Crunch (14 page)

DARKNESS FILLED EVERY WINDOW. DISTANT
rumbles moved closer and closer. I got up from the table and took a look outside.

“What do you see, Dew?” Lil called to me.

“The sky looks like seawater,” I called back. “Churning up, green and gray. Has to rain. Has to.”

It did. Soon we were into a full-fledged, crasher and banger of a summer thunderstorm. Lil got up and filled the sink. “So we have dish-washing water,” she said. “I’m betting we lose power before it’s over.”

Crackle-crackle-BOOM!
The house shook.
Crack-BOOM!
We answered with a chorus of
whoas!
and
wows!
Meanwhile, the rain began to
pound our old dry roof.

“Rain! How long has it been?” Lil said.

“Before the Fourth of July,” Vince said. A huge flash of lightning filled the windows.

“Before the gas pumps went dry!” I tried to get my words out before the next crash of thunder.

Cra-ck-crackle-CRACK
…
BOOM!

“Whoa! Close one!” Lil said.

“It’s exciting!” said Eva. She gripped a crayon hard in her fist and wiggled side to side.

“I love it,” said Angus.

“Me too,” said Vince. He leaned back in his chair and stretched. But the next crash nearly sent him off his seat.

“Whoa! Wow!”

The lamp above our table flickered, then went out. (Lil is almost always right.) So there we were, lighting candles in the kitchen while the rain poured down.

After supper, we set the twins up at the sink for dish duty by candlelight. “Remember, the tap won’t work when the power is out,” I explained
to Angus and Eva. “So wash in the warm and rinse in the cold.”

“
And
what else?” Lil said. “What am I going to say?” She slid several plates into the sudsy water.

“Not too much soap,” Angus answered.

“Right. And it’s hard to see in here right now, so really watch how much is coming out.”

I grabbed the broom. Vince grabbed the box of dog biscuits. He tucked it under one arm and began his game, leaping up to feed the dogs on the balcony. Every time he jumped he spilled several biscuits. I rounded them up with the broom and hockey-pucked them back to him.

“Ready! More dishes, please!” Eva called out.

“Vince will bring the dirty dishes from the table, won’t you, Vince?” Lil said. She walked up to him and took the biscuit box from him. She set it on the table. “Easy with these,” she said.

“Yeah, Goodie will make hisself puke!” Angus said.

Eva leaned up against the rim of the sink to look out the kitchen window. “It’s still lightning out,” she said.

“Eva, be careful,” Lil warned. “Stay on your chair.”

“Yeah,” said Angus. “I see the yard every time—”

“A-a-hhhh!” Eva screamed. Then Angus screamed.

“What?” Lil hurried to be near them. “Tell me what!”

“Somebody is out there!”

“Oh no, Eva, don’t fret,” Lil said. She leaned toward the window. “Now, where? Where do you see someone?”

We all crowded at the window, waiting for another flash to light up the yard. Up on the balcony, Greatness started to bark. Goodness heard Greatness and joined in. They got more and more wound up. Collars jingled, toenails clicked.
Bark! Bark! Bark!

“Hey, dogs!” I turned from the window. “Quiet! Quiet! Quie—Ahh!”

A hooded figure stood in our doorway.

I think all five of us screamed. Then we stopped.

The dripping body stepped into our kitchen.
The hood fell back and a hand shot forward.

“Mr. Spivey!” I gasped. He was already flinging and pecking with his crooked old finger. Surely he must be talking too. His mouth was moving.

The rain drummed. The thunder crashed. Goodness began to hack and gurgle. Greatness yapped. I could hear everything except our neighbor.

“Wait! I’m sorry. What are you saying?” I stepped closer to him.

“I say, it’s gone down…” Fling and peck, fling and peck. “…fell on the fence out by the big one…” A roll of thunder covered his voice again.

I looked at Lil. Lil looked at me. I looked at Vince. None of us could keep from glancing up at the balcony where Goodness wretched and belched. No good would come. But we were all frozen in place. Sure enough, our old dog emptied his stomach right between the rungs of the railings. Vince looked at me wide-eyed. Lil must have seen it too.

