Saucer in the Dunes

28 Problem Solved?

"We can't even tell anyone!" Ronnie yelled into the empty pine woods as we walked.

"Those assholes have our bikes, and we can't even tell anyone! This is some shit summer!" He continued.

Jimmy and I were with him in spirit but remained silent.

"What a bunch of assholes!"

He paused and kicked a cluster of pine cones which went flying in all directions.

"You know I only have about five things that are worth anything, and my bike is one of them."

He was breathing heavily, his face red from the heat, his hair still a tousled mess. Then he turned around.

"I'm going back," he grunted.

He took a couple of steps back toward the road, but both Jimmy and I stopped him. If he had tried, he would have easily gotten past us, but he gave up, turned, and walked on.

I knew how he felt, I didn't have too much either, but I had more than Ronnie, and losing my bike was going to put me into a heck of a pickle too. My parents would only go so long without noticing. I always parked it in the garage like my dad told me. Even when I forgot, they reminded me. You know, my friends and I rode nearly every day. Mom saw me riding it all the time. I was going to have to explain, but I kept that fact to myself. No sense in making things any worse.

Jimmy came up with the only ray of hope between us.

"We can always ask the Chief to get the bikes back for us. We'll hang around downtown for a few days. He usually shows up to pester Mr. Ronson. We can ask him then. He'll do it."

Ronnie stopped in his tracks again. We all did.

"Yeah, Chief would do it. We just have to catch him."

"Well, we could ask him anyway," I added.

"He'll do it," Ronnie finally agreed.

"And I'll tell him we were only coming out there to see him. I didn't mean to shoot the arrow on the roof of that house. I'd have gotten it down to if that girl hadn't stopped me."

"Yeah," I agreed, remembering her face and dark eyes filled with anger as she stood between the other kids and me.

We continued on.

We split up early that afternoon after walking through town looking at Ronson's and everywhere for the Chief with no luck. We agreed to meet at my house in the morning. My mom usually made breakfast, and everyone liked her. They liked my dad too because they said he always talked to us like they were grown up, like how Mr. Ronson always treated us. It seemed that most of the other adults in town treated the kids like, well, kids. And no one wants to be treated like a kid, believe me.

On the way home, I was hatching a plan to tell my dad everything that happened before we even talked to the Chief. My dad might understand and let us handle it our way first, seeing that we planned to speak to the Chief. If that failed, I would tell Ronnie and Jimmy that my dad knew, then we could ask for his help in getting our bikes back. Dad always told me that if I ever needed his help, all I had to do was ask. It had worked before but never on anything as serious as this. I would let him decide whether to tell mom or not. I wasn't going to tell either one of them about the dark-haired girl.

To my great surprise, much of our problem would be solved for us. That night, mom made her famous fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It was one of my favorite dinners; dad's too. Dad had been busy in his office from the time he got home until mom called us to eat. He had been drawing and punching on his calculator at his drafting table. I was going to talk to him, but mom had warned me to stay out of there.