The bike was gone. Garrett ran his fingers through his hair and kicked the ground in frustration. It was four o'clock : around him, kids spilled out of the entrance. They were sort of like a school of fish, gliding together like that, only fish are much quieter. Tied to the bicycle rack, there was a red bike, a small black bike and a neon green bike, but the blue bike, his bike, was nowhere to be seen.
"What would Walt do?"
Walter was Garrett's brother, three years younger and a genius. He was at home now, working on the house's lighting system. If he were in this situation, he would walk home and build a new bike. Garrett took off his backpack and set it on the ground next to his lunchbox. He was going to do exactly the opposite.

Frankline loved walking home. Today, though, she felt heavy. Her backpack full of rocks (yes, rocks) surely didn't help.
It was as if she'd been teleported onto Jupiter, where gravity makes your legs feel like lead.
"Frankline Lynden reporting to International Space Station, just landed on Jupiter... It's so heavy... I repeat: I feel heavy..."
The sun was beginning to set and her hands glowed an orangey-red. It looked as though her skin was on fire. A breeze picked up, rustling the last crisp leaves on the black trees and making her short frizzy hair ruffle. Frankline was nearly past the police department when an intense whiff of waste invaded her nostrils. She hadn't even turned the corner. Her reluctant steps led her to the front of her house, a small brick construction with an untidy front yard. The begonias were usually lit up at this time of day, like pink welcome lights, but today, a dark shadow blocked them from the last strands of sunlight.
There it was. The truck.
It was green. A green that stung the eyes. And the stench. Oh! The stench was overwhelming. Incomparable. Suffocating. You could almost see the green vapour and the flies.
The massive vehicle just lay there, tipped over in the middle of the road, with little orange cones and a plastic ribbon around it, as if people needed to be reminded of its existence.

Frankline's dad had had a memorable conversation with a city worker the day before:
"So... When will this... Mess... Be cleared up?" He had said while waving an elegant hand towards the... mess.
The very important-looking person in a neon yellow jacket had been writing furiously in a notepad, so it'd taken him a while to answer.
"Uh... Possibly this month."
Her dad's face had contorted in anger.
"Possibly this month? What do you mean, possibly this month? Are you out of your mind?"
The agent, rudely ignoring her father, had screamed something to his co-worker that had sounded terrifyingly like " Milk or cream in your coffee? ", before absent-mindedly formulating his reply:
"The service is quite slow in this little town." The man's smile was not pleasant.

Leaving Frankline and her dad standing helplessly on the front porch, he'd pocketed his pen and pad, skipped happily towards his white city truck, had flung himself onto the driver's seat and taken off at a ticketable speed. Frankline had not been able to revise that night, for understandable odour reasons. "All this because of the Kleenex box I absolutely had to throw away..."

Frankline pushed open the door; they never kept it locked, because her family owned only one functioning key. It was dark inside, so she craned her neck. As she expected, her dad was sitting on a chair in the back yard. She could see him through the kitchen window. She flicked the light switch to discover the marvellous world that she called her home. Every inch of the cramped space was covered in beautiful wooden shelves, on which various objects of all shapes and sizes were presented like trophies. Bare light bulbs swung from the ceiling, giving off the only light, with green vines solidly wrapped around the wires. She took a deep breath. The air was much better here, but the scent of rot still clung to her clothing. She was going to have to take a shower.

A light chirp sprouted from a top shelf and a grey parrot peeked from behind a book. Frankline giggled and, her spirits lifted, took a peanut out of her pocket. Bea fluttered down, gently landed on the girl's outstretched arm and picked up the nut in her beak.
"How'you doin'?" Squawked the bird, her voice full of peanut crunch.
"Fine, thanks". Carefully, Frankline headed to the staircase. On the railing, miniature steps had been built for Bea, so that she could walk alongside the humans. They were halfway up when Bea chimed:
"Time for a break!" By "break", she meant "dance break". The girl stopped her ascension and shook her head.
"Sorry Bea, I've got homework, I can't."
"Frankie, Frankie..."
"No. Not now."
Bea warbled and flapped her grey wings and red tail. She wasn't the prettiest bird, but was definitely the smartest. She was twenty-two, bound to live till at least fifty, and adored jazz music.
"Bea..." But she was off, and there was no stopping her now. Frankline closed her eyes and listened as the soft trumpet notes sprang to life. Schoolwork was going to have to wait.

