The Clean up Caper

It’s Saturday morning, and my team and I are meeting with our newest client outside his home, the Northern Lights Apartments. Ours is an all too typical neighborhood. Cars, twice as old as us, cram narrow streets, forcing vehicles to slalom down the roads. We’ve learned to keep one eye out for moving cars and the other eye on one another. It’s late May, a week after the city-wide cleanup. I’m BeeDee Greenwood, and these are my stories from Mac Muldoon Elementary, a school with 250 students, where second-hand sports gear is first-time playground equipment.  

Two years ago, Kenny Ferko’s pet ferret got loose. I caught him with a dead mouse and a box trap. Since then, kids have called looking for help. Just so you know, I’m three and a half feet tall, a girl, and use my wheelchair like other kids use their bikes. I have what the doctors call primordial dwarfism. God’s choice, but I made peace with the dude. I was five before I could pronounce it. People, who don’t know me, call me Shorty. I hate it; you’d think those little dirtbags could come up with something more creative. With three strikes against me, most people underestimate me. That’s their first mistake.

My friends and I like to handle missing pets and the occasional lost homework assignment. Our latest case, the theft or loss of a bicycle, is our biggest yet. And it’s not just any bicycle. It’s probably the most famous bike we know.

Billy Carter is this year’s winner of a bright red Huffy bike donated to the spring cleanup program by City Mart. Amazingly, he collected just one bag of trash. Our fifth-grade teacher Ms. Jackson took us to the green space across the street from the school, where we literally cleaned up, and Billy won a bike. The rules were simple; collect a bag of trash, turn it in at school, and get a ticket for a chance on the bike. Esther Napaskiak had been scouring the neighborhood all week like one of those big street sweepers. She had fourteen chances on the bike and seemed like a sure thing.

Billy, our Pillsbury Doughboy-looking client, texted this morning and begged me to come over. Beneath a mop of dishwater blond hair, Billy’s face is streaked with tears and a snotty nose. Gross, I know. Who comes up with these names for hair colors? He tells us about locking up his bike. “I pushed it inside and locked the door. When I came down this morning, the door was open, and my bike was gone.”

A cheap combination lock hangs loosely from the door’s hasp. “What’s the combo?” I ask.

“36-26-6. You don’t think somebody figured it out?” He sniffles, eyes wide.

I take another look at the lock. The number six is still under the indicator mark. “Did you spin the knob?”

“I, I, I think so,” he sobs. “Really, I can’t remember. Who remembers stuff like that? I’ve got bigger problems. My mom gets pissed off when I forget to shower, so I don’t know.”

I take one more look around the apartment complex before I come up with a plan. Someone knows something important. They just don’t realize it. The storage lockers sit between two twelve-unit buildings. The end units have kitchen and dining room windows that look out over the storage lockers.

“Harriet, start knocking on doors. Check the end apartments. See if they saw anyone besides Billy around the closets.”

Harriet’s my muscle and best friend. She’s as tall as I am short. Runs faster than anyone else at school and keeps her braids tight to her head. She thinks it helps with wind resistance. If I need a push or a lift, she’s the first one there. It’s not like she thinks I’m helpless. She just knows the difference between inclines and stairs, and I trust her with both.

She’s off and running before Marcus begins searching the area. He’s in the third grade. Before anyone assumes anything, know this— Marcus is the smartest kid in our school. He’s next-level smart. I mean, he’s Saint Stephen Hawking smart. I watched him win a Lego building competition last year with five minutes to spare. He was the only one to build the model in time and didn’t even use the directions. Marcus doesn’t need me to tell him anything. He’s on the ground separating bicycle tire tracks from footprints. Quickly, he crosses Billy’s shoes off his suspect list. The carved BC in the bottom of Billy’s Crocs is an easy giveaway.

“Hey BeeDee, someone wearing Wheelies pushed a bike through here. See how the marks stop and the shoe slides through, Billy’s BC.”

Our first clue. My phone is out in a flash while Marcus uses his to snap pics. “Hey, Billy,” I ask. “Do you know anyone in the complex that wears Wheelies?”

Billy draws his sleeve under his nose and nods. “Toby the Toad and Devlin Underwood. Toby picks on everyone just because he’s bigger and dumber, but Devlin’s cool.”

