you did yourself,” Mrs. Gritbun went on. “You just wait until your aunt hears about this. It’s no wonder nobody wants you.” She turned abruptly and walked up the steps.
“Thanks for messing everything up,” Anthony said with a smirk. “And don’t forget, I won.”
Darius stood in the street by the ramp, rubbing his sore shoulder. He let out a sigh. He needed his own bike. Now more than ever.
12
Gertrude Gritbun’s Terrible Idea
When Aunt Inga got wind of what happened, she immediately blamed Darius.
“What am I going to do with you?” she asked.
As you know, there is no right answer to this question when it comes from an angry adult.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Darius tried to explain. “Anthony stuck a stick in the wheel and made me fall.”
“NOT YOUR FAULT? You never should have been on that bike, riding over that ramp in the first place. Don’t you have a lick of sense? I knew this kind of thing would happen when I took you in. Now what are we going to do?” Aunt Inga paused and glared at him.
Darius figured this was another question that had no right answer. He kept quiet.
“Just what I thought,” his aunt fumed. “You don’t know what to do either. What can I say to my friend Gertrude now? You ruined her son’s bike! How am I supposed to deal with that? It’s good she’s my friend, or she’d probably sue us, and then where would I be? Up the creek without a paddle, that’s where.” Aunt Inga pulled a daintily embroidered handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose with a loud honk. “Well, if you’re going to cause trouble like that, I’m just going to have to keep you busy around here. It’s about time you earned your keep. I’ll put you to work.”
And she did. Aunt Inga bustled into the kitchen and came back with a bucket of water and an old toothbrush.
“Take this in the bathroom and scrub the floor with it.”
“With a toothbrush?” Darius asked.
“Yes, with a toothbrush,” she mimicked. “I want every tile spotless. I’m going to keep you out of mischief if it kills me, and it probably will.”
Darius couldn’t see how making him clean the bathroom with a toothbrush would kill her, but part of him hoped it would.
But of course it didn’t.
When he’d finished with the tile floor, Aunt Inga found other mind-numbing, backbreaking jobs for Darius to do.
She had him pull dandelions out of the yard by hand. One by one, all day long.
One morning she made him dust off all her hundreds of trophies for selling magazines and arrange them in chronological order.
And, worst of all, she told him that from then on he was to go to bed in the basement at seven-thirty every night.
In the middle of summer!
It wasn’t even dark yet!
Who’d ever heard of such a thing?
Darius hadn’t, that’s for sure.
Darius learned to survive by avoiding Aunt Inga whenever possible. After he got home from Daedalus’s workshop, he’d do his chores—he couldn’t believe how many dandelions could grow in one backyard—as quickly as he could. In the afternoons while she was busy with her TV programs, Darius planned his escape. At the library he studied the maps, plotting the best routes to his old town and copying them carefully in his notebook. He was a bit worried that he didn’t have an address for Miss Hastings. There was no use asking Ms. Bickerstaff again about tracking her down on the computer. His old housekeeper had said she’d find a place with friends, and he had no idea who they were.
I’ll just have to do some detective work when I get there, he thought. I’ll ask at the stores we used to go to, and the houses in our old neighborhoods. Someone will surely know where she went.
Darius knew he would need supplies for the trip. Daedalus had already given him a kit to repair flat tires and a small can of oil for his chain. He used some of the money he had earned from repairing bikes to buy a rain poncho and a little toolkit at a surplus store not far from Daedalus’s house. He’d need food, too. He thought about squirreling away some of Aunt Inga’s cookies, but he was afraid she would notice. Instead, he started buying little packets of cheese and crackers from a convenience store down the street from Aunt Inga’s.
He stowed all the things for his escape in his backpack and kept it under his cot. Even though it was a very small backpack, to Darius it promised another world, better than the one he lived in. It had nothing to do with his life with Aunt Inga.
But Aunt Inga was his aunt, and he couldn’t avoid her all the time.
And try as he might, he couldn’t always avoid Anthony. Every Tuesday and Thursday Aunt Inga would invite Mrs. Gritbun and Anthony over for a late afternoon tea, which consisted of diet cola and more cookies from the little white bags. On those occasions, Aunt Inga would give
each boy a can of soda pop and two cookies and shoo them out of the living room, always reminding Darius to “entertain” Anthony. This usually meant that the boys would go outside, where Anthony would torment Darius in new and horrible ways. But when the weather was bad, they’d go into the basement, where Anthony would torture Darius until he could get away and come upstairs. That is exactly what had happened on the afternoon that Mrs. Gritbun came up with the terrible idea.
That day, Anthony had been particularly nasty. Darius had endured the usual noogies and wedgies, but when the bigger boy kneed him in the thigh, it was the last straw. Darius tore up the stairs with Anthony right behind him laughing like a hyena. The two boys burst into the living room, and Darius sat down on the floor directly across from Aunt Inga and Mrs. Gritbun, who were just finishing their soft drinks and cookies. Anthony squeezed in between his mother and Aunt Inga on the sofa.
“Having fun, boys?” asked Mrs. Gritbun.
“Yes, Mother,” Anthony said, aiming an evil smile at Darius.
Darius kept quiet. What was the point of saying anything?
“They play so well,” sighed Aunt Inga. “It’s a pity that Anthony will have to leave for school in several weeks. I don’t know what I’ll do with him then.”
And that was when Mrs. Gritbun uttered these horrifying words:
“Why don’t you send Darius to Crapper Academy with Anthony?”
Darius froze. Small animals seemed to run up and down his spine and weird little insects seemed to skitter up the skin on the back of his head and over his scalp.
“Noooo …,” he squeaked.
But no one heard him. Aunt Inga’s eyes went from little slits to big donuts and back to slits. She began to breathe in and out in quick little bursts.