“Uh, Mr. Spivey.” She spoke very loudly. “Sorry—there’s such a—a commotion. What are you saying? What’s the trouble?”

Now Goodness began to nose at his lost meal. He pushed it closer and closer to the edge of the balcony.

“Uh-oh,” said Angus. He covered his mouth with his hands and kept huge eyes fixed upward.

Mr. Spivey spoke again. “Tree’s gone down…big one’s climbed right up on the trunk. The brush cutter,” he added, and he looked right at me when he said it. Suddenly I got what the old guy was saying.

“Oh! You’re talking about
Sprocket
—”

Vince dove toward the table. He swiped up a dinner plate and lifted it high. I ducked. The dog puke landed in the center of the plate with a revolting splat.

“Ew!” said Eva.

“Didn’t anybody hear me say ‘uh-oh’?” said Angus.

Our neighbor looked at the plate, which Vince held sort of frozen in space. From above, the dogs mewed and tilted their heads. The Spive curled his lip and took a hard swallow. “Telling you…the tree went down—”

“The big pine fell?”

He nodded. “If that goat gets out—”

“Oh, holy! Vince, come on!” I grabbed a flashlight. We flew right past the Spive and out the door. We hopped the fence into the vegetable garden and ran between the rows until we reached the far pasture. The flashlight was no good, reflecting off every drop of rain. But in a flash of lightning we got our first look at the downed pine. A raw fissure in the trunk steamed. The scent of warm wood rose up. The tree had landed smack across the fence.

“See Sprocket anywhere?” I hollered to Vince.

“Naw!”

“Look at the tree! Destruction!”

I saw something move. Sprocket! One more flash of lightning and we saw the billy goat standing right up on the trunk of the tree. He looked over his shoulder at us through the draping boughs. A second flash, and we saw his pale, broad side heading down off the tree and out of the pasture. He was bound for the highway.

“
Spro-cket!”

As if that goat would ever come when we called him.

“Hey! Hey!” Lil came charging toward us.
“Forget him!” she yelled. She circled one arm madly to gather us back home again. “You guys want to
die
out here? Notice the lightning?”

“It’s passing. Besides, we had to try,” I argued.

“Not in a storm, you
morons
!” she hollered. “God! Why not just carry your metal rods out here with you and point them toward the sky? Come on!” She turned and we followed.

The rain fell steadily on us all the way back to the house. As we neared the small barn we saw that the lights in the house had come back on. Then we heard the dinner bell—like an alarm.

“Oh no! Angus! Eva!” The three of us sprinted for the house.

Under the porch light we could see Eva pulling the bell cord.

“Lil-leey! Dew-eeey! Vince!” She called and called. She rang the bell again. “We ne-e-e-d you!”

I reached her first, took her in my arms. She looked at me with giant wide eyes all full of tears and said, “Dew-we-e-y, Angus is
bleeding
!”

“Oh, no, no, no!” I passed my little sister to Vince and rushed into the kitchen.

IT LOOKED BAD. A CHAIR HAD GONE OVER ON
its side. Angus sat on the kitchen floor with his back against the cupboard. He had the neck of his T-shirt bunched up around his chin. When he let it drop it looked like he’d been stamped with a bib of blood.

“Oh, Angus!” Lil cried. “What did you do!” She rushed up to him and clamped his chin with a dishcloth.

“I sch-lipped,” Angus said. Lil held his jaw still. But his lips quivered. “I usched too much schoap.”

“Sorry!” Eva cried. “We both did it. And he leaned, and he slipped and he banged his chin on the counter going down. And he’s ble-e-eding….”
She clung to Vince, who rocked her calmly.

Lil eased her grip on the wound and we both went in for a closer look.

“Ish it gonna need schtitches?” Angus asked.

Lil said, “You know what? No.” She looked at her dishcloth and seemed surprised and pleased. “This is okay,” she said. “Check it out. It’s not dripping blood.”

“Uh…have you noticed…down the front of the shirt,” Vince said.

“I know it,” said Lil. “But I’m telling you, it’s really a scrape. A good one. And a bruise coming. Can you open your mouth?” She coaxed Angus. She checked all his tiny teeth. “Not a single one is wiggly.”

