Dirt Bike Runaway

by Matt Christopher

  “I haven’t got time,” Peter said. “I’ve got to —”

  “How’d you get mixed up with Dex, anyway?” Giff cut in. “What did you do to get him to let you ride one of his bikes in the moto? You must’ve done something.”

  “I was tricked.”

  “Tricked?” Giff frowned.

  “Yes.” And Peter went on to tell him about arriving at the Cypress Corners Mall, seeing the Corella 125 LC bike, admiring it, then Jess and Bill stopping by and conning him into making him believe that the Corella was Jess’s, that he couldn’t start it, and Peter ending up starting it for him with a wire he had found in a garbage can.

  “Tricked? You were suckered,” Giff said, shaking his head. “Either one of those goons would pull a fast one on his own mother.”

  “Then, while I’m sitting on the bike —”

  “Dex shows up.”

  “And the war starts.”

  Peter glanced toward the mall. Somewhere there should be a clock. What time was it getting to be, anyway?

  He looked back at Giff and saw a black digital watch on his left wrist.

  “What time is it?” he asked. “I can’t hang around much —”

  “Five-oh-five,” Giff said, glancing at the time, and went on quickly, “Look, how do you know so much about motorcycles?”

  Peter had started to turn away. He was getting nervous, fidgety. He wanted to leave. He had to leave. Now.

  “My father had one,” he said, lying through his teeth. “He was also a mechanic. He taught me everything I know.”

  “I figured it was something like that. How about working on mine?”

  “What?”

  “Working on my bike,” Giff explained, smiling. “I’ve been finishing up behind the winners, but I know I could come up a winner if my BLB had all the kinks taken out of it.”

  “Can’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t,” said Peter. But he found himself gazing past Giff’s shoulders at the huge lot behind him in an effort to spot the BLB 125 he could remember so well.

  “Why can’t you?” Giff asked, pressing him. “What’s your hurry? Where are you going?”

  That’s my business, Peter wanted to say as he turned his gaze back to Giff. (He hadn’t been able to see the BLB. There were too many cars in the lot to try to see through.) But he restrained himself from saying that, knowing he’d regret it if he did. Giff seemed like a nice guy. Friendly and tolerant.

  “I’m heading for Fort Myers,” Peter said.

  “Got relatives there?”

  Peter met Giff’s deep-blue, piercing eyes. “No. No relatives,” he answered calmly. “I just want to go there, that’s all.”

  Giff cleared his throat. “You in trouble, Pete?”

  Peter’s eyes widened for a second. Then he grinned, not too surprised. After all, he certainly must have shown enough signs to indicate that all was not well with him.

  “Sort of,” he admitted. “But I didn’t commit any crime, if that’s what you’re thinking. I — I just ran away from a place. A foster home.”

  “From where?”

  “Cross Point.”

  Peter felt the piercing blue eyes probing him, and he wanted to turn and go on his way. Yet something detained him, urging him to reconsider Giff’s offer to fix his bike. Peter could ask Giff to let him take a shower at his place afterward. That wouldn’t be too much to ask for payment, would it? Maybe his clothes wouldn’t be very clean, but he would be.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Giff cut into his thoughts. “Come home with me, fix my bike, take a good hot shower, then stay overnight. After breakfast tomorrow morning, you can decide whether you want to head for Fort Myers or not. That sound good to you?”

  Peter broke out laughing. Had Giff read his mind?

  He was about to say okay when the roar of a motorcycle cut sharply into his senses. He turned toward the direction of the street where the sound was coming from and saw a blue-fendered, blue-tanked bike heading toward them. The rider was wearing blue jeans, white leather gloves, shiny brown leather boots, and a milk-white helmet.

  No. 99!

  Even though the rider wasn’t wearing his familiar crimson suit and number now, Peter remembered him. The guy had given him some tough moments out there on the track.

  “It’s D.C.,” Giff said, smiling.

  The rider rode the bike up toward them, shut off the ignition, and started to take off his helmet.

  When the visored white helmet came off, a mass of long, nut-brown hair tumbled down against slender shoulders.

  “Hi!” the girl greeted the boys cheerfully. “Making secret plans for the next moto?”