At that exact same moment, Garrett held the paper between his hands. The lined loose leaf had been torn out of his science notebook, and that was all he needed, as well as a few dimes for the photocopier. He'd spent the past ten minutes searching the ground for dropped coins and his front pockets were bulging.
"Sir?"
The librarian looked up.
"May I use the photocopier?"
"Of course. Write your name... here."
He took the pen on the counter and scribbled.
"Thanks a lot."
He read the paper once more before setting the machine to twenty copies. The paper looked like this:

He waited for the machine to do its thing. Suddenly, it rumbled and black-and-white pages started pouring out of its mouth.
"No! No-no...No!"
"Something wrong?" The librarian had been alerted by the boy's exclamation.
"Uh... How do you make the copies in colour?"
"Oh! Well, we only have black-and-white at the moment, but... What is it? A school project? I'm sure they'll let you copy it at school!"
"No, it isn't for school. I... Ah... Someone stole my bike. This is an ad. "
As he approached, Garrett noticed that the librarian's grey hair was tied in a short ponytail and that he smelled strongly of mint gum.
"Oh! That's sure unfortunate!" He exclaimed. "Can I see the paper?"
Garrett gave him the good copy, and turned to his pile of black-and-white ones. He wondered what he would do with all that paper. Probably origami.
"I heard you can get colour copies for free at the police station " Declared the librarian. "I mean, it does sound like a burglary. And burglary's a crime."

The police station was occupied by two young officers and a small redheaded woman who was jumping up and down and barking about a smelly garbage truck. It did stink outside, but it wasn't that bad compared to his ordeal. Garrett didn't say any of this out loud, though. He picked a navy-blue plastic chair and sat, waiting patiently for someone to notice him. It didn't take long. The policemen were relieved to have someone else to talk to other than the complaining lady, and looked eagerly in his direction. Garrett picked up his stuff and walked to them.
"Are you even listening to me?" The lady cried. "My son can't sleep because of the garbage smell... and you want me to wait a month?"
Garrett came to a halt. Why did the lady have to wait a month? When he questioned one of the officers, the man sighed, and, without a look at the woman, explained:
"Service is slow in this little town. We have to pick up all the trash, put it in bags, then sweep the ground... And that's not even counting the gigantic truck that we have to drag away! It's a lot of work, man! And we'd prefer to work on other things, like car robberies..." He gazed dreamily at the ceiling. " Not that we wish for them to happen or anything, but, you know, a little action can't hurt!"
The men were determined not to pay any attention to the lady. Garrett watched as her eyes shrank to tiny slits and her bushy eyebrows furrowed. She stared until the officers had no choice but to acknowledge her existence, pointed a long purple nail in their direction and said nothing for a while. Maybe she couldn't think of anything to say. Finally, she swung her bag over her shoulder and stomped out the door like a small tornado.
"May I use the photocopier?"

----

The boy's ears were disproportionately large for his head. This feature, along with the pointy nose, small lips, frightfully pale blue eyes and short stature, screamed a rodent resemblance. The girl standing next to him didn't understand. Nobody understood.
"Why'd you steal it?"
"I didn't steal it."
"Yes you did. You took it without asking permission. That's called stealing. "
The definition of stealing was actually way more complex, but Walter didn't want to start an argument with the closest thing he had to a friend.
"Okay, I did. But that doesn't mean I'm a thief. I'm planning to give it back... Later. "
"Later when?"
The interview was starting to get annoying.
"Later, when I'm done with it. "
"But what if... I dunno... He starts, like, telling everyone that it's gone?"
Walter's attention drifted back to the bike. It was dirty, and much uglier than any bike he'd ever made, but it had something special. He just had to find out what that special thing was.
"Walt?"
Stacey waited a second. When it became obvious that Walt wasn't going to answer, she put on her straw hat and jumped over the low hedge that separated the two homes. She didn't understand, but she understood more than most.

Garrett was of the opinion that places, no matter how horrible they may be, are made better by the appearance of their surroundings. After sticking coloured photocopies all around town for an hour, he'd gone to the only public space free of family gatherings and out-of-season barbecues: Bates hill park. He liked the view from the bench; on one side, an ugly grey rug of leafless trees extended towards the horizon, like an army of scrub brushes, and on the other, Ottergrove spread, its tiny roofs reflecting the peach sunlight. It was warm for a November evening, but the boy was frozen at the thought that he may never see his bike again. 
As the natural lighting subsided, the artificial flickered on, making Garrett's eyelids flutter open. The glowing yellow light emanating from the lamppost provided a blanketing comfort that made the boy register just how tired he was.
"Time to go home" he thought drowsily, and so he walked down the hill into his backyard.  

(March 22nd 2018)