Frederick had played his games to death, watched everything he had wanted to watch on streaming and had even tried to do a bit of reading, but he had come to the end of his patience. He wished he could blame his mum, that she had grounded him for having the police come around not a week after they had moved in, but she hadn't. She had simply accepted that it happened and that it would always happen.
He had imposed the isolation on himself, not wishing to go out at all. Not wanting to give anyone any reason to accuse him of anything. Not that old cow in the shop and not that boy that Frederick had seen riding the bike, the bicycle, he had accused Frederick of stealing. It was only after the coppers had gone that he remembered it. The bikes whizzing by as he and Mister Dibbs had returned from the canal.
Now, his mum at work that she had started the day before, Frederick sat in the corner of the sofa, flicking through the ordinary tv stations and wondering how people ever managed to entertain themselves when they couldn't choose what to watch, when they wanted to watch it. It was three days since the fishing trip. Three days since the coppers came round, searching the whole house as if Frederick could hide the stupid bike in his wardrobe. He hadn't set foot out of the door since coming back from shopping that day.
He turned upside down, lifting his feet onto the back of the sofa, and flicked through the channels again. If he couldn't find anything to watch soon, he was going back to the streamers. There had to be something he could watch, somewhere. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He tapped the remote control over and over again, giving himself enough time to see that he didn't want to watch what was on each channel before moving on to the next, and there was nothing. Not one single thing to watch.
His eyes opened wide and he almost broke his back, twisting from the upside down position to kneeling on the seat cushion, flicking back two channels to where he had caught a flash of something. He laughed, covering his mouth, though he didn't need to. There was no-one around to hear, after all. Of all the things he could have caught a glimpse of, he would never have expected to see this.
It was one of those cheap shows, where people go around the country, buying crap and doing it up to sell on for loads more money. The kind of thing that people would watch, thinking they could do the same, but not realising it was all made up. Frederick's dad had fallen for something similar, thinking himself a proper barrow boy, but he lost money and soon moved on to his next scheme. Frederick wasn't bothered about the show, it was rubbish, but something had caught his eye, something about the thing they had found and were about to fix up. A bicycle.
He placed his feet on the floor and sat forward on the edge of the cushion as the presenter showed the bicycle in all its ruin. It looked even worse than the one he and Mister Dibbs had pulled out of the canal. No seat, the frame bent and rusted something rotten. Only one wheel, no tire, no chain, either. Frederick didn't think it worth fixing, but he knew Mister Dibbs would. Mister Dibbs would fix it easy.
"If you look here, underneath the rust, you can see, quite clearly, the name of the manufacturer. A huge name, at one time, but now, sadly, consigned to the past. Hanson Cycles." The man on the tv took a damp cloth and rubbed at the frame, revealing more of the name. "And, if we clear away a little more of the grime, we find that this little beauty is, in fact, one of Hanson's more experimental bicycles; the Hanson Hurricane. Marvellous."
"Hanson." Frederick frowned as the name rang a bell in his mind, only for it to come to him in a flash of memory. "That bike from the canal!"
He thought about pausing the show, before remembering it was on boring, ordinary television. Trying to keep his eyes on the screen, he reached over the back of the sofa to where he had last seen his tablet. Not there, he searched behind the cushions, then flopped on the sofa seat cushions to look underneath the sofa itself, where, for some reason, he had shoved the tablet. All the while, he kept looking back at the screen.
"With the Hanson Hurricane, a new way of changing gears was attempted but, inevitably failed. The old, complicated, reliable derailleur would brook no challengers. The Hanson Hurricane became known as nothing more than a failed experiment and the bicycle became withdrawn from sale after only nine months." As the presenter talked, a series of photographs crossed the screen, showing the Hanson factory, hundreds of people working inside the factory and then the bicycle itself, in its prime. "Only two hundred Hurricanes were sold and this one is the first I've seen in my lifetime. Now, all we need is a little elbow grease, time and attention, and the Hanson Hurricane will ride again."
A commercial break gave Frederick a little time. Turning on the tablet, he began to search for the Hanson Hurricane and several sites came up. Like the presenter, they talked about the history of the Hurricane, the factory, the workers. Many of the same pictures filled the sites, but, unless he wanted to wade through more words than he usually read in a week, it didn't really interest him. The pictures were nice.
