BONG … BONG …
The hundred-year-old clock tower that stood at the center of the University of Metroville boomed out the hour.
Eleven-year-old Max Martin looked down at the small clock attached to the handlebars of his scooter. Two o’clock. His dad would be finished teaching his astronomy class in fifteen minutes at the Space Science Center. In less than twenty minutes, Max would meet his dad at the parking lot in front of the Center.
Max loved riding his scooter through the back-streets of the University. He glanced around at a dim alley he was gliding through. This must be near the Biology Building. Max followed a narrow passage as it angled between smooth concrete walls.
Dylan’s motorcycle would never fit through here, Max thought with a grin. I’ll have to tell him at dinner. Max and his older brother Dylan were always arguing about which was the better set of wheels: motorcycle or scooter. Max kept a growing list of advantages for scooters beginning with:
#1. Athletes ride scooters.
“You need strong legs to ride a scooter,” Max told his brother over dinner last night. “And good reflexes and—”
“In other words, you should be like me,” said Dylan.
“If you’re so good, why don’t you run to soccer practice next time instead of riding your stupid motorcycle?” Max asked.
“Stupid? My bike can circle the U. ten times before your scooter makes it around once.”
“Big deal,” said Max. “At least I’m not wasting gas.”
“Cycles get excellent mileage,” said Dylan. “I’d still have plenty of gas.”
“You have plenty of gas all right,” laughed Max.
“All right, all right,” said Mr. Martin at the head of the dinner table. “That’s the last time I serve Seven Bean Casserole.”
As he kicked his scooter through the alley, Max added another item to his list.
#2. Scooters can ride through the Biology Building alley without scraping the walls.
Up ahead, another scooter in the alley was aiming straight toward him.
Max braced both feet on the aluminum deck. This alley is too narrow. That kid is gonna crash right into me.
He gripped the handlebars and felt the rush of wind as the other scooter rocketed past. Something cool on the other scooter’s deck brushed against his feet. At the end of the alley he skidded to a stop and looked behind him. The other kid had also stopped. Max gave him a thumbs-up.
“Smooth ride,” said the other kid.
A flash of neon green snagged Max’s attention. Something whizzed past him in the small courtyard behind the Bio Building.
The green blur vanished behind the side of the building. By the time Max reached the corner of the building, the blur had disappeared. Was it a bike?
Max rode back through the alley. He saw nothing in front or in back of the building. The neon-green blur had simply vanished. And so had the other scooter. Maybe the blur zipped inside the Bio Building, thought Max. No, the doors are locked since most classes ended yesterday. Max’s dad was teaching an extra session today to help students who had been out with an early winter flu.
Max and his silver scooter made a large circuit around the Bio Building. He glided through courtyards, bumped across cobblestone paths, and snaked between stone benches until he returned to the mouth of the same alley where he had rocketed past the kid on the red scooter. There it was again! Fifty yards away, zipping beneath a line of palm trees, raced the strangest bicycle Max had ever seen.
The bike was neon green. It had red spokeless wheels and seemed to be made out of wires instead of aluminum tubing. The reddish wheels reminded Max of the wheels on a kid’s wagon or on a wheelbarrow. The bike disappeared behind a hedge of bushes and palm trees that lined the sidewalk in front of the Biology Building.
“Stop that bike!” yelled a voice.
A woman wearing a long skirt and a pink blouse ran up to Max. She was breathing hard. Max recognized her as one of the University’s teachers.
She pointed toward the bushes and yelled, “That thief stole my—”
Max didn’t stay to hear her finish the sentence. He kicked off and steered his scooter to follow the bike’s trail.
On the other side of the bushes and palms, Max spied the strange bike heading toward the River Bridge. The University of Metroville was built on both sides of the wide Mixaloopi River. The Mixaloopi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico less than a mile away. A tall bridge connected the two banks. The bridge had two levels. The lower level was an asphalt-covered road for cars and trucks. The upper level had a covered walkway running down its middle that students used when it rained in winter or was too hot in summer. Max saw the neon-green bike zoom up the ramp to the walkway and zip inside. It was too far away for Max to catch up with it.
“Where’d it go?” yelled a new voice. Max turned and saw a young, skinny University security guard trotting toward him. At his side jogged the teacher.
“Where’d it go?” repeated the guard.
“On the bridge,” Max pointed. “In the walkway.”
“What were you doing in the alley?” asked the guard. He frowned at Max.
“Riding,” said Max.
The skinny security guard spoke sharply into his two-way radio. He alerted guards at the other end of the bridge. “The suspect should be exiting the walkway on the west side in about a minute.” Then the guard turned his attention back to Max.
“What did he look like?”
“The rider of the so-called bicycle,” said the guard.
He? Was the thief a he or she? Max tried to remember. “I’m not sure,” answered Max.
The guard gave Max a funny look.
