I imagined I would spend my entire summer vacation with my hands tightly gripped on handlebars, but the handlebars were not supposed to be attached to a lawn mower. Since I was very good at math, I quickly calculated that if I made a dollar for cutting grass and I cut five lawns a week, I would finally earn enough money to get ungrounded and regain my father’s respect the week before summer vacation was over. When I wasn’t busy doing chores or cutting my neighbors’ lawns, I could hear my friends’ laughter through my bedroom window and I wished I could go back and change how my summer vacation began.
For me, the first week of June was the greatest month because it was intertwined with the ending of school and the beginning of my life. My birthday always fell a few days after school ended, so it was like receiving an extra gift from a long lost relative who never signed their name. It was the beginning of freedom where your imagination had limitless boundaries.
That morning, I felt so proud when I met up with my friends, Tyler, Emmett, and Kate Beckett. I had ridden my new bike over to our regular meeting place at the bottom of Heckman’s Hill.
“Whoa!” cried Kate, who was going to turn ten too later that summer. “Peter got the silver Stingray!”
Eleven-year-old Emmett high-fived me. “Awesome! Where’d you get it?”
Tyler, who was twelve, punched him in the arm. “For his birthday, stupid!”
I nodded. “My parents gave it to me last night after dinner!” Yesterday had been my actual birthday, but my party wasn’t until Saturday. I couldn’t wait, even though I had already gotten the best gift with my bike! I had been so excited that I rode it around the yard a few times and popped some wheelies. I had never had a bike of my own before, but I knew how to ride because Kate let me practice on hers. Tyler and Emmett never let us use their bikes.
“Come on, let’s go capture Heckman’s Hill!” Tyler yelled, hopping on his bike and charging forward. “Last one up the hill is a rotten egg!”
Heckman’s Hill was the ultimate place to ride your bike. The half hour of uphill pedaling was gruesome, but when you reached the top, the sense of accomplishment you felt was incomprehensible. When the last school bell rang for summer vacation, our adventures began. It was an unspoken tradition that only a select group understood.
Up on the hill, the pain in my legs became numb as I stood looking down at the valley and lake that had now become miniature in size. But it was immediately forgotten as we played Cowboys and Indians with B.B. guns and bows and arrows. Like every day on Heckman’s Hill, we lived it like it could have been our last, grasping every ounce of adventure that our imaginations could envision.
That is, until Tyler said, “Hey, Peter, I dare you to ride your bike down the hill onto the pier!” I thought about it for a few minutes. I had ridden on the back of Kate’s bike down the hill many times, and it was so much fun. I liked watching Tyler and Emmett do it too. Now it was finally my turn!
“Are you chicken? Bawk, bawk, bawk!” cried Emmett.
“No way. I accept.” We shook hands on it, and I walked my bike over to the top of the hill. How hard could it be? I began to coast down the hill slowly. When I hit the bump that was in the middle of the hill, I took my hands off of the handlebars and kept peddling. “Totally awesome!” I yelled. That was fun! I felt like I could fly! “I’m a bird!”
Suddenly, with a thump, I landed onto the pier. I tried to move my feet backwards to brake, but the bike kept going faster and faster! Oh no! I could hear Kate yelling behind me, “Brake!”
“I can’t! It’s going too fast!”
“Then jump off!” replied Tyler. That seemed like the best thing to do. So I did. But my bike kept going…off of the pier and into the lake with a great big splash!
“My bike!” I watched helplessly as my new silver Schwinn Stingray sank to the bottom of Crescent Lake. I tried to grab onto the black banana seat, but all I could do was watch the reflection of the white racing stripe disappear into the muggy water. It was like my life was flashing before my eyes in slow motion, and I immediately questioned whether I would actually live to celebrate my tenth birthday. Tyler, Emmett, and Kate came to a stop on the pier behind me.
“Now look what you did.” Kate socked Tyler in the arm. “You dared him to do it!”
“Whoa.” Emmett let out a low whistle. “I didn’t actually think you’d do it, Peter. I thought you were a chicken.”
“My bike,” I moaned again.