I nod and text Harriet. H-. See if anyone saw Toby the Toad or Devlin.

Marcus studies the tracks and follows them across the parking lot. I follow behind, keeping my wheels out of the dust and an eye on Billy. He wouldn’t be our first client who was the reason a pet got loose or their homework wasn’t finished.

“It must have been this morning,” Marcus says. “The tracks cut through parking lot tire marks, meaning the parents working the swing or night shift haven’t driven through the lot, and the MFers are still in bed.” 

“Mfers?” Billy’s eyes go wide as he scans for adult supervision.

“Parents working a Monday through Friday day job. It’s too early for them to be up on Saturday.” I say without judgment.

Marcus, our human bloodhound, drops to his hands and knees, sniffs, and follows a trail only his massive brain could find. We’re halfway to Muldoon Road when H texts back. OL Perkins says a big kid was fiddlin’ with the doors this morning. What do you think fiddlin’ means?

H- Don’t use OL on official communications. Some adults don’t like to be called old.

10-4 BeeDee. Make that, Mrs. Perkins.

I study H-’s text. I know what fiddlin’ means, just like I know split means bounce. Fiddlin’ is not a good thing. “Sounds like Toby is our number one suspect,” I tell Billy and Marcus.

“Maybe he’s our first suspect,” Marcus says. “The bike made a hard right turn, and the wheelies stopped. Now three big kids are standing around the bike, and Wheelies is spinning-off minus the bike.”

“What does that mean?” Billy asks, too young for the worry lines filling his face.

“It means our suspect had to give up the bike or, more likely, sold it,” I say, pushing myself into the middle of the space Marcus found.

I spin around on my wheels. This is a place where a deal for stolen property would go down. Lots of forward-facing duplexes and too much traffic. Yep, nice and public. No place to hide a partner. “Hey Marcus, can you see which way our new lead went?”

Marcus is back on his hands and knees when H catches up. She skids to a stop in her Champion sneaks, her everyday shoes. Harriet’s aunt found a practically new pair of Nike track shoes at Value Village. Now every neighborhood kid watches the Village for ‘Jordans’ or anything else that’s game.

In an instant, Marcus is up, spinning around with his hand flying wildly, and suddenly stops. He points up the street. Marcus puts two and two together and finds the missing one that, makes five. Like the tinkling of the ice cream man, he zeros in on an answer.

Meanwhile, Harriet is grinning like a spooky clown. “I know what happened.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

H- giggles. “I found Toby a few blocks back. I decided to, uh, what’s the word you use, oh yeah, interrogate him.”

My heart sinks. Toby could be a step ahead of us. “You didn’t tell him what’s going on?”

“Relax, BeeDee. He called me ‘beanpole,’ told me to get lost, or he’d give me a ‘tittie twister.’”

“What happened?” I croak, fearing for my friend and Toby.

Harriet puts her hands on her hips. “I kicked him in the Grape-nuts,” she says, swinging her leg like scoring a goal. “I told him to be polite and that we only call him the Toad because he acts so ugly, not because his face is covered in puss bumps. He was rolling on the ground in a ball and squeaked that he sold the bike to some middle schoolers.” H- holds out two wrinkled five-dollar bills. “He gave me the ten dollars after I lined up for another kick.”

I take the money and hand it to Billy. It might be all he gets. I pull my sleeve across my forehead. “Jesus, H-, one of these days, you’re gonna meet someone you can’t outrun.”

My crew is moving like a dog with too many squeaky toys. Marcus is about to bolt. Harriet looks like she just won the hundred-meter dash, and I think Billy regrets the text he sent me or… It’s just a flash, like a camera, but I see it. Billy believes we can help him. He believes in us— in me.

“Buying a famous bike is just dumb,” I say. “Where would you ride it? That’d be like buying the skirt-wearing, bagpipe-playing metal mascot from the school’s roof and expecting no one to recognize moss-colored Mr. Mac Muldoon standing in your front yard.”

“Come on,” Marcus says, running toward City Mart.

H- pushes me, keeping up with Marcus as our client lags behind. Before I can stop him, Marcus is banging on the back door. Mrs. Kwon, an old Asian woman, at least forty, comes out. “What you kid want? I already say no free candy. And we don’t do buybacks.”

“Did someone try to sell you a bicycle this morning,” I ask, getting back in the investigation’s lead.

