Faery Tale by Signe Pike

Author:Signe Pike
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

I was unpacking my hiking pack at the Venture Centre when I heard a great rumbling in the distance gradually approaching—the slow roar of motorcycles, an entire pack of them, pulling into the lot in front of my little cabin. It appeared my company had arrived, just as Mike promised. I peeked out my window and counted eight bikers, all clad in racing leathers and helmets. Well, this sure wouldn’t be boring. I was just finishing dinner when Mike brought them into the kitchen on their tour of the facilities. There were seven men ranging in age from midthirties to late forties, and the eighth looked to be about twenty.

“This is the kitchen,” Mike explained. “And this is Signe.”

“Hi.” I gave an all-encompassing wave. “I appreciate you coming all this way to entertain me. It’s been pretty quiet here so far.”

They laughed. We were off to a good start.

“I’m John,” said a man with sandy, cropped hair and keen blue eyes, extending his hand. “And this is Joe, Paul, Huw, Sam, Wol, John, and Mark.”

No way I was going to be able to remember all those names.

“We’re, ah, planning on going to the pub later, if you’d like to come along,” John offered.

“Oh! Well. I . . . I was thinking I’d . . . I have a lot of work to do, actually. I was planning on just staying here . . .”

“Work?!” John threw up his hands, completely exasperated. “What could you possibly be working on that’s better than a pint?”

The man had a point.

“Okay. Yes.” I surprised myself. “I’d love to come.”

“Good then!” John exclaimed. “We’ll come round you up when it’s time.”

And that’s how I came to be friends with the bikers.

That night we walked into town together and got to know one another over . . . more than one pint. Dark-haired Sam was nineteen and his father, sporting a shaved head and goatee, was Joe. Sam had ridden on the back of Joe’s bike on the trip, since his dad wasn’t quite ready to have him out on the road on his own. Joe, John (who’d first introduced himself), and Wol, a rather quiet man with gray hair, blue eyes, and a closely trimmed beard, were brothers. Then there was Paul, a burly man with curly, dark hair and glasses, Huw, a blond-haired, blue-eyed EMT, and Mark, a compact man with an easy smile. Last but certainly not least, there was “other John,” a tall, lanky bloke with dark hair and a weathered face. “You can call me Big John.” He grinned.

Except for Wol, who was from Wales, the bikers hailed from Birmingham, England, and came every year to the Tourist’s Trophy, the TT. I got plenty of good-hearted jeers as I told them about my purpose on the Isle of Man. As they taught me about the TT, I began to understand that this was more than just several days of racing—it was a huge social and cultural event. With the conversation flowing so freely, before I knew it, it was closing time.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.