Henry and Beezus (7 page)

“OK,” Beezus answered through the crowd.

The auction continued. In spite of other people's toes, Henry jumped as high as he could each time a bicycle was held up. If Beezus could make the auctioneer hear, it might be his. Two bicycles went by. Henry grew more and more uneasy, waiting to hear a shout of “Four dollars and four cents!” Beezus must be in the very front row. Why didn't she bid? What had gone wrong?

Then the auctioneer's voice rang out. “Sold for four dollars and four cents! Bicycle Number Thirty-two sold to the little lady who lost her sister.”

Beezus had bid!

Joyfully Henry sprang into the air to see his bike. He couldn't see a thing, but that was all right. There was a bicycle waiting for him. A bike of his very own.

After that Henry lost interest in the auction. He was busy wondering what his bicycle looked like. He hoped it was red and had a horn and a light. Gradually the crowd began to leave, and Henry and his dog were able to work their way up to the front where Beezus and Ramona were waiting.

Beezus, who was holding a place in the line of people paying for bicycles, looked pleased and excited. “Henry, I got you a real good one with wheels and handlebars and everything. It's in that pile. I had the man write your name on the tag.”

Henry took his place in line, and was trying to guess which bicycle in the heap was his when Robert and Scooter joined him.

“Did you find out about the ticket?” asked Robert.

“Sure, and I got a bike, too,” boasted Henry.

“Yeah?” Scooter plainly did not believe him.

“Yes. And I'm not going to jail or anything, either.” Then Henry explained about the policeman and the ticket.

“I bet the bike isn't any good,” remarked Scooter.

“It is too a good bike,” Beezus contradicted. “It has two wheels and everything. Of course it isn't exactly new, but it's a good bike just the same. You wait and see.”

“Sure, it's a good bike if Beezus says so,” Henry bragged. “You just wait until I ride it in the Rose Festival parade.”

Gradually the line moved forward. “Number Thirty-two,” said Henry, when his turn came. At last he nearly had his hands on his very own bike. He had had to run along the sidewalk beside Scooter on the way to the auction, but he was going to ride his own bike home. He counted out the four dollars and four cents.

“There'll be something wrong with it. You just wait and see,” said Scooter.

“There will not,” said Beezus. “At least not anything important.”

The officer finally untangled Henry's bicycle from the rest of the pile.

Scooter and Robert began to howl with laughter. Henry groaned. What could you expect when you went to an auction with a girl? The bicycle had two wheels and handlebars all right, but there was something else wrong with it. It was a girl's bicycle.

H
enry was so disappointed he could hardly bear it. He could never ride a girl's bike in the Rose Festival parade.

Beezus was right. The bicycle did have two wheels and handlebars. It did not, however, have a lot of other things. There was no air in the tires and very little paint on the frame. Spokes were missing, and because there was no graphite on the chain, the pedals made a groaning noise when they were pushed around. But most important of all, the bicycle did not have a bar from the seat to the handlebars. If only there were some way to turn it into a boy's bike, the rest would be easy. With a few repairs, a coat of paint, and some paper trimming, it would be good enough to ride in the parade.

Henry sighed and started to push his bicycle home.

“I'm sorry, Henry,” said Beezus. “After some of the other bikes it looked pretty good, and I didn't think about it being a girl's bike.”

“Aw, that's all right,” muttered Henry. He supposed it wasn't really her fault. He couldn't expect a girl to know anything about bicycles.

“Maybe you could find a girl who has a boy's bike and make a trade,” suggested Beezus.

Henry thought this over. “The trouble is, girls ride boys' bikes, but boys won't ride girls' bikes. If I found a girl who had a boy's bike, she'd probably want to keep it.” He pushed his bicycle in silence for a while and then said, “I'll just have to fix it someway, that's all.”

After lunch Henry made a quick trip to the Rose City Bike and Trike Shop. His mother had given him the money for the twenty-two new spokes he needed. The man in the shop explained to Henry how to put new spokes into the wheels.

As Henry left the shop, he could not help noticing a shiny new bike with a racy red frame and a built-in headlight. If only his bicycle looked like that!

Back home, Henry went to work on his bicycle in his backyard. First he slipped off the tires and removed the broken spokes with his father's pliers. Then he poked one end of each new spoke into its hole in the hub and the other end into the rim.