  Peter stared, flabbergasted.

  Giff laughed.

  “Pete,” he said, “meet D.C., my sister.”

  6

  Hi,” Peter said, cracking a smile.

  He was surprised, bashful, nervous. This was the first chance he had of really getting a good look at her face, and she was beautiful. Her round cheeks were slightly pink, as was the tip of her slightly up-tilted nose. Her lips were almost as red and shiny as the uniform she had worn in the race, and Peter wondered if she was wearing lipstick.

  “This is Peter Lewinski,” Giff said. “He just had a falling out with Dex and company.”

  “Oh?”

  D.C. looked at Peter’s black eye, then at his hair, which he knew must look like a rat’s nest, then at his clothes, and finally back at his eyes again. Her own brown eyes, below long, dark lashes, were guarded now, as if she didn’t quite know what to make of him.

  “You had a fight with Dex?”

  Peter shrugged. “Sort of. He got the best of me, as you can see.”

  “What happened?”

  “Look,” Giff interrupted, “why don’t we head for home? Pete’s going to fix up my BLB, take the roughness out of it. Maybe he’ll have a chance to tell you all about it tonight. Okay?”

  D.C. stared at Giff, then at Peter, her cheeks reddening like ripened apples. “He’s coming to our house?” she said, as if Giff were inviting a dirty no-good bum he had found lying on a street to go home with him.

  “Yes, D.C.,” Giff replied, a sharp change in his otherwise calm, soft voice. “I invited him. He’s going to fix my bike. That all right with you?”

  The sudden exchange made Peter uncomfortable. He turned and walked off toward the sidewalk that ran along the mall, hurt that he should be the cause for the spat between Giff and D.C.

  “Peter, wait!”

  The call came from Giff. Peter paused, not sure now what to do. Should he still accept Giff’s invitation in spite of what D.C. had said?

  He turned and glanced at her and saw her looking at his legs. Her eyes rose quickly, wide and glistening, her mouth pressed in a hard, tight line. She’s probably noticed that I’ve got one leg shorter than the other, Peter thought. Should that make me different from anybody else? Look, girl, he ached to tell her, I can’t help that I’m a cripple. I didn’t ask to be born like this.

  Peter turned to Giff, his hands shoved angrily into his empty pockets. “No, Giff,” he said, trying hard to control his voice. “I better go. Thanks, but —”

  “No. Please,” D.C. cut in, penitently. “I’m sorry.” She looked at both of them pleadingly, her eyes blinking as if she were ready to cry. “I didn’t mean anything. I really didn’t.” She put her helmet back on and climbed onto her bike. “I’ll see you both later. ’Bye!”

  Peter watched her take off, wheeling the Yamaha in a slow, sharp U-turn that got her directed back toward the street.

  “Don’t let her bother you,” Giff said. “I just surprised her, that’s all. She still might think you’re a friend of Dex and his buddies.” Giff flung an arm around Peter’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Peter hung back. “No, Giff. I really don’t think —”

  “Hey!” Giff interrupted, looking at him, a smile brightening his blue eyes. “Come on, will you? You can’t be going anywhere else now, anyway. It’s too late.�
��

  “But D.C. doesn’t want me at the house, Giff,” Peter said firmly. “No matter what she said before she left, she still doesn’t.”

  “She’ll change her mind as soon as she knows more about you,” Giff said, insistent. “I know her. She’s a hard-willed girl, but I know my sister. She’s going to be so sorry for acting like she did toward you that she’ll come apologizing. You wait and see.”

  Peter studied Giff’s warm, friendly face, pondered Giff’s words. No, he thought. D.C. would never apologize to him. Giff was merely trying to salve his hurt feelings.

  But if he left now, Peter thought, she would always think of him as being a bum, the type of guy who belonged with people like Dex, Jess, and Bill. Could he live with that thought nagging at the back of his mind? Peter didn’t think so. Best that he accept Giff’s invitation. Maybe after D.C. got to know him better, she’d realize she was wrong about him. If she wanted to apologize to him then, okay. He wouldn’t care one way or another. He’d just be relieved to know that she no longer considered him in a class with Dex and his friends.

