17

This is where we meet Sheila

With Mike writing his report in one of the upstairs rooms and Phyllis out of earshot in the kitchen, we took the opportunity to call home from her landline. We all told the same lies—that we were staying over another night at our friend’s and that our phones weren’t working properly.

When Ben rang his house, Becky answered the phone. Ben said she didn’t seem bothered he would be away longer, and that she sounded pleased more than anything. She had told him not to be a nuisance and then had hung up on him. Ben’s face looked a little darker after the call.

One of Charlie’s three sisters answered when he called home. There was a lot of noise in the background. After a lot of shouting, his mom eventually came to the phone, made him promise to make healthy choices and mind his manners, and told him that they would discuss what happened to his phone when he got back.

Dad answered the phone after the first ring. “Fred, I’ve just been trying to call. Everything okay?” I wasn’t sure, but he sounded sad, which made it really hard to lie to him.

“Yeah, sorry, I broke my phone. You okay?”

“Fine—missing you though, bud.”

I felt bad when he said that. “I miss you too . . .” I swallowed and then rushed the next bit: “But can I stay another night?”

There was a pause. “Course you can, son. If that’s what you want.”

“It’s just that Ben and Charlie will be going away on their vacations soon.” It wasn’t a lie as such.

“I understand. Don’t you worry about your old dad. Mr. Burnley’s been around, keeping an eye on me.”

“We’ll have loads of time together later during break.”

“Course we will, Fred. You go have fun with your friends.”

“Thanks, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too, Fred.”

“Look after yourself. Try and have a healthy breakfast.”

I heard the pssst sound of a can being opened. “Proud of you, Fred.”

I felt like the worst person in the world.

Ben must have figured there was something wrong because he asked if I was okay as soon as I’d hung up.

“I’m fine,” I said. “You okay?”

Ben nodded, but the way he said, “Yeah, you know how it is,” made me think he wasn’t fine. At all.

It was after noon by the time we finally set off from Phyllis’s house on our new-old bikes. Having earlier pelted Albert and Mike with potato and pear, she didn’t have any ingredients left to make us some more of her turnovers. Instead, she insisted on giving us the leftover cucumber-and-jam sandwiches for the journey. I thought they’d be awful, but they were actually alright.

PC Mike shouted his goodbyes from upstairs. He sounded very excited when we left. As we pulled away, we heard him shout something that sounded like, “Seven hundred likes already, it’s a record. It’s a miracle, Aunty Phyllis!”

It wasn’t a miracle—it was the power of the internet combined with a much exaggerated superhero story, but I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time. We found out later though.

As we got down to pedaling, I made sure the other two knew the plan. “We need to cycle as far as we can before it gets dark and then we can find a hotel or one of those youth hostel places for the night.”

Ben said, “As long as something isn’t a boat.”

I checked the money in my underpants. “We’ve got around forty quid. I figure we can cover a hundred miles easy in one and a half days.”

Obviously, I figured wrong, but at the time I had absolute faith in our cycling ability. I think there’s something about wearing a superhero costume that gives you an unwavering sense of self-confidence.

By the time we were halfway up the first hill, Ben realized his mistake in giving me the lilac bike. He was having to work twice as hard to shift Charlie’s body weight.

He kept shouting, “Are you sure you’re pedaling back there?”

To which Charlie would say, “Busting a gut, mate,” even though I could see he was relaxing while Ben did all the legwork.

I was going to tell Ben but then he said, “Don’t know why you’re smiling, Supergirl,” so I kept my mouth shut and sped off to the top of the hill.

And that’s where I saw a truly surprising sight. There was a sheep lying on its back in the middle of the road, its four legs pointing skyward.

By the time Charlie and Ben made it to the top of the hill, I’d propped my bike against a bush and was standing over the sheep, wondering what to do. Panting, Ben brought the tandem bike to a stop beside me.

Charlie had this look of utter horror on his face. “Fred! What did you do to that sheep?”

“I didn’t do anything to it. I just found it here.”

Ben climbed off his bike and bent down to get a closer look. “Is it alive?”

The sheep wiggled its legs a little, like it was using up the last of its strength.

“Yes, it is! But it doesn’t look particularly spritely.”

“Where do you think it came from?” Charlie looked up, as though he thought it had fallen from the heavens.

“Well, not from up there! We have to turn it over. I read in a fact book that sheep can’t right themselves once they’re on their backs.”

Charlie frowned. “You read some really weird stuff, Fred.”

Ben crouched down on the ground. “Come on then. It’s time to be heroic! Spidey, Supergirl, grab a handful of sheep and heave.”

Considering that sheep look a bit like fluffy white clouds, I was not prepared for how heavy the thing was. I didn’t think we were going to manage it, but like all good superheroes, we didn’t give up and eventually the sheep was back on all fours.

“Go on, Sheila,” Charlie said. “Off you go, go find your family.”

“Sheila?” Ben said.

“She looks like a Sheila, don’t you think?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

Sheila dipped her head in what I like to think was her saying, Thank you, brave superheroes, and then disappeared off into the fields through a hole in the fence. We got back on our bikes, feeling more than a little proud of our efforts.

It felt like we had been cycling forever by the time we reached the next village. My butt was sore, I had these weird yellow bumps forming on my hands, my legs were tired, and my costume was damp with sweat. Exhausted, we threw our bikes down on the green outside the village shop. By my reckoning we’d probably covered at least thirty miles. We bought three cans of orange soda and three candy bars for a snack, and I set about asking the shop owner as to our exact whereabouts.

The shopkeeper was a whiskery man with a face like a turnip. As I slid a fiver across the counter I said, “Excuse me, sir, do you have the time?”

He didn’t look up from the little TV set he was watching. “It’s almost two o’clock.”

That didn’t make sense. We couldn’t have been cycling for less than two hours.

“How far are we from Gileston?”

“Just over five miles as the bird flies.”

“Is that all?”

He handed me our change. “Sorry, love, can’t make it any longer.”

I turned to Ben and Charlie. “That means we’re traveling at about three miles an hour. We could have walked faster.”

“It was very hilly,” Charlie said.

“And windy,” Ben said.

“And there was Sheila,” Charlie added.

“Do you know how long it’s going to take us to cycle a hundred miles?”

“Three hundred hours!” Charlie leaned against the counter. “I can’t sit on that saddle for three hundred hours.”

“Just over thirty-three hours, Charlie, you doofus,” Ben said a bit uncharitably. “But it’s still a long time.”

Charlie’s never been the best at math, but he is really good at languages. He even made up his own one in fourth year. Spent a whole term talking to us in Charlish.

The shop bell clanged behind us as I closed the door. “We’re never going to cycle another forty-five miles today and fifty tomorrow. What was I thinking?”

“Cheer up. Superheroes don’t mope.” Ben opened his soda next to my face and it sprayed in my eyes. “We just need to adjust the plan, that’s all. Come up with a super-plan.”