The radio sputtered loudly in the guard’s fist. “Where is he? Over.”
The guard held the radio to his mouth. “He must be at your end by now. We saw him enter the walkway thirty seconds ago. Over.”
Wrong, thought Max, I saw him enter the walkway thirty seconds ago.
There was a pause from the radio.
Max, the guard, and the teacher walked up the ramp to the walkway. “I don’t see him,” the guard said. The bridge was a quarter-mile long. Max spied a few figures walking at the other end. Not a single bike in sight.
“I need to get back to the Bio Lab,” said the teacher. She hurried back down the ramp.
The radio squawked again. “No bikes here. Over.”
“You couldn’t miss it,” said the skinny guard.
“I’m not blind,” said the radio. “Walk over here yourself, bud.”
The security guard squinted at Max. “You sure you saw that bike go in here?”
“Yeah. It raced inside and headed over the river.”
“Maybe not,” said the guard. “Maybe, after you turned around, it doubled back and came out this side.”
There wasn’t enough time, thought Max. He noticed a teenage girl reading on a cement bench near the entrance to the walkway. A big canvas backpack was squeezed under the seat. “Ask her,” said Max.
The guard walked over, hands on hips, and questioned the girl. She replied that she had seen the strange-looking bike rush past her into the walkway. “But I didn’t see it come out,” she said. “I’m sure I would have remembered. It was such an odd contraption.”
“Think you could identify the rider?” asked the guard.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get a good look. It was so fast.”
The radio squawked. “Repeat: Where is the bike? Over.”
The guard sighed. “I’m walking over to your side,” he replied into the radio.
Max followed the guard inside the walkway. It was deserted except for two students, a boy and a girl. They were strolling over from the far west bank. The guard halted and questioned them.
“Yeah, we saw it,” said the boy, running a hand through his bright pink hair. A gold stud glittered on the left side of his nose. “It was way weird.”
“It didn’t look like a normal bike,” said the girl. She had short, inky-black hair and wore army pants. “The wheels were funny looking.”
“They were orange,” said the boy.
“Red,” corrected the girl. “And they didn’t have spokes.”
“Did you notice the rider?” asked the guard.
The boy and girl stared at each other. “It was just a regular guy,” said the boy.
“It was a girl,” said the girl.
“It was a guy,” said the boy. “And he was wearing combat boots.”
“She was wearing black athletic shoes.”
Max smiled to himself. They hadn’t gotten a good look at the rider either. Their attention had been glued to the bike itself, just as Max’s had been.
“Did you see anyone else?” asked the guard.
“Nope,” said the girl. “And you can’t miss anyone inside here.”
That was true, thought Max. The walkway was about twenty feet wide, the length of two police cars. Perfect for scooter races. Windows ran along both sides. A high ceiling held fluorescent lights for walking at night. Max saw square white panels next to some of the lights. The panels were entrances to the walkway’s roof. Were they big enough for a bike to squeeze through? he wondered. The roof looked strong enough to support a bike and rider.
Max added to his list:
# 3. Scooters are light enough for roofs. Motorcycles are not.
“When the bike passed you, didn’t you turn around and watch it?” asked the guard. “Weren’t you curious?”
“Maybe for a sec,” said the boy. “Then we kept walking.”
“I’ve got a bus to catch on the east side of the river,” said the girl.
Max glanced over at the west end of the walkway. Over a hundred feet away, the other security guards were gathered outside the walkway doors. Somewhere in that hundred feet of empty space, between the guards and where Max now stood, a bike and rider had vanished.
“See or hear anything unusual?” asked the guard.
The boy and girl both shook their heads. The boy shrugged off the backpack he was carrying and pulled out a plastic container of water. He squirted some in his mouth. “I heard something like squealing tires below us, but that was all.”
Max could feel the vibration of the traffic rumbling beneath his scooter’s wheels.
“Squealing tires, huh?” asked the guard.
“Car tires or truck tires?”
“How can you tell the difference?” asked the boy.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said the inky-haired girl.
Max glanced out one of the walkway’s windows. The surface of the Mixaloopi River was seventy feet below them. Was it possible for a person on the bridge to hear a splash in the river?
“Can I go now, please?” pleaded the girl. “I don’t want to miss my bus.”
The guard slowly pulled a notepad out of his shirt pocket and recorded the students’ names. He wrote Max’s name, too.
“You live around here, kid?” asked the guard.
“My dad is Robert Martin and he teaches in the Space Science Center,” said Max. His dad! He had forgotten all about him. The clock on his scooter read 2:25.
Max jumped onto the solid aluminum deck of his scooter and pushed against the concrete floor of the walkway with a sneakered toe. Soon he was zinging away in a silver flash toward the eastern end of the bridge. The skinny guard and the two students were specks in his rearview mirror. Max gripped the handlebars and prayed that his dad was still waiting for him in the parking lot out front of the Center.