  “Okay,” he said to Giff, cracking a smile. “I’ll go with you.”

  Giff smiled back and extended a hand. “Thanks, Pete,” he said, and they shook on it. Then they headed briskly for the sidewalk that stretched like a wide ribbon down the full length of the mall, Peter finding that he had to accelerate his pace to keep up with Giff’s long-legged strides.

  “What does D.C. stand for?” Peter asked, curious.

  “Dorothy Catherine,” Giff answered. “She was named after our grandmother.”

  About halfway down the sidewalk Giff stepped off the curb and headed toward the parking lot, Peter trailing him. Giff’s motorcycle — still dirty from racing in the motocross — was parked in a slot next to one reserved for the handicapped.

  Giff had left his helmet hanging over the left handlebar. He took it off and pulled it on, then fastened its straps. Giff mounted the bike and Peter climbed on behind him.

  Giff inserted the key into the ignition, turned it, then jumped onto the starting pedal, kick-starting the engine. The bike popped after the second try. Then Giff raised the kick stand with a short upward jab of his right foot and gently turned the bike around. He twisted the hand grip and rode the bike down the lane to the street.

  A soft, sputtering sound in the engine caught Peter’s trained ear. Either the sparkplug was loaded up or the carburetor needed a minor adjustment, he figured. Other than that the bike rode like a breeze.

  Giff paused at the mouth of the driveway, waited till two cars drove by, then turned onto the street, headed north.

  “I noticed that you walk with a limp, Pete, as if one leg’s shorter than the other,” Giff observed, talking over his shoulder.

  “That’s right, it is,” Peter replied.

  He hadn’t given his legs a thought until a little while ago when D.C. had seemed to notice it, and now he was surprised that Giff mentioned it. Few people ever did.

  “Born that way?” Giff asked.

  “Yes.”

  They rode down the street for several blocks, then turned right onto Casper Boulevard, crossed a bridge over the intercoastal waterway, and rode on.

  D.C. was nowhere in sight.

  Peter smelled an obnoxious odor that reminded him of rotten eggs, then saw a sewage plant about four hundred yards away to his left. By the time they reached the red light at the intersection and stopped, he was no longer aware of the smell.

  They crossed Route 41, heading east, and about a mile farther on Giff turned left onto Laurel Street. He made two more turns onto streets flanked by one- and two-story homes, palm trees, and other tropical shrubbery, then drove up onto the driveway of number 1641, slowed down, and stopped.

  Peter was impressed by the yellow, two-story home with white shutters on the windows and two white, round pillars on the front porch. White-painted steps led up to the porch, and a giant oak tree grew in the front yard, its gnarled branches stretching out over the roof of the house. D.C.’s bike was parked in front of the two-car garage.

  Suddenly Peter felt apprehensive about coming here. The clothes he wore — a green sport shirt, blue jeans with dirt scuffs on them from the fight with Dex, and worn sneakers — were not the best a kid could impress the parents of a kid like Giff with. But he was here now; there was nothing he could do about it.

  Giff pushed the bike up next to his sister’s, pulled the kick stand out with his foot, laid the bike against it, then invited Peter into the house.

  “I want you to meet my mother,” he said. “My father won’t be home till five-thirty. He’s an investment broker.”

  Peter had no idea what an investment broker did. He had never heard the term before.

  I wonder what my father did when he was alive, he thought. Nobody ever told me. All Peter knew was that he was about two years old when he was riding in a car with his parents. The car was struck by a train at a railroad crossing and both of his parents were killed. Miraculously, he was spared.

  Unfortunately, he had no living relative and had to be left in a home for children — The Good Spirit Home in Cross Point, which wasn’t far from St. Petersburg, where Peter and his family used to live. It had been no picnic, those fourteen years at The Good Spirit Home. Dr. Forrest Cunningham ran the place with extra-strict discipline, meting out punishment to the offenders, using his wooden paddle unflinchingly on any kid caught smoking or stealing — an experience Peter had had himself, and which sometimes had almost caused him to run away from there.

  Then came the day that Dr. and Mrs. Bentley visited the home, looking for a child to keep them and their only son — 190-pound, eighteen-year-old Tommy Joe — company. They saw Peter, liked him, and after two weeks of waiting for legal papers to be signed, they took Peter home with them.

