Crunch (10 page)

I AM NOT MAGICAL. THAT’D BE RIDICULOUS. BUT
sometimes I can sense that something is up. This isn’t about my sharp hearing. This happens closer to my bones. By the time we got off the highway I just knew it; something was going to be different at home.

The nanny goats were all up at the gate doing a nervous sort of dance. Everybody-to-the-left, now everybody-to-the-right. Something or somebody was around. Vince knew it too.

“What’s going on?” he said. “And where are the dogs?”

“I don’t know. Good-ness! Great-ness!” I called.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Greatness
lift her head for just a second. Deaf, old Goodness couldn’t hear me. They were both bowing outside the Bike Barn door. Noses to the sill, haunches in the air. I clapped my hands. Greatness looked at me and wagged her tail. Goodness looked up and did the same. There was something way more interesting than me over there by the door.

“Hey, Vince, get the twins out of the carrier, will you? I’m going to unlock the shop.”

I ran into the house and grabbed the shop key. I came jogging, bound for the shop door. I figured I’d let Goodness and Greatness go inside. Quench their curiosity. But I changed my mind. I veered past the dogs and headed toward the back fence. Maybe the Spive had something to do with all the weirdness. Maybe he’d borrowed Gloria Cloud again.

Oh no! What if he’s done something to Lil’s mural? Would he?

I hustled. I looked back over my shoulder to see if the dogs had followed me. A voice rang out.

“Watch it!”

Too late. I ran my groin straight into the
front wheel of a bicycle.

Make that a copsicle.

“Ugh! Runks!” I crumpled.

“Whoa! Dewey!” Runks took several crazy hops to keep his bike from going over. “Oh, terribly sorry. Ay-yi-yi! That
has
to be excruciating!”

I groaned. “Y-you’re tell-in’ me-e-e…” Trails of pains shot up my core. I bent forward and leaned on the side of the barn. “Ugh…oh. Ugh.”

“I’m glad I wasn’t going any faster,” Runks said. “Though I suppose it isn’t much consolation to you.” The dogs came. Wagging. Licking. Woofing. Runks patted them while I attempted to breathe normally. Vince and the twins arrived at the scene of my misery. Robert and Lil came right behind them.

“Runks? What’s going on?” Lil asked. (I hoped he would not make some town-crier announcement about the details of our crash.) “Dewey, are you all right? You look like you’re about to get sick.”

“Oh-h…” Robert spoke in a low growl. “I recognize that posture.”

“Yes, I am afraid we had a…
compromising
collision,” Runks said. “Man versus wheel.”

“Groin versus wheel,” said Vince.

“Oh,” said Lil. “What a drag, hey, Dew?”

Runks scratched his head. “Neither of us was looking. Amazing. It was so precise,” he said. “We probably couldn’t duplicate that if we tried.”

“Oh-h.” I drew a difficult breath. “Let’s. Not. Ever. Try.”

Runks set a hand on my shoulder. “All you can do is wait it out.”

I gave him a nod and weathered another wave of shooters.

Lil got right back to business. “Runks, why are you here? Did something happen?”

“I’m
not
here in response to a call, if that’s what you mean,” Runks offered. “I was just hoping to find someone in the shop.”

“Oh. Is Officer Macey with you?” She looked beyond him. “We saw him just a while ago. He said he was coming on duty.”

“Officer Macey has been assigned a split shift today,” Runks said. “He comes on in an another
hour or so. The Rocky Shores PD has made some changes. Perhaps you’ve seen the papers?” He sounded gloomy. “We’ve had a few robberies recently.”

“No!” said Robert.

“Like when our bikes got stole?” Eva asked.

“Very much like that,” Runks told her. “Some…uh…
items
are missing from the police impound lot over on Dogtown Road,” he said. “That’s the holding space for larger unclaimed items.”

“Larger unclaimed items?” Vince cocked his head.

“Sure. Things like abandoned cars, runaway canoes, rowboats…”

“Bikes,” I croaked.

“Bingo!” said Runks. “We had twelve in our possession at one point. They’ve gone missing now, a few at a time.”

“Oh my gosh…” Lil muttered.

“Bikes,” I said again. I straightened up as much as I could. I turned and hobbled back to the Bike Barn door and shoved the key into the lock. The
dogs were back to sniffing at the sill.

