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Jack Piper and the Chamois of Fire - Chapter 13 Table of Contents

by Flava Dave

Did someone mention a possible "Conspiracy?"

ack scrambled to get dressed in the dark while another salvo of firecrackers exploded outside his basement window. He slipped on his shoes and quietly climbed the stairs two at a time to reach the back door, but before he could lock the door, it burst open. Strong hands grabbed Jack and pulled him into the cool, pale moonlight of the back yard.

Several dark and shadowy figures stood on the lawn, each with a bicycle in hand. "Get your beater bike," snarled a voice from behind Jack.

Jack stammered, "Uh, I don't have a beater bike."

JPCOF "Don't worry," barked a nearby voice as the ghoulish assembly was enveloped by a blue haze that smelled of spent firecrackers. Jack recognized Sluggo's voice. "I know where we can get him a bike. In the meantime, hop on the back of Dean's death ride." Jack knew better than to refuse.

A stocky rider named Dean rolled a three-wheeled contraption toward Jack and motioned for him to get on the back. In the dim light of the back yard, Jack could see that the bike was assembled from two separate bikes placed end to end. The front wheel of the rear bike had been removed and the fork had been spread to fit onto the axle of the first bike's rear wheel.

Dean hopped on the front and offered stern directions over his shoulder to Jack. "You're the stoker. Don't lean. Don't try to steer. Just sit back there and pedal when I pedal."

With a determined kick, Dean launched the bike across the lawn and down a slope to the alley behind the house. The bike twisted and bucked like a rodeo bull as they careened along the alley and out into the street. The rest of the beater brigade followed, and Jack began to recognize riders under the pale streetlights.

Dog Bait came clattering along side on an old beater with studded tires. "This is my winter ice beater," he explained. "I made the wheels with roofing nails driven through the treads and nipped off. Watch this." The Ben Hur style tires enabled him to chew through many opponents' rear fenders and tires that night.

The midnight beater brigade made its way to the campus town bars, where another rider named Lowell demonstrated how to hug the curb and nail jaywalking students just as they stepped into the street.

Sluggo shouted at Dean to pull into a dark downtown alley. "There's your beater, Jack," he said, pointing to an old cruiser tossed on top of a pile of garbage next to a dumpster. "It was Blockhead's, but I ‘borrowed' it for a while. Don't let him catch you with it." Jack was glad to get off of Dean's hook-and-ladder tandem and onto a bike he could control.

Back on the street with the rest of the brigade, Dean complained that since he lost his stoker, he didn't have anyone to help him pedal. Van Man suggested he get someone to help out and pointed to a likely candidate who had just stepped out of a bar called the Airliner.

It didn't take much to convince the man to take Jack's place as stoker on the back of Dean's death ride. He was a big, well-dressed Texan, slightly drunk, friendly, and talkative. Within minutes, no one could stand him.

While the rest of the brigade looked on, Dean tried to shut the Texan up by whipping the tandem faster and faster up and down the street. Nothing worked, and finally, Dean had had enough. While traveling along at high speed past Jack and the others, Dean took one last look back at his annoying stoker and calmly stepped off of the moving bike.

For just an instant, the pilotless tandem looked like it might keep going, but then the front wheel skittered a little bit, and the entire bike started wagging back and forth, doing a perfect imitation of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Suddenly, the high-speed tandem folded and tumbled into a heap that slid down the middle of the street until it came to rest.

While the stoker was still trying to untangle himself from the wreckage, Dean calmly jogged up to the bike and pointed to a sticker on the head tube of the bike that Jack hadn't noticed before. The sticker had a picture showing Bozo the Clown in a circle with a slash through it. Dean smiled at the Texan and explained, "Look. No Bozos!"

Meanwhile, sitting on the curb next to Jack, Scott turned to Sluggo and said, "I think we should head for Texas after Christmas. I bet we can get in some good miles down there over the winter."




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