  Living with the Bentleys wasn’t so bad at first. Both Dr. Bentley and his wife were not home very much. Besides the doctor’s profession keeping him away a lot, he and Mrs. Bentley were very much occupied with social affairs. Their absence from home left Peter alone with Tommy Joe, which was really why, Peter soon discovered, the Bentleys had wanted him. They didn’t want Tommy Joe to be left alone. Mrs. Bentley had told Peter that a baby-sitter had taken care of Tommy Joe all these years, but after Tommy Joe had grown up he didn’t need a sitter anymore. He needed a male companion to keep him company, to play video games with, to go to school sports events with, and so on.

  That was all right, until Tommy Joe had begun to tease Peter, to wrestle with him and use him for a punching bag. Tommy Joe was a junior in high school, but he wasn’t able to make any of the athletic teams he tried out for.

  Then one day Tommy Joe found his father’s liquor, drank half a bottle, and tried to persuade Peter to drink some of it, too. Peter refused, so Tommy Joe got mad and tried to force Peter to drink it by pinning his arms back and pouring the liquor down his throat. What happened next was a page in Peter’s life story that he was sure he’d never forget. In their struggle, he and Tommy Joe had ended up near the fireplace. Tommy had almost forced Peter to drink the liquor when Peter turned and saw a pair of iron tongs — the kind used to turn logs in a fireplace. He grabbed them desperately with one hand and struck Tommy Joe on the shoulder, missing his head by inches.

  Tommy Joe had let out a yell and staggered back onto the floor, where he fell and lay for a minute, his eyes searching Peter’s wildly.

  “I’ll kill you for this! I’ll kill you!” Tommy Joe had yelled.

  That was when Peter knew he had to get out, to leave before Tommy Joe would have a chance to get up and make his threat real. That was two days ago.

  Now, as Peter followed Giff into the blue-carpeted, tastefully furnished living room, he felt almost in a daze. Life with the Bentleys seemed of another time, another world.

  A woman with frost-white, wavy hair was sitting on a yellow-and-blue patterned sofa, reading a magazine. She looked up as the two boys entered, and Peter saw her eyes — blue as
Giff’s — gaze immediately at his face, then at his clothes, at his hair, and finally at his black eye. Peter blushed.

  “Mom, this is Peter Lewinski,” Giff said. “I invited him over to fix my bike. Pete, meet my Mom.”

  Peter extended his hand. Mrs. MacKenzie got to her feet, so that she was at eye-level with him in her low-heeled shoes, and shook his hand. Her slim, sensitive face broke into a warm smile.

  “So nice to meet you, Peter,” she said.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too, Mrs. MacKenzie,” Peter replied.

  Her eyes settled on his black eye again. “Dear, are you all right?” she asked plaintively.

  “Yes. I’m okay,” he said.

  Peter hoped she wouldn’t begin to ask him a lot of embarrassing questions, like about where he lived and whether he had friends in Cypress Corners. He wasn’t ready for anything like that just yet.

  “D.C. told me you were coming,” Mrs. MacKenzie said. Her voice was slightly on the husky side, Peter thought, as if she were getting over a cold. “I’m glad you came, Peter. You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I —” Peter started to say.

  “Yes, and he’s staying overnight, too,” Giff cut in, grinning. “That’ll be okay, won’t it, Mom?”

  Mrs. MacKenzie’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and she glanced from him to Peter. “Why, I suppose it is. We have a guest room,” she said evenly.

  She started to look at Peter’s dirty pants when suddenly there was a sound of footsteps coming down a stairway. Her eyes lifted and swept past his shoulders.

  Peter turned and felt the blood rush to his face. It was D.C. She was wearing a dress now — a pink one with a white belt — giving Peter his first chance to see her legs.

  “Hi, again,” D.C. said, smiling. Faking it, he thought.

  “Hi,” he said.

  Her hair was parted in the middle, with bangs in front. Peter glanced back at Mrs. MacKenzie, noticed the similarity in their faces again, and looked _back at D.C. He tried to relax, to keep his breathing steady and quiet, but found it difficult.