Henry was tightening the nuts that held the spokes in place when Beezus and Ramona came up the driveway. Beezus was carrying her baton and Ramona was riding her shiny new tricycle. The spokes in her wheels glistened in the sunshine as she pedaled along beside Beezus. When she got off the tricycle, she leaned it on two wheels against the house as if it were a bicycle.

“Your bike looks better already,” said Beezus, who was anxious to have Henry's bicycle turn out right after her mistake that morning.

Henry tugged the tires back over the rims. “Yes, but not much,” he said. “Now I've got to find a way to turn it into a boy's bike.”

At least, it does have a parking stand, thought Henry, as he propped the bike up.

He and Beezus studied it. “If I had a pipe and some welding stuff and knew how to weld, I could weld a pipe across to make it into a boy's bike,” observed Henry.

“It would be easier to tie a piece of broom handle across,” said Beezus.

Henry frowned. Girls always thought of the dumbest things. Still, it might work—at least until he could think of a better idea. “OK, I'll give it a try,” he said.

Henry found an old broom handle in the basement, measured it carefully, and sawed it off on the mark he had made. Then, with a piece of twine he happened to have in his pocket, he tied one end of the handle under the seat. The other he fastened below the handlebars.

Henry stood back to look at his work. Well, it could be better. Maybe if he painted the bike and the broom handle the same color and rode fast, nobody would notice. And, for the parade, he could cover the broom handle with roses or crepe paper or something.

“That looks keen,” said Beezus, twirling her baton around her fingers. “It's good enough to ride in the Rose Festival parade.”

“Well…maybe.” Henry thought he'd better make sure he could fix his bicycle before he said anything more about the parade. Last year he had been a snake charmer with a bath-towel turban on his head and a snake made out of a stuffed nylon stocking around his neck, but this year he was getting pretty old to wear a costume and walk. He was determined to get his bike fixed in time.

Henry was examining the tires for holes when Robert came up the driveway.

“What have you got that piece of broom handle tied to the bike for?” demanded Robert.

Henry didn't answer. Robert knew very well why the handle was tied to the bike.

“You just wait,” said Beezus, flipping her baton. “Henry's bike is going to look all right when he gets it painted. He's going to ride it in the parade.”

“I didn't say for sure,” protested Henry, relieved that at least there were no visible holes in the tires.

“I bet you do.” Beezus twirled the baton over her head. This time she dropped it.

“Boi-i-ing!” shouted Robert. Henry was too busy with his bike to notice what was going on.

“Oh, be quiet!” snapped Beezus, as she picked up the baton. “You just wait until I twirl my baton in the parade. Mother is going to make me a drum-majorette costume.”

“The parade is only two weeks away.” Robert twanged a spoke with his finger. “You'll have to be a whole lot better than that. And anyway, where will you get a band to lead?”

“You don't have to have a band.” Beezus tried to flip her baton behind her back but dropped it in the grass. “I'm just going to march and twirl. Mary Jane is going to wear her rosebud costume and make a wreath of roses for Patsy to wear around her neck.” Patsy was Mary Jane's cocker spaniel.

“I'm going to be the hind legs of a giraffe,” said Robert. “A fellow I know on Thirty-third Street is going to be the front half.”

“Bet you come apart in the middle,” said Beezus, who had once been the front end of a horse in a park circus.

Robert examined the bicycle carefully while Henry plucked at each spoke to see if it were tight enough. Some were tight, but many were loose. “Wish I had a real spoke wrench,” muttered Henry. “Now I'll have to take the tires off again.”

“Scooter has a wrench in that little kit he carries on his bike,” said Robert. “I've seen him use it. It's a thing that fits around the end of the spoke that goes through the rim.”

“You watch Ramona. I'll go ask Scooter if you can borrow it,” said Beezus, anxious to help. She ran down the driveway before Henry could object. He didn't want to borrow Scooter's wrench, because Scooter might decide to come over and see what he was doing.

“Hey, Ramona, stop pulling Ribsy's ears,” ordered Henry. “Why don't you play you're waiting for a bus?”

“OK,” was Ramona's surprising answer, as she sat down on the back steps.

When Beezus returned with the wrench, Henry went to work on the spokes. He went around both wheels and tightened each spoke. Then he went over them again and gave them an extra twist just to make sure. He wasn't going to have any loose spokes on his bike.