“And you didn’t black out, or like, fall asleep, did you, Angus?” I thought I ought to ask.

Angus twisted up his face and told me, “No. I’m not asleep.”

Lil sat back and let out a breath. “We are so lucky. So, so lucky.”

We spent the next half hour or so bandaging up Angus. Talk about overkill. We darn near
suffocated him with a four-handed effort involving antibiotic cream and every kind of Band-Aid in the box. We finished him off with an ice pack. We also exhausted him, which meant he and Eva went up to bed with no fuss.

Back down in the kitchen, Vince and I got out the mop and a bunch of rags. “No wonder he fell,” I said as I rinsed the suds out of the mop and had yet another go at the floor.

“Soap slick,” said Vince. He launched himself for a slide across the floor. He picked up the last plate from the kitchen table. “Ugh! The dog-puke plate!” he squawked, and gagged. He came sliding back to the sink, lost his footing, and nearly crashed. The two of us started to laugh.

“Hey! Cut it out!” Lil yelled. Top of her lungs.

Vince and I froze.

“Don’t you get it?” she said. “Don’t you know how lucky we got here tonight? And
no
thanks to you guys! Running out in a lightning storm. You imbeciles!” She swore. She was red and mad and teary.

I didn’t really understand. I thought she was
being a little crazy. She’d said it herself: Angus was okay.

“Sorry,” said Vince.

“Me too, Lil. I’m sorry.” (Well, I didn’t have to understand her to be sorry she was mad.)

“They are on their way home.
Finally!
Can we
just
hang on until then?
Can we?
” Her words rang loudly off the walls.

She was killing my ears.

“That’s it!”
she screamed. “That’s
all
I’m asking!”

“Okay!” I said. “Stop yelling!”

THE CHATTER WOKE ME. I OPENED MY
eyes and stared at the ceiling beams above me. My ears filled with the sound of voices. I swung my legs out of bed and stood up. I leaned on the sill of the attic window and looked down.

Bikes. People. Puddles. Bikes, bikes, bikes, shining in the sun.

The line snaked across the yard. I craned my neck but could not see the end. A moan escaped from my gut. I staggered backward, sat on my bed, and grabbed my T-shirt up off the floor. For no particular reason, I balled it up, put it in my mouth, and bit down. Hard.

“What’s going on?” Vince asked. He blinked.

I released my mouthful. “Look down in the yard.”

He stumbled to the window and immediately drew back. He looked at me and gasped. “W-where does the line end?” he asked.

“Rhode Island.”

“Not funny.”

“I know. I’m calling Dad,” I said.

“Talk to Lil first,” Vince said. He covered his head with his pillow. “Don’t wake me until all those people are gone.”

I found Lil in her bed. She was already awake. “Did you see?” I said.

“No. But I can hear,” she answered grimly. “This is all because of that damn news coverage.”

“Oh. You’re right.” I hadn’t thought of that. “I’m calling Dad,” I said.

Dad picked up right away. He was almost always calm. But I heard a little edge in his voice that morning, and I’ll bet it was because he heard a little edge in mine.

“D-dad, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think much of it at the time…But there was this camera
crew here yesterday. And they put the Bike Barn on the news. Because of the theft.”

Which I also didn’t tell you about…

I got tangled up on the next part. “Dad, the customers—it’s—lined up—uh…”

Dad waited for me. When I failed to cough out words he said, “You mean the Bike Barn has been fully
discovered
.” I heard him sigh.

“Yes!” I started talking fast. “I think it’s going to be too much. I-I can’t ask Vince to face these people. The line goes down the driveway. We already have a lot of bikes. And we’re so low on parts—”

“Tell you what, Dew,” he said. “Are you dressed?”

“Uh, well, half,” I said.

“Well, first thing is don’t forget to put on your pants.”

“Dad!”

“Well, I’m not kidding. That’s important. Second is eat some breakfast, and while you’re eating pretend that absolutely no one is out there. This is
your
time. And then you have to apply
Rule Eight: One problem at a time.” He said this slowly. “It looks complex out there. But it’s actually simple.”

“Dad, the bikes are simple. The people are complex.”