Mrs. Kwon shoos us away like flies. “Okay. You stupid. Why sell us bike we give school?”

“It wasn’t us, Mrs. Kwon,” I say, avoiding her flailing hands. “We’re trying to figure out who stole Billy’s bike. He’s the boy in the picture in your front window.”

Billy tries to smile like he did the day Mr. Kwon took his picture. Instead, he looks like he stole a package of Sour Patch Kids.

“I know you.” Mrs. Kwon says, staring at Billy Carter. “You won bicycle. Tell your brother no money for bike,” Mrs. Kwon steps back inside the store.

“But I don’t have a brother,” Billy says. “I gotta younger sister, but she wouldn’t take my bike.”

“I don’t know. You curb birdies look same.” Mrs. Kwon says and pulls City Mart’s back door closed.

In the old days, people called poor kids like us street urchins or mall rats. I think Mrs. Kwon was calling us guttersnipes, but we prefer Road Rogues. Marcus nicknamed us R- Squared. We’ve been tossing it around as a name for a detective agency. Unfortunately, we aren’t detecting very much today. I feel like we’re back at square one when Billy finally shows some backbone and bangs on the door again. Mrs. Kwon answers with a broom in her hand.

“You trespassing. I call police.”

“Wait,” Billy says, his hands raised against a broom swat. “Which way did my brother go?”

Mrs. Kwon waves toward the crisscross overpass. “That way. Now go before I forget where’s my patient and call police.”

Harriet jumps behind my chair and darts toward the overpass, her legs pumping like steam engine cranks. Billy is running after us but quickly falls behind. Soon he and Marcus are sucking wind as they walk in our direction, leaning on their sides.

Harriet is flying us up the overpass. “Stop,” I yell and point. “There in the median.” H-traces my arm and finger and spies it. A bright red, Huffy bike, a little dusty with twisted handlebars, lies in the middle of the median.

Before I can stop her, H- dashes into traffic and grabs the bicycle. Just as we are about to celebrate, I get a sickening feeling. Once again, something isn’t right. At once, I am rolling backward down the overpass. I reach for my hand wheels to stop myself. But the momentum is too much. The wheels spin out of my hands, practically breaking my fingers.

Next to me, the traffic seems slower until I realize I’m going faster. If I don’t get my hands on my wheels, only Saint Stephen Hawking will know where I’ll end up. I reach down, ready to engage my wheel locks, when Marcus, hands like a megaphone, screams, “No. Angular Momentum.” Honestly, I have no idea what he means. But I know enough to follow the smart kid’s directions.

Abruptly, my head snaps back and slams into Billy Carter’s pudgy middle. He’s put himself directly behind my chair and takes the full brunt of the impact. He lets out an “oaf.” Like a whoopee cushion, crumples behind my chair, and wails at the top of his lungs. I discover what people mean when they see stars just before darkness closes over me like a stage curtain.

***

Monday morning, I roll into school. The tragic news of my near-death experience has raced over the internet and around the classroom faster than the speed of light. On the whiteboard in the corner, in small letters, someone has written WTG-R²DA. I smile to myself. The cryptic message isn’t wrong.

Billy Carter hobbles into class five minutes later, and the place erupts in cheers, applause, whistles, and paper airplanes. He’s using crutches, and his right foot is wrapped in multi-colored bandages. Gamely he leans on his crutches, smiles, and lifts his T-shirt revealing his jelly-belly and the bruise my head left on his ribcage. Ms. Jackson steps from the classroom as Billy accepts his well-earned accolades and a subtle nod from me. Just as quickly, she reappears, pushing a cleaned-up bright red Huffy bike. From the handlebars, a bicycle helmet dangles, and a bike lock donated by Ms. Jackson’s boyfriend, who works at Eastside Bicycles. The celebratory roar only grows louder.

H- slides up behind me, bends over, and whispers in my ear. “Sorry, BeeDee. We’re still friends, right? I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Jesus, H-, relax. We’re BFFs,” I whisper back.

H- steps forward, glances over her shoulder at me, and puts her butt in my face as she bends to hug Billy. I make a mental note to place a checkmark in the success column of R-Squared’s cases. We may not have apprehended the guilty parties. Still, we recovered a priceless bicycle and found a brave new team member and friend. I’ll take that as a win every day.