"Wait. It's not a Hurricane, though, is it?" He wasn't talking about the bicycle on the show as he mumbled to himself, but the one he and Mister Dibbs had found. "It's a Lightning!"
Another search followed and more sites appeared, or pages from the sites that he had already browsed. There were a lot more pictures of the Lightning, and there were even some for sale. Refurbished and repainted. Some made to look exactly how they looked originally, while others painted in a variety of different, modern ways, with added accessories.
Before he could read much more, the show came back on and Frederick dropped the tablet to the side as he turned his attention back to it. Now, the presenter stood in a warehouse, or something, where Frederick could see all kinds of metalworking machines and tools. There were even cars in the background in various stages of repair, but the presenter stood at a large bench, where the Hurricane, or what remained of it, sat on stands.
"With a bicycle such as this, made in a time where cost-savings were not quite as diligently adhered to as they are today, they used the very best materials, which is good news for us." He picked up a brush of some kind, with metal bristles instead of plastic ones, and showed it to the camera. "Most of the rust damage, as we'll soon see, is purely cosmetic and, underneath the age and weathering, I'm certain we'll find good, solid metal. Let's find out."
For some reason, after a short time showing the man begin brushing the frame, dust and rust cascading to the workbench, the show began to speed up, making the man look comical and weird as he brushed down the frame. Frederick found himself fascinated by it all as the man, with his metal brush, worked upon the frame.
Before long, as the camera showed, the man finished and the frame now had almost all the rust removed from the metal. But, along with the rust, he had also removed all the paint, leaving only the bare metal remaining. The fast pace slowed, and the presenter held up a tin of some kind and a paintbrush, but he didn't say what it was and that bothered Frederick. He wanted to know what the man was doing, not simply watch the results.
Frustrated, he turned to the tablet again, trying to think of the terms to search for. It took him more than a few attempts, mixing words, adding some, taking some away, but he felt confident he found it. Or, rather, two things it could be. Either a rust neutraliser, or rust convertor. Some of the sites said the convertors weren't the best for older metal, so Frederick assumed it was the neutraliser. He never knew such a thing existed.
By the time he had finished reading about those things, another set of commercials had started to parade across the tv. Not having a pause option, commercials every five minutes, and Frederick began to remember why he never watched normal tv. It was rubbish. In the meantime, he decided to search for the kinds of tools needed for repairing bicycles and wished he hadn't bothered. There were loads of them!
The show came back on and Frederick almost groaned in frustration. They had jumped forward and now the bicycle frame had a fresh coat of paint and, as that dried, the presenter moved on to the handlebars. Frederick had wanted to watch the whole thing, but realised they couldn't show it. They only had so much time in the show, and then they had to sell the bicycle, too. Still, seeing what he had, he had a better appreciation for what Mister Dibbs did.
At the end of the show, it said the episode remained available on the channel's catch-up service. If nothing else, Frederick could watch it again, to see if he had missed anything interesting. Or anything Mister Dibbs might have liked to have seen. At that thought, Frederick looked out of the window. He hadn't seen Mister Dibbs in days. Hadn't even thanked him for taking him fishing. He was being impolite and he knew it and it was a wonder Mum hadn't said so. Picking up his tablet, he headed to the back door and pulled on his trainers before heading out into the garden.
"Mister Dibbs? I know you know loads about bicycles, but there's this show and ..." He stood on tip-toes, looking over the fencing, and saw his neighbour sat on the floor in his shed. "Mister Dibbs?"
The old man turned toward Frederick, clutching a hand to his chest. He looked pale and older than ever before, his face all scrunched up and lined, yet, even then, the old man smiled at him, before wincing and moaning.
"Hey up, lad." The old man's voice croaked as he tried to pull himself to standing, but falling back to the floor of the shed. "Would thy mind? I can't get to me phone. Could thee call for an ambulance, please?"
Frederick didn't even say anything. He reached into his back pocket, pulling out his phone, and rang nine-nine-nine. He only hoped they would arrive in time. If he hadn't sat in the house for days, miserable and bored, maybe Mister Dibbs would have been alright?