The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making - Catherynne M. Valente [46]
“Remember, they are fast and tall and vicious! Many have perished or at least been roundly dumped off and bruised in the attempt to travel by wild bicycle.” A-Through-L fretted and stamped his great feet in the grass. The thunder grew closer.
September re-tied the green sash of the smoking jacket around the hilt of the Spoon. No money had remained for proper adventuring equipment, but she was her mother’s daughter, always and forever, and felt sure whatever she set her hands to would work. Once, they had spent a whole afternoon fixing Mr. Albert’s broken-up Model A so that September would not have to walk every day to school, which was several miles away. September would have been happy to watch her mother shoulder-deep in engine grease, but her mother wasn’t like that. She made September learn very well how a clutch worked, and what to tighten, and what to bend, and in the end September had been so tired, but the car hummed and coughed just like a car ought to. That was what September liked best, now that her mother was not about and she had the freedom to think about her from time to time. She liked best to learn things, and that her mother knew a great number of them, and never said anything was too hard or too dirty, and had never once told her that she would understand when she was older. On account of all of this, September could make a very respectable knot in the sash, and the sash, being part of the jacket, dutifully tightened itself even further and prepared for what was sure to be great discomfort to come. Saturday watched it all with vivid interest, but said nothing.
A long, loud horn sounded, and several answering hoots honked into the blazing day.
“They’re coming!” shouted Ell excitedly, his wings wobbling under the chains as he leapt up, his tongue lolling like a puppy’s. Really, he needn’t have said anything. The velocipede volery sent up a choking cloud of dust, and Saturday and September could see quite clearly that as soon as they heard the horns the bicycles were nearly upon them, a great throng of old-fashioned highwheels, the wheel in front enormous, the wheel behind tiny--though tiny in this case meant somewhat larger than Saturday’s whole body. Their seats, borne loftily into the sky, were battered velvet of various motley, dappled shades, their tires spotted like hyenas, their spokes glittering in the naked meadowflat sun.
“Hold onto me, Saturday!” yelled September. He tucked his arms around her waist, and again she was struck by how heavy he was, when he seemed so small. The horns sqwonked again and as a great, soaring highwheel came roaring by, September threw the Spoon as hard as she could. It flew, far and true, and she clutched the end of the sash, which extended much further than you might think, so eager was the sash to please its mistress. The Spoon tangled in the spokes of the large wheel and up they shot into the air, the turning of the wheel pulling them forward. Saturday shut his eyes--but September did not. She laughed as she flew nearer and nearer to the broad speckled orange-and-black seat. She reached out to catch it and just caught her fingers in the copper springs beneath. Her knees banged against the tire and burned against the spinning, bloody and painful--but still September scrambled up as best she could.
“September! I can’t!” Saturday called after her, his blue face contorted in fear and strain as he tried to hold onto her but slipped, more by each minute, until he was only barely clutching her ankle. “I’ll fall!”
September tried to raise her leg and pull him up, but she could not fight the the jostling and honking of the velocipede as it angrily tried to dislodge its would-be rider. She hooked her elbow around the musky-smelling seat and reached down as far as she could, her fingers stretched to their limit, to catch him up. It was not enough. He could not get hold, and he was so terribly, awfully heavy. September cried out wordlessly as the highwheel reared up, determined to dash her bones against the meadow.
Saturday fell.
He did not shriek.