“Hey, don’t worry, we can get it out.” Tyler jumped into the lake off of the edge of the pier, and Emmett followed.
Kate was always doubtful of her brothers’ ideas, so she didn’t bother jumping. She sat with me on the pier. “I’m sorry about your bike. I didn’t know it would sink that fast either. You were flying down the hill though! That was so cool!”
“Yeah.”
By now, Tyler and Emmett had come up for air and climbed up onto the pier. “Oh, man.” Tyler coughed out lake water and sprayed our faces with it. “It must have sunk to the bottom faster than I thought.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “Duh! You saw how fast Peter was riding that bike! If he hadn’t jumped off, he would have drowned along with it. How would you explain that to Mr. and Mrs. Casey, Tyler? Huh?”
At that point, I might as well have been dead. “My parents are going to kill me if I don’t come home with that bike. It was my favorite birthday present!”
“Maybe we can come up with another idea.” Tyler and Emmett knocked their heads together to think as we all sat down on the pier. If there had been other people around, maybe they could come up with other ideas. But Crescent Lake was quiet for a Wednesday, like it always was during the week. On Saturdays and Sundays, it was always crowded with people fishing, canoeing, or families having picnics. No such luck today.
“Hey, why don’t we fish it out?” Emmett suggested.
“But we don’t have a fishing pole,” Kate replied.
“Don’t worry! I’ll figure something out.” Tyler jumped onto his bike and raced toward home. When he came back fifteen minutes later, he was carrying his grandfather’s old cast iron anchor and a Cordomatic retractable clothesline that his grandfather used for camping. Maybe it would work and I wouldn’t be dead meat after all!
“What can we use for bait?” Emmett wanted to know.
“We don’t need bait. We’re catching a bicycle, not a blowfish!”
Tyler threw out the anchor and held on to the clothesline as the anchor splashed and sank into the water. Then all we could do was wait. Fifteen minutes went by. To pass the time, each of us picked a song to sing. Tyler picked “Hang on Sloopy” by the McCoys, Kate picked “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees (she had a crush on Davy Jones), and I picked “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens, while Emmett whistled the theme song to the Andy Griffith Show.
Finally, Tyler yelled, “I got something!” Maybe it actually worked, I thought. He pulled up the clothesline one hand at a time, but all he reeled in was an old log, which he then threw back. As the afternoon sun beat down on us, Tyler kept trying. He threw out the anchor three more times. He caught an old glass Pepsi bottle, a piece of algae, and a rock, but no bike.
“You’re not going to catch Peter’s bike, Tyler. It’s as good as sunk.” Kate stood up, and I followed.
“No!” Emmett cried. “Not yet. Let’s all jump in the lake. Maybe it came close to the surface!” We all took deep breaths and jumped in the lake to look one last time. But all I could see were little fish swimming around as I blew bubbles.
We all came up for air as Tyler said, “Okay, I give up.”
I climbed up onto the pier. “I might as well face the music.” With squeaking shoes, we began the long journey home.
#
Looking back now on that summer day in 1967, I wasn’t really sure who was more upset about my bike being irretrievable at the bottom of Crescent Lake: me or my parents. But I did become an expert at mowing lawns. It only took me until the week before school started to earn enough money to replace my bike. And needless to say, I never rode my bike off of the pier again after that.
Fall arrived quickly, and my friends had no problem informing everyone on the school bus about how I rode my bike off of the pier and it sunk in Crescent Lake. I decided that I would learn many lessons in my life the hard way, but it would provide memories that would last my lifetime. So when my fifth grade science class was studying about why some things sink and other things float in water, everyone, including my new teacher, Mr. Cooley, agreed that after this summer, I was an expert on the topic!
## #
Ashley Kauffman is from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and she is a teacher with the Mechanicsburg Learning Center. She received her B.A. in English and is currently working toward her M.S. in children’s literature through Penn State University. She collects vinyl records, typewriters, and Golden Books. Ashley is legally blind, but considers herself to be a differently-abled person who has spent her life envisioning the world with the turn of each page. https://ashleyekauffman.wordpress.com/
Photo: Dirk Dreyer, www.dreyerpictures.com