Vince streamed past me, saying, “I’ll check the paddock.” I heard the fence creak as he vaulted over it.

I jiggled the key, turned it hard, and the lock popped open. Robert and I rolled the door aside together. In went the dogs, sniffing and wagging. They scratched at the sill and seemed to find something edible along the bearing track. Inside the shop, I let my eyes adjust. Nothing seemed off to me. Vince pounded the paddock door from his side and I opened it.

“Anything?” I asked.

“If something is gone, I don’t know what it is.”

“Same here,” I said. Robert shrugged in agreement. The lineup of bikes on the south wall looked undisturbed.

“Did you think something would be amiss?” Runks asked.

“Well,” I said. “Coming home, I just had this feeling….” I already sounded lame, so I went on. “We were gone for a while. We don’t usually do that. Then we got back and the animals were
being weird. And just now, when you said there have been bike thefts, it’s just—”

“Well, you have a lot of bikes to worry about!”

“Yes. We do,” I said, and I caught Lil in a little eye roll.

“Anyway, it appears that all is well,” Runks said. “When I saw the shop was closed, I took a quick lap around the place just to see if anyone was here, thus my coming around the barn like I did. Sorry again, Dewey. I hope that pain has subsided.” I gave him a thumbs-up. Runks went on. “But it’s funny, I was sure I heard someone
somewhere
nearby.”

“Maybe just
the neighbor
….” Lil jabbed a thumb toward Mr. Spivey’s yard. “And you know we’re used to him, so don’t worry.”

“Oh, by the way, Lilly Marriss.” Runks turned to face her. “Looks like something incredible is going up on that wall back there.”

“In progress,” she said. “Or maybe in
process
. But thank you.”

I caught a wave of guilt. I should really go out and see what she was up to. The compressor seemed
to be resting lately. But she still had possession.

Runks went on, “Please invite me to the unveiling.”

“If there is an unveiling, Runks, you’ll be on the list, I promise,” said Lil. “So can we all agree that all the beasts around here got stirred up over nothing?” She turned to look all around the shop. It seemed she was right. Even the dogs had backed off from the sill. They stood looking up the stairs now.

“Hey, mutts, we all know you’re not going up there.” I laughed at them. They wagged and kept licking their chops. My guess was that they’d found one of those wonderful things in the doorsill that dogs just love to eat. Ants. Mouse turds.

“So, Runks, you wanted something from the shop?” I said.

“Quite right.” He changed character and spoke out one side of his mouth. “I’m traveling without a spare,” he admitted. He shook his head in mock shame.

“Shouldn’t
ever
happen,” I said in my deepest, most serious tone.

“Mea culpa, mea culpa!” Runks said. “And
Officer Macey would shame me for it too, if he knew. Preparedness seems to be a motto of his. Thing is, I swear I had a tube in my kit yesterday.” He paused. “Strangest thing. Be that as it may, I wondered if you’d sell me one. Or two?”

I turned to the bench. I pulled two inner-tube boxes off the shelf. “Here you go,” I said.

“Grand!” Runks said. “Now, I can either pay you cash out of my own pocket or go through proper procedures with a purchase order from the PD and bring you a check tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is fine,” I said. I was being Dad again, in a distracted sort of way. Something was still bothering me. I stood there in the shop, puzzling. Looking back at the shelf with all the inner-tube boxes on it. I barely managed to say good-bye to Runks before Lil and the twins walked him out.

“Everything cool, Boss Man?” Robert stood just behind me.

“Yep. Yep. Everything is cool,” I said.

The Boss Man is in control.

Vince and I stayed in the shop after Robert left. We both wanted to finish up the jobs we had
started. Then, of course, I got sidetracked tending to several pickups. Eventually, I found myself staring at the shelf again. This time, I had the inventory list in front of me.

This does not match up.

“Hey, Vince,” I said. “I’m pretty much doing all the blowouts that come in, right?”

“What’s your question?” He sounded annoyed.

“Have you been using any inner tubes?”

“Nope.” He started to shake his head. “You can’t blame me for—”

“No, wait, Vince. That’s not what I meant. In fact, I-I’m sorry for that stuff,” I said. My brother was looking right at me now. I came so close to telling him what I was thinking. Then I just couldn’t. I held up the inventory list and twisted the truth like a pretzel. “Th-this kind of explains it. Now that I’m keeping track,” I said. “We’re all set.”