“Keep it about the bikes. That’s your whole deal. People can be sweet, ornery, patient, or peevish, and it doesn’t matter. Your response to them is all about the facts. If you don’t have the part or you can’t do the repair, that’s all you have to say. If it’s going to be several days, say so.”

I thought for a second. I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said.

“Dew, call me anytime. And I’ll check in, too. And is Robert coming to help today?”

“Yes! Oh, that’s right! He
is
coming.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

“So you’ll have a third,” Dad said. I think I heard him say “Phew!” just a bit under his breath.

“Hey, Dad? How did it go? Did you get to the station? Did you get fuel?”

“We got about half a tank just a half an hour ago,” he said. “It’s going to be tricky. I hope to
make it to southern Maine on it today. But I have to keep calculating. And we’ll need some good luck as well. Mom says the rig is our token and we’re driving across a big game board,” he said. “Advancing at the will of the rations.” I could hear Dad smiling now. “You just have to make the most of it, Dew. Get on with your day. Go ahead. It’ll work out.”

“I’ll start with my pants,” I said, and Dad laughed out loud.

I spent the morning looking people in the eye. There was no time for anything but
bike facts
today. New mantra: It is all about the bikes.

“Could be hard to get this part,” I told one guy. “It’ll be at least five days before you hear from us. Maybe longer.”

“Is this shop run by kids?” he asked.

“My father got stuck in the crunch. But we expect him home soon,” I said. Facts, facts, facts.

Almost everyone took a chance and left their bikes with us. It was just too far to go limping to Sand Orchard or Centertown with a busted bike. We were
it
.

Robert arrived and he fell right in. He grabbed
a pen and some slips and started talking to people and logging bikes in. We passed each other pushing bikes to the paddock, and he said, “So do you think
anybody
on the planet missed that newscast? Because I don’t.”

“I think they broadcast our address,” I joked. I wiped my forehead on my shirt and helped the next customer.

Angus and Eva decided to offer refreshments. They walked along the line of customers tugging our garden hose with them, saying, “Want a slurp?” and telling the tale of Angus’s bandaged chin.

Lil came up to my ear and said, “Dewey, are you really logging in all these bikes? What did Dad say?”

I was way too busy to talk to her. “Yeah. He said we’ll work it out. But I’m telling people—Robert and I are both being clear—that it’ll probably be a while. Hey, Lil, the twins can be out here. But I can’t
watch
them,” I said. “I really can’t.”

Lil looked down the line of customers. She nodded to me. “Maybe I’ll just take them down
to the beach today.”

By late morning the yard was clear enough that Vince came out of hiding. He and Robert and I worked nonstop until three o’clock, when all of us simultaneously and absolutely had to stop and eat a bunch of food and drink a few gallons of water. But after that we went back out for one last push.

“This is the best job I have ever had.” Robert stuck another finished order on the call spindle. “
So
satisfying!”

“You’ll learn to despise it,” Vince told him. But Robert just laughed.

Truth was, Robert was just the dose of energy that the Bike Barn needed. And he was an adult. Good for our image, I thought. We were finally locking up the shop when a sunburned Angus—back from the beach—came running with the phone. “For you, Dewey,” he said.

“Young Mr. Marriss?”

“Mr. Bocci? Is that you?” I strolled toward the house as I talked.

“Yes-yes. I called to see how you are doing. I saw that news report. Who could guess about a
bad cop? Terrible. Terrible.”

“Who could guess that helping catch him would make our lives this crazy?” I said.

“Is it about the business? What you are saying?”

“Well, yes. As my dad said, we’ve been
discovered
.”

“Yes. All the publicity you never wanted, hey?”

“I guess so. Yes. That’s right. We are so small. Th-there needs to be more of us,” I said. “I mean, more bike shops.”

“Anything I can do to help, you call me,” Mr. Bocci said.

I
knew
we needed parts. But I didn’t know which ones—not right there and then. It’d been such a hectic day. I hadn’t read all the slips and hadn’t taken time to check my parts inventory. I didn’t want to admit it.

“I-I’m set, Mr. Bocci. Doing fine. Thanks so much,” I said.