Secret Sidewalk

Sharad

"Wish we had some lemonade," Ben said, "or maybe a Popsicle. A Popsicle would be perfect!"

"Ready to go back home?" Marcus asked. He deliberately didn't bring stuff with them so that sooner or later Ben would be ready to go.

"No," Ben declared. "I want to know about Manny and Mrs Sweet."

"Oh, they had a lot in common, those two. For one thing, they hated kids. They were always talking about ways to get rid of them, and how many points you'd get for different things"

"What kind of things?"

"Well, like when she hits a skater kid with her Jeep, she gets a thousand bonus points. Like that. She even gets a hundred when she just scares them off their boards. Manny's secret dream is round up all the kids and dump 'em in the sea."

"No way," Ben did not believe it.

"I heard him say it myself," Marcus insisted. "One time I was over there with Karly when she was planning to get a tattoo even though she's only twelve and they won't do it over there, but she was asking anyways, and that's when we heard Manny talk about his plan. Now whenever I hear about a missing kid I think they ought to check his boat for clues."

"What kind of tattoo?"

"Oh, Karly is going to get butterfly dragon things, you know, all pretty wings and a killer head. She has got it all drawn out. It's really beautiful, I think. You know Otto, the tattoo guy? He asked if he could borrow the design but she said only if he'd do hers first but he said no he can't because she's only twelve and that's the law. Otto is the one who had the idea that Mister Pete was going to be OK because he'd seen that kind of thing before. So he told everyone "just leave him alone" and that is what they did. Phil wanted to know if he could get his tat done too, and that's when he became The Dark Rider. It's his tat.

Karly was pissed because Phil's sixteen and that's still less than the law I think, but Otto was feeling sorry for the kid because his dad was in a state and there was nowhere he could go, so he did Phil's right then that night. It was after two a.m. when Phil went home eventually, and found his dad still staring on the kitchen floor. He started to tiptoe up the stairs when suddenly his dad jumped up and started running around the house screaming as loud as he could about ninjas, grease, and engine oil. Phil was so freaked out he jumped out the bathroom window and took off running down the street.

Mister Pete got on the roof somehow and that was where the fire department found him when they came. Nobody could talk him down until they brought in this guy they called Sharad. He was some kind of guru-looking guy, old and bald, long beard and everything. He showed up in some kind of sweet sky blue Mercedes convertible, hopped out, and scrambled up the ladder to the rooftop. He sat up there like a Buddha, you know, and Mister Pete sat down beside him, and discussed about whether a man could really fly. Finally they both came down, and the fire chief let Sharad take Phil's dad back to his compound at the Buena Vista Trailer Park.