“Okay,” Vince said. He wore a sort of strange look on his face. Then again, I knew I was being weird, lying and all.

“Hey, listen, I was thinking about what Runks
told us. About that theft at the impound?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s just double-check ourselves when we lock up. And let’s move all the bikes from the paddock in.”

Vince gave me a sickish look. It was a big job.

“I know, I know. We’ll cram ’em in here,” I said. “There’s room for a few more under the stairs. It’s just for peace of mind—”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Vince. “I’ll drag them to the door. You find the space.”

I LAY ON MY BACK IN THE ATTIC ROOM. VINCE
twitched in his sleep in his bed just a few feet away. I felt guilty for not telling him what I knew. If he told Lil—even accidentally—she’d think I’d somehow lost control of things in the Bike Barn. And I hadn’t. But we were being robbed—just a little. I was sure of it.

It sounded crazy—
robbed just a little
. “And who does that?” I whispered in the dark. “Who steals from us just a little bit at a time?”

The Spive
. Not much of a mystery.

And what’s a few bike parts between neighbors?

I tried it on, but it didn’t have the same ring as when Dad said it.

What did the Spive want with bike parts, anyway? As far as I knew he didn’t own a bike. Maybe he’s started hoarding, I thought. Maybe he sees bikes becoming valuable. Maybe he’s reselling. Maybe there’s an evil, bike-dealing Spive-cousin across town….

And just when was he getting this done? Sure, there were times he’d spooked us by walking into the shop, like the day he wanted the mower. But wouldn’t we have seen him take something? Suddenly I thought of the money in the tin.

“Stupid!” I said, and I hopped up in the night. I hustled on tiptoe down the stairs and grabbed the shop key from the hutch.

“Goodness! Greatness!” I hissed to them. “Come on, dogs! Wanna go out? Once more before bedtime. I know you’ve got it in you!”

Not four feet outside our door, Greatie’s ears stood up. She rumbled, then wagged. She barked. “What’s up, girl?” I asked. I looked at Goodness. He was sniffing the air. Suddenly both dogs bolted. They ran to the barn and crouched at the sill.

“Not this again,” I moaned. Then the dogs turned and ran around the side of the barn. “Dogs! Hey, hey!” I called and whistled. I trotted after them but just for a few paces. It was dark, and I didn’t want to run into anything that might be—oh, say—the height of my lap again. I heard a few clanks and bumps at the back of the barn, then some rustling that seemed to whisper,
bend and scurry, bend and scurry
.

The Spive.

I strained, tried to make out his form along the fence or in his dooryard. Oh, it would have been fun to hit him in the eyes with a flashlight and crank out a nice, innocent-sounding, “Whatcha doin’, Mr. Spivey?” Of course, I didn’t
have
a light, and besides, everything was still. It’s not like I’d catch him with much booty tonight, I thought. The Bike Barn was locked up tight and I knew it. I stood there for a moment waiting for
something
. I just expected one more sound to come through the dark somehow. All was quiet.

Meanwhile, the dogs had taken off down the hill toward the pasture. Disappeared into the
darkness. There was always something to chase. I gave another whistle in their direction. Of course, Goodness couldn’t hear, and Greatie was not perfectly obedient. I went to unlock the shop.

Inside the Bike Barn I pulled the light switch. I grabbed the peppermint tin and took a quick look inside at the loose roll of bills—start-up cash for the next day. The fluorescent hadn’t even come completely on when I turned it off again. As I headed out I heard something behind me. Made me jump in my skin. I flicked the light back on. One of my tidy stacks of twenty-four-inch inner tubes had fallen over onto the workbench. I stood still, wondering.

Did I do that? I wasn’t even over there. Naw, I don’t think I did that.

A split second later, I heard dog breath at the door. Goodie and Greatie, back from the chase. They ran right inside, put their noses in the air and stopped at the stairs to the loft. They stood wagging their tails and taking small leaps off their front paws.

I knew they wouldn’t go up, but I decided to
give it a look. I popped my head up into the dim light of the loft. My eye went straight to the moon-bright square of sky at the hay door.

Open.

I crossed the loft and looked out. Three feet below me was the flat surface of the scaffold. I smelled fresh paint.

Oh, Lilly Marriss. You built our thief a stairway.