The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss

Author:Christina Uss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2018-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

The dirt road from the estate was bumpy and rutted, so Bicycle had some trouble maneuvering the Wheels of Fortune 713-J until she coasted out of the sunflower field and back onto pavement. She pointed the front tire west and started pedaling. The bike leapt forward, tires spinning like they were powered by some unseen engine. “Wheee!” shouted Bicycle. The frame of this bike was thirty or forty pounds lighter than Clunk’s frame. With Clunk, she’d sometimes felt as if she were dragging an invisible suitcase full of rocks along behind her. With this bike, someone had cut the suitcase free.

Bicycle sprinted like a two-wheeled cheetah for several hours before the sun dipped below the horizon and she had to stop for the night. There was still no end in sight to the sunflower fields, so she steered the Wheels of Fortune 713-J into one of the rows between the waving stalks and made camp beside its feathery-light frame. No room for a ghost in this bike. It’s got to be filled with helium gas or something to make it seem so weightless. She patted it with intense gratitude, and then blushed with guilt. I don’t think I should feel this way so soon after losing Clunk, she thought.

As she slipped into a dream, she promised, Clunk, don’t worry—I’ll never love another bike more than you.

She thought she heard Clunk answer in Griffin’s voice: Of course you won’t. Besides, this bike’s so new, it has no personality yet. You show it some adventure; break it in, turn it into a good bike, like you did to me.

The next day dawned warm. But Bicycle was far from the overheated, exhausted thing she’d been when walking the day before. Today, she stayed cool and comfy by making her own breeze as she skimmed along the ground.

The Wheels of Fortune 713-J had a small computer screen mounted on the handlebars, and after pushing several buttons, Bicycle found that it could calculate her speed and distance traveled. She was amazed to find she was pedaling over twenty miles an hour. Every now and then a car would come driving up behind her, and she’d stand up on the pedals and start to sprint, racing alongside the car until it pulled away, going as fast as possible before her leg muscles burned too much to continue.

The next five days were just as swift and sweet. The straight, flat road made it easy to move right along. She found a SlowDown Café and saw that it had new logo: a horse and a bicycle standing over a big bowl of food, the bicycle with a napkin tucked into its front wheel. The horse looked very familiar. Bicycle was glad to know The Cannibal, retired racehorse, had found new work as Truffle, café mascot. Once again, she left the café with a full stomach and a Feed Bag for the road.

Only one unpleasant note arose: the lady in black from the auction reappeared. Munching lunch outside her

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