Bullets on Bikes

Pikeville, Kentucky was small, but Zach and Ben were smaller. Bullets on bikes, zipping around, everywhere at once. Always there for dinner, but gone before the first dish made it into the sink. The winters in Pikeville were chilly, biting and brimming and to Zach and Ben, very bothersome. The springs there were blooming and full, colors everywhere, life bounding through tall green weeds. The summers were hot. So hot. Hot enough even to slow the wild boys down for a moment beneath the bridge in the creek that ran by town mountain road. The summers were also boring. There are only so many times you can catch frogs, or pick the blackberry bushes clean, or bike under the beating sun till the sweat soaks into your temples so deep it starts to mist up your brain. Zach, speaking of, was bored. He was digging at the dirt, thinking of frogs, when in the mud, a coin was uncovered, dirty, but shining like gold in his eyes. Zach grinned. 

“Ben!” He hollered with pride, “I found a secret treasure.” Ben, who had been digging not three yards away, looked up. Ben was jealous. 

“No way!” He stared at the silver prize with excitement. 

“I know how to flip a coin flip.” He reached his muddy hands to Zach as the silver coin sailed through the air. Ben prepared. The coin– a quarter, he could see now, was precariously placed on the thumb of his right hand. Not looking away from the coin, he started, then stopped, and the focus in his brow turned to a mischievous grin, growing by the second. 

“However the coin decides, has to do a prank that the other person says so.” Ben had a prank in mind. Zach knew he did. Zach grinned wider.

“Heads or tails?”  Ben asked.

“Heads.” 

They watched the coin with anticipation. Ben caught it with a snap on the back of his hand, he flipped it, and they peered, heads knocking lightly together. 

“Heads!” Ben exclaimed. He whispered his elaborate prank in Zach's ear, pulling him back a few times when Zach got too excited and tried to run for the bikes. The whispering went on for a while, but he pulled away, and it was showtime. The two boys grabbed their bikes and pedaled, hard, back to Ben's house. They located and snatched the tin pail faster than light, two bullets on bikes. They pedaled back. Ben caught the first frog and dropped it neatly into the pail with a tink. Zach caught the second. It went from three, to six, to eleven. They were finished. Zach had gotten one more, so Ben caught a toad (which are far easier to catch) while he wasn’t looking just to make it fair. Twelve. They grabbed the bucket, and flew on their bikes downtown. 

It was late summer, and early tourists had started to fill the inns and cafes with their disposables and funny accents. Zach and Ben had already started to fill the inns and cafes with mud and broken pottery and inexplicable Nutella rubbed on every toilet roll. They came to their target, hardly containing their excitement. Zach silently picked up the pail, noting the peculiar twelfth toad, while Ben watched in squirming restlessness. They came to the back entrance and waited for someone to come out, where Ben was waiting with a stick to shove in between the door and doorframe so they could sneak in. Zach, meanwhile, shoved each frog down his shirt one by one. It took some waiting, but Zach and Ben had taken all summer to learn that, and , curled behind the trash bins, Ben had his chance as Stacy, the waiter, went out for a smoke break. Zach snuck in, silent as a mouse, focused as a hawk. It was a hallway. He snuck farther, and Ben followed on tiptoes, closing the door without a sound. There it was– the sounds and smells of the dining hall. Ben and Zach went unnoticed by the patrons, despite his moving and croaking undershirt. Each person they passed, Zach gave his small gift– a frog. In the lap, at the feet. The prank was working. In a moment, they were sure, one man would get up with a shout at the frog that just hopped into his eggs benedict. It was the last frog, and it was a fat one, which is why Zach had left it for last. His sticky hands reached under his shirt and–

CROOOAKKKK.

It was the toad. It was a natterjack. It was loud. The hall went quiet. Zach had a frog in hand. 

CROOOAKKKK.

A second frog took up the call. This one was not Zach's hand. This one was in a man’s eggs benedict. There was a shout. Ben was the first to move, running to the back door. Zach dropped the natterjack and with a whoop and laugh started up following Ben at top speed. Ben was laughing, and the benedict man was just behind them. They flew open the door, narrowly avoiding Stacy, and grabbed their bikes just in time. The man had run into Stacey, and it gave Zach just enough time to blow a raspberry before he sped away, faster than a bullet, and more joyful than the wind. He was happy his coin, still hanging in his pocket, had landed on heads, but next time, he had a prank in mind…