ARACHNE BOY

chapter three, NIKO MOORE AND THE STOLEN BYCICLE

III. Niko Moore and the Stolen Bycicle

Usually, Tuesdays are chattering, softened by tiredness, and the coolest boys in town slamming expensive car doors shut to face a long day, licking cherry flavored cola off their lips. But Mondays are also the sunlight falling into frail pools of liquid gold as Niko Moore walks out into the schoolyard, his big brown eyes wandering around and about searching for a glimpse of red. He sees two red bikes, but unfortunately, neither of them are the one he's looking for. Now, this should've been expected: one clever enough to steal a bike in broad daylight without being caught just can't be stupid enough to park it exactly where they'd taken it. He walks up to the bike rack to take another (the fourteenth) look at the scene of the crime. Quite honestly, he can't believe he's doing this... but seeing that stupid piece of paper in the hallway had been (more than) enough to make him feel bad.

          STOLEN: YELLOW BIKE WITH THUNDER SYMBOL ON THE SIDE!!! CALL (453) 513-7560 IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING, PLEASE!! REWARD OF $100

See, Niko hasn't spoken to Annette in a good few days now, ever since the unspoken incident that makes his heart heave, and even though, yes, he has been purposefully avoiding her, he can't just sit around and watch her fall into a pit of melancholy because some fool took what isn't theirs... Perhaps it all sounds ludicrous, such fuss over a simple bike, but he is very well aware that it's much more than that. Annette got that bike (they used to call it Yellow Lightning: Fear of All Roads, that's how cool it is) from her late grandma as a gift for her thirteenth birthday and despite having gotten her drivers license some time ago, she refuses to travel by anything but Yellow Lightning. It was really expensive, first of all, really cool, and held some sentimental value, too, because Annette's grandma, admittedly, was really cool. Niko thinks that she was much cooler than his own grandparents combined. She wore those kitchen aprons with a man's abs on them and positioned her garden gnomes in rather... risky positions, much to Annette's mom dismay.

It hit him the moment he saw the piece of paper: yes, he misses Annette. But how can it be any differently when she's all he's really known since nine years old? Niko moved to town when he was only a tender nine years, unsure legs and an endearing lisp and all, a drive littered with gas stations and motel rooms. He didn't like his new home right away. The walls crawled and there was a certain sad strangeness around here, rooted deep into the mud banks of the river. He wanted so badly to just be home again, and he made that clear: with bandaids on his knees, crying in the long grass round the back of the house. He missed his friends, too, left behind with the tire swing. The new house was on the edge of the woods, the only thing stirring the trees the voices of some kids playing in the river because the heat was too much. Their laughter bounced through the woods, shaking the birds from the trees and waking the butterflies from the wildflowers that grew in the dirt. The Moore family unloaded the lives they'd already lived from the backseats of that beat-up car, unpacking until the sky turned pink and the sun melted into the tops of the trees.

And Niko was sad. Until there was a rustle in the long grass growing head high and then there was suddenly a man walking towards his dad, offering help. All Niko could see, however, was the girl bumbling behind that man like a frenzied honeybee, all curiosity and mischief, and while she was mean to him that day in kindergarten, even broke his leg, they soon made friends. It wasn't just Niko and Annette, but the entirety of their families before Annette's dad died and she moved away (she was twelve, then): Annette's parents had a way of making the Moore family feel at home. Amaryllis would often come over unannounced, bringing Niko's mom tea and cookies. They would sit on lawn chairs and talk until the mosquitoes and moths came out to kiss the porch lights. The kids would keep themselves busy, as well. When summer came, burning the corn fields, they'd go out playing in the woods, Annette with her pigtailed hair up in ribbons and Niko trailing after her like a lost puppy. In the winters, when the murky river was frozen grey and the birds left until the spring, they'd snuggle under dozens of blankets and carve pumpkins with kitchen knives.