The Last Day of the Holiday, Chapter Two

These kinds of bicycles were for going faster and doing more than Mini-Flash Juniper’s last had been. She’d already taken careful note of that, so set off with a view to meeting expectations.

Her real wheel spurted back a mud-shower as she swung into the lead, while Calvin was still struggling and spluttering. The gradient was downhill and the cloggy course hazardous, but Juniper skimmed it and hit the first triangular ramp at a pace that catapulted her clear of its apex. Coming back down again from that, even onto soft ground, acquainted her with her saddle in a way the cycle-lanes of suburban Nottingham had never done.

Had she known, she’d have advised Calvin to take it steady. Couldn’t be quite as much fun for boys.

Which was to say, they wouldn’t be able to weather the impact quite as easily.

That was all Mini-Flash Juniper had meant and ooh, another ramp. She began to pedal for it.

Calvin watched her sail skyward from the second oblique before he’d even tackled the first. So much for never having done this before! He couldn’t believe the tricks this girl played, and fervently yearned for them to never end. Meanwhile Calvin lurched and skidded to negotiate the ramp, awkward and attaining no air, unlike she who at that moment landed with such a crunch on her suspension that she gasped aloud.

Some unfamiliar apparatus was sloping to her left but Juniper shot by. Not that she meant to confine herself exclusively to ramps, but she just thought she’d check if there were any more.

When Calvin marked this, awe was replaced by a rush of tenderness engendered by what little he’d thus far caught of his own folks’ talk on the gentler sex. Concluding at once that Mini-Flash Juniper had been too dainty for the wall of death, Calvin vowed he would master it or harm himself trying. Round the ramp he swerved, and so strove to shunt his centre of gravity higher and onto an ever-steepening angle.

Mini-Flash Juniper had by now rounded several bends on the squiggly course, so was able to glance back and witness her champion realizing one of the two outcomes he’d envisaged.

Crash.

Juniper’s smile however wasn’t one of mirth but fondness. She’d told Calvin she liked him and she’d meant it, for no sooner he fallen than he was picking himself up, red and besmirched but undaunted. Girls who giggled at that sort of thing hadn’t come to know the first gender as Mini-Flash Juniper had. There was something inexplicably impressive in the way boys like Calvin stumbled on.

Given his spill and the rate she was going Juniper would likely lap him in a minute, so she made ready with some cheering words –

Then came a sudden tingle from her shorts, the first that had nothing to do with the terrain.

Throwing her gaze behind her Mini-Flash Juniper beheld a big boy, bending low and intent over his handlebars. Next second he went by her like the beast he was beneath his leather jacket and hair-gel, both of which he flaunted with a swagger having shunned all protective accoutrements. Juniper skewed and put one foot down on the ground to recover her bearings, while the big boy stormed upland and hurtled high. His hunched black shoulders made Mini-Flash Juniper think of a crow, dropping from flight having sighted some morsel.

She couldn’t say why that suddenly gave her a fearful presentiment for Calvin. There were many others of his kind on the course.

But nobody else who was Special Program.

An arc of dirt-globs fanned from the U-turn into which Mini-Flash Juniper kicked.

Calvin was crouching by his fallen steed, attempting to reattach its chain, oblivious to the peril he was in. Every breath Juniper drew brought her nearer, every fellow patron she dodged or knocked awry, but the dark shape of the big boy was bearing down from the opposite direction and Mini-Flash Juniper’s keen sense of timing told her she was going to be just that narrowest little bit too late –

Wall of death. Without hesitation Juniper mounted its cusp. All due respect to Auntie Green, but this wasn’t any logistics lesson.

Horizontal and with the wind whipping her hair straight out from under the rim of her helmet, she glimpsed a snapshot of wide boy-eyes and a gaping mouth below.

Now Calvin knew.

Then he was behind her and Juniper’s indomitable stare was on the ruffian now moments from a nose-to-nose prang, not that what she had in mind to avert it seemed a suitable stunt for beginners, and even now the voice of every Mini-Flash drill insisted her timekeeping was off. Ignoring it she yanked back her handles and drove a foot down on one pedal, to buck from the wall mid-run and somersault standing upright over her bike.

Thus had Mini-Flash Juniper hoped to interpose the seat of her membrane between friend and foe. Yet no sooner was she was embarked than her heart sank, for it was clear by then her doubts were warranted, and she wasn’t quite going to…

A burst of sonorous yellow swallowed the wheeling inverted world.

Mini-Flash Juniper cast to one side what was left of her BMX. Calvin was unhurt, and riders all along the course had skidded to a halt to gawp.

So she’d made it after all.

Only she hadn’t, and no-one was going to tell Mini-Flash Juniper otherwise. In everything from close-combat battle-tactics to netball, she knew about marking time. She was good at it.

Something else must have happened.

The big boy meanwhile had made himself scarce, leaving only the mangled ruin of his bike. Mini-Flash Juniper by no means put the mystery on hold, but she hurried over to Calvin.

First impressions were that he was fine, or at any rate didn’t object to Juniper muddying up her membrane by giving his small begrimed self a big squeeze. “But what’s going on?” she then demanded, releasing him. “Have you ever seen that boy before?”

“Well, once,” Calvin admitted. “He gave me a bit of a hard time at National Pentathletes. But it was only my first day, and I’m sure I can improve!”

Juniper looked at him, deep in thought.

A something else that had happened. And a boy in whom the creatures seemed to be taking an especial interest.

It would have been going too far to say any of it added up.

But Mini-Flash Juniper was starting to think she might have an idea.

Just then the man from the gate came over and barred them both. Juniper however told Calvin not to worry, because she’d just that minute thought of something they could do instead.

END OF CHAPTER TWO