There's No Time

Chapter 5

We'd walked probably a mile or two when Andrew interrupted the silence that I had come to enjoy. "Ugh,” Andrew said. “Isn’t there an easier way to get there?”

“Nope. Unless you have a car,” Which I knew he didn’t, since he rode the bus, “then, unfortunately, no.” He didn’t seem tired, just annoyed at how long it was taking. His build was too good for him to be tired.

            “Oh!” He jogged over to a parked scooter, motorcycle thing next to a small building.

“No,” I said immediately. “Absolutely not. Do you steal things often?”

“No, but this time I know I won’t get caught.” Well, he doesn’t know this for sure.

 “I hope time starts just in time for you to get caught,” I said matter-of-factly, even though I knew this wouldn't happen.

            That got him thinking. “When will time start again…?” He was just standing there thinking.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there, remember?" I reminded him, unable to hide my annoyance. "Anyway, we're not touching that." Too late. He had already climbed up onto the scooter. “Do you even know how to ride one of those things?” I asked, giving up. I learned enough about Andrew to know that he was too stubborn to listen to me.

He looked at me and gave me such a big, playful, toothy smile that I couldn't help but to smile back. “Nope! But let’s see if I can figure it out.” He got on, and started playing around with levers and brakes. He must’ve had some idea of what he was doing, because soon enough I heard the roar of the engine.

He turned to me and gave me a triumphant smile. I approached him. “Impressive,” I said nodding. “Now, we just have to see if you can drive it.”

“Alright, I got this!” he shouted. I don’t know what he did, but the motorcycle inched forward slowly. He leaned forward, then bam! It jerked and went speeding through the tiny driveway. I screamed just as it jerked to a halt.

“Oh my gosh! Stop!” I ran to him, and put my hands on the handles to ensure he wouldn’t go any further. “Holy crap, you’re going to kill yourself.”

“I’m getting the hang of it!” he tried to convince me.

“No,” I argued, “You’re going to die. Now please stop before you and the bike gets hurt.”

 He scoffed. “You care more about the bike than me.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Jealous?’

 “No, but some concern for me would be nice.”

“I am showing concern! I want you to stop because you’ll hurt yourself!” I said pulling him off. Yet, he was stubborn as always, so he stayed. I sat on the grass, a good distance away and watched him risk his health on a motorcycle.

After a while, I can’t say how long, since time was stopped, he rode up to me. I was lying on the grass, staring up and the dark, morning sky. The stars that wouldn’t twinkle; just the slightest sign of the sun rising in the distance. I had been considering what consequences might come from stealing the motorcycle and, also, falling asleep, when the roar of the bike woke me up in an instant. I sat up.

“Ready to go?” Andrew asked.

“You know how to ride that thing?” He smiled and showed me. He slowly rode around the little building, maneuvered between cars on the road, then came beside me and pulled the front brakes.

“Yes,” he said. “Now let’s go.” He pulled something on the right handle and the engine roared. I stood up.

“I don’t know… I could die riding that thing.” I looked at him skeptically.

 He picked up the helmet hanging on the back of the bike. “You can wear the helmet,” He said getting up.

 I pushed him back down. “What about you?”

He shook his head and said, “I’ll be fine,” Okay, maybe chivalry wasn't dead, but you didn't have to be annoying to get your point across.

“Well,” I looked around, hoping a response would come to me. "Oh," I took a step back from the scooter. "You can go ahead and take it."

He looked at me frustrated. “And why should I have it?”

I smiled, “Because I have this one.” I walked over and grabbed the helmet that had been a few feet from where the bike originally was the whole time. I plopped it on my head and lifted up the plastic screen part. “You know,” I said, “You really should have been wearing one of these from the beginning.” I smiled, lowering the plastic shield.

He just sighed, and got up to get the other helmet, but I saw him smile. He put it on, and sat back down. “Hop on.”

 “Oh boy…” I sat behind him, still skeptical, with my feet on the little metal thingies.  I looked around, and saw that there was nowhere to put my hands. There’s always that part of the movie where the guy says ‘Hang on tight’ and the girl says, ‘What?’ but she’s cut off because the guy is driving really fast and she has no choice but to hang on to the guy. This wasn’t a movie. But you’d think that by now motorcycle companies or engineers or whatever would have thought to make a place for the person in the back to put their hands. Yet, there was nothing. But Andrew couldn’t drive that fast anyway, so I figured I was safe. I was wrong of course.

“Hang on tight!” He said, and I was half expecting it already.

“But you don’t drive that fas-” He timed it perfectly, because just then, he started driving, and he was going really, really fast. I almost had a heart attack because I totally could have fallen backwards and died. But I grabbed onto him just in time.

            “Cliché,” I said.

“But it worked!” He shouted to me through our helmets and over the air and snowflakes hitting us. My heart was racing from the speed we were moving at. I laughed, never having felt anything quite like this before.