Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [37]
He knew he was being ambitious; he’d have to leave pretty early if he planned to make it that far. Would the employees notice a bike was missing, or would they think it had been sold? He realized that right now, anyone could tell that there’d been an intruder. An intruder who had used the microwave. He got up and straightened up as much as he could. He threw the frozen-food packages and the empty Tupperware containers into the bathroom trash. He grabbed the empty gummy-worm box and did the same with that. He changed into his own clothes and placed the borrowed ones back on the rack. With any luck, the only thing they would notice was the missing food — and hopefully not until lunchtime.
A helmet. He needed a helmet. He hadn’t seen any out front, but maybe they had some in the storeroom. He was just about to give up when he noticed a couple of used helmets — one for kids and one for adults — on a shelf near the door. They probably offered the use of those helmets for test rides of the bikes. He tried on the smaller of the two helmets. It would work.
Jack set the computer alarm and left the office door open. Then he curled up on the office couch. He would begin riding at 6:00 a.m.
Riding the bike was scary at first. He had to go through the center of town and didn’t know the rules. Should he be riding on the sidewalk or in the street? And what were the laws for intersections? Was he supposed to continue riding, or was he supposed to get off the bike and walk it across? Did he need to wait for the light to turn green, or could he just cross if there were no vehicles coming? At this hour there were hardly any cars, but still, the last thing he needed, now that he was not only running from the police but had stolen a bike, was to be noticed.
He decided to walk across a major intersection. Surely, no one could fault him for being extra cautious. When he got to the other side, he faced his next challenge: Main Street, a road he couldn’t avoid, was one long, steep hill — one he had to go down.
He could picture himself losing control of the bike and crashing into one of the cars parked along the side of the street. Or, worse, hitting an oncoming car head-on. He decided to use the sidewalk — and his brakes. Almost immediately, he started speeding down the hill. He panicked and braked hard, nearly catapulting over the top of the handlebars. He started again and braked more gently, easing himself down the hill.
Below him was a bridge. Great, he thought, I’ll get to the bottom of the hill, only to bash into a guardrail and go toppling into a river. But he didn’t. With only a little wiggling as he rode next to the railing, he crossed to the other side.
He was through Ellsworth and on his way.
Jack could tell from the map that there would be long parts on the ride with no interesting towns or sights to see, but he couldn’t believe how quickly the city turned into country and how amazingly boring the country road to Bucksport was. “Woods and fields and trailers, woods and fields and trailers, woods and fields and trailers,” he recited, letting the sound of his own voice be entertainment.
Jack might have dreaded that first big hill in Ellsworth, but it got to the point that he was praying for hills now just to break up the ride. Slopes gave him the chance to coast for a while, and he was gaining the confidence to fly down them. And little by little, he began to figure out the gears on the bike. At first, he was using far more energy on inclines than he needed to. Later, he realized that if he downshifted while coasting, he would gain more traction at the end and would therefore not have to work quite so hard on the next climb.
Not used to biking, his legs felt tight after a couple of hours of riding. He decided to take a break and slip into the bathroom at the gas station up