“Come on, Robert, give me a hand,” Henry said, after he had found a tire pump in the garage. He was beginning to feel excited. In a few minutes he could try his bike. The boys fitted the rubber tube over the valve on the rim and were taking turns pumping, when Scooter came up the driveway.

“Hi!” said Henry. He wondered what Scooter, who knew a lot about bicycles, would say.

Scooter laughed. “What have you got that old broom handle tied to the frame for?”

Henry, who was beginning to be sensitive about that broom handle, went on pumping.

Scooter walked around the bike and studied it carefully. He tried the bell, which pinged feebly. He wiggled the seat and examined the chain. There was no doubt about it. Scooter was an expert on bicycles.

Henry waited anxiously for the expert's opinion. Except for that broom handle, he secretly thought his bike was pretty good now that the spokes were in. He paused in his pumping to ask, “Not bad for four dollars and four cents, is it?”

Scooter jiggled the handlebars. He ran his finger over the tires.

Henry began to feel uneasy. “Of course,” he added, “I still have a lot of things to do to it. Paint it and stuff.”

Scooter examined the fork that held the front wheel. He examined the fork that held the back wheel.

Old show-off, thought Henry. Why doesn't he say something?

“Well…” said Scooter at last, “I suppose it will do for a kid your age. Of course, it needs a lot of work before it'll be safe to use. You'll need a light and a reflector and a good bell. The handlebars are loose and you need another handle grip. You'll have to get a chain guard, and have both forks straightened, and tighten the seat, and mend the right pedal, and let's see…Those tires are pretty smooth, and I don't like the looks of that brake.”

Discouraged, Henry stared at his bike. Except for the missing handle grip and the bell, he hadn't noticed any of the things Scooter mentioned. Leave it to Scooter to find a lot of things wrong. And the worst of it was, Scooter was probably right.

Henry went on pumping. “Well, one thing at a time,” he said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

“Say, Huggins,” said Scooter. “I've got an idea how we could win a blue ribbon in the bicycle section of the parade after you do some more work on your bike.”

“How?” asked Henry.

“Let's take the front wheel off that old bike and fasten the front fork to the back wheel of my bike and make a tandem. You know, a bicycle built for two, only ours will have three wheels.”

“Will it really work?” Robert was impressed with the suggestion.

“Sure it'll work,” said Scooter. “How about it, Huggins?”

Henry was impressed with the idea, too, but he didn't want to ride in the parade on an old piece of a bike fastened to Scooter's good bike. Not after the way Scooter had acted. “Nope. I'm going to do something else,” he announced.

“Aw, come on,” said Scooter. “Don't you think it's a good idea?”

“Sure, it's a good idea,” Henry had to admit. “I'm just going to do something else, is all.”

“What?” demanded Robert.

“I bet you think you're going to ride that bike,” said Scooter.

“What if I am?” asked Henry. “You just wait. I'll get it all fixed up and trimmed with flowers and things, and nobody'll know it's an old bike I got at an auction.”

“Let's see you ride it,” said Scooter, when at last the tires were hard.

“OK. I suppose you think I can't.” Just for good measure, Henry gave several spokes an extra hard twist with the wrench.

His mouth was dry as he kicked the parking stand into place. He knew the bicycle would wobble at first, and he didn't want to take a spill in front of everyone. He wheeled the bicycle to the driveway, stepped on the pedal, and threw his leg over the seat. When his foot found the other pedal, he discovered that something was terribly wrong. There was no pull to the pedals. His feet spun around helplessly. Because the driveway sloped, he was able to coast, wobbling from side to side. Barking furiously, Ribsy ran along beside him.

Henry's ears burned when he heard his audience shriek with laughter. Suddenly the pedals caught, and he was able to use them. Then he realized there was something else wrong with his bicycle. It moved with a peculiar twisting motion that made Henry go up and down as if he were on a rocking horse. The chain, which still had no graphite on it, groaned. Up and down he bobbed as he struggled to keep his balance. Then, in the midst of his confusion, he saw that the front wheel was so bent that it was no longer round. The back wheel must be bent, too, because he could hear it scraping against the fender every time it went around.

The two boys and Beezus, screaming with laughter, ran along behind Henry. Suddenly the groaning of the chain stopped, and he found his feet spinning helplessly on the pedals.