It was a nice day but I was bored, bored, bored. Nothing to do at home and no near neighbours that I could drop in and visit. In a fit of desperation I dug out my bike and peddled to the local town. Okay, it was five miles, but I was fit and healthy and could do that easily.
I got to town and did some browsing in the mall. I made note of a couple of things I wanted, meaning to drop hints to my parents as to what would be good presents come Christmas. My eighteenth was a month behind me so it was a bit late to hint for that. I scrounged a meal while at the mall but eventually decided it was time to go home.
There's a bike rack outside the main entrance to the mall and that's where I'd left my bike. To ensure that it would be there when I returned I'd locked it to the rack. If anyone wanted to pinch it they'd have needed a strong pair of bold-cutters, and my old bike just wasn't worth the trouble. From what I'd seen neither were the other two bikes on the rack.
When I left the mall I found that exciting things were going on. The cops were there, bundling old Jonesy into the back of their car. He wasn't going quietly, giving his candid opinion of cops, road rules, stupid places to put bike racks, and who was paying for the damages to his car. Seeing that he appeared to be a little inebriated (read that as a lot drunk) I doubted that his insurance company would pay for his damages.
Then I looked at the bike rack and felt like doing some heart-felt swearing of my own. I no longer owned a bike. I owned a tangled bit of metal that was part of a three-bike free-form sculpture.
"He brushed against the bikes when he went past them," a voice told me. "This got him mad and he came back for another run, collecting all of them. Unfortunately a frame snapped and a part of it ripped out a tyre while another part seems to have punctured his sump."
Look around I saw the idiot's car over by the side of the road, being hauled up onto a tow-truck.
"How did he manage to brush against the bikes in the first place?" I wailed.
"He turned, apparently mistaking the walkway to the mall entrance with the road. By the time he realised his error he was scraping against the bikes. He was so annoyed with silly people leaving bike on the road that he backed off and hit them again. Then he couldn't drive off with his flat tyre."
I turned and glared at my informant, finding myself facing Eric and Zane Robson, two brothers a year or two older than me. I'm not sure which was the older as they look enough alike to be twins.
The boys both seemed to be amused at my annoyance.
"No need to get in a stew over it," said Zane with a grin. "The cops are going to charge him with everything they can and the judge will be ready to lower the boom. His license was already suspended for a DUI and he'll do time for this."
"Oh, how nice. Meanwhile I'm still out of a bike and it's a long walk home."
"One of those bikes is yours?" asked Eric with a laugh.
"Was," I stated. "Was mine. Now it's part of a performance piece of modern art. I won't even be able to untangle it without a hacksaw."
"True. Do you have a hacksaw?"
"No," I said with a sigh, "and I've no intention of getting one. I'll invest twenty bucks and find another old bike. It'll probably be better than that old heap anyway."
"It'll definitely be better than the condition of your current bike," said a smirking Zane. "What are you going to do with the ruins?"
"If anyone ever extracts it and delivers it to me then I'll take it and throw it through old Jonesy's window," I said. "Apart from that I guess I'll just leave it there as scrap."
"So, how do you intend to get home? I'm assuming you rode your bike here."
I gave Eric an annoyed look. I'd have to walk, what did he expect me to do? Fly?
"I'll walk," I said in dulcet tones. "I'm quite capable of walking home from here."
"No need for that, Lisa," said Eric. "Zane and I would be delighted to offer you a lift home."
"Right," said Zane. "It would be no trouble at all."
They both gave me friendly smiles and just like that I could sense I was in trouble.
Zane and Eric had a bit of a reputation amongst the girls. Not exactly a bad reputation but a reputation for all that. Sally said that they'd forced her to sleep with them but everyone took that with a grain of salt. A very large grain. According to Sally half the upper class, most of the male teachers, and the principal, had forced her to sleep with them. Sally was apparently very easy to force. Still, it was something to be aware of.
If I accepted a lift home would they try to seduce me on the way home, perhaps rather forcefully? If I said no, and walked, would I find them waiting for me further down the road with the same seduction scenario in mind? I didn't have money for a taxi or Uber. I could always wait until my parents were due home and then call them to come and collect me but that would mean hanging around for hours.
I looked at them, considering. Like I said, a reputation, but not a bad one. They probably wouldn't flat out rape me but I was sure they'd chance their arms for a nice seduction routine. What would it be like to have them try to seduce me? They were clean, unlike some I could name, and both of them were fit. Really, all I had to do was say no and mean it.
"Okay, but no trying anything funny," I warned them.
"Of course not," Eric assured me.
"Scout's honour," said Zane, holding up his hand in a scout's salute.
That last would have been a lot more reassuring if they'd ever been scouts but as far as I knew they hadn't.
I stayed with Eric while Zane went and collected the car. I was going to sit in the front. I was pretty sure that they would try and sit me in the back with one of them and then I'd be fighting him off right from the word go. Not so if I was in the front.
The car pulled up and Eric very thoughtfully opened the back door for me. I smiled at him and opened the front passenger's door, only to find myself looking at an empty space.
"Ah, where's the passenger's seat?" I asked.
"Down at the auto upholstering place," said Eric. "Clumsy there managed to spill some acid on it. Totally destroyed the vinyl and padding. We pick it up in a couple of days."
I sighed and got in the back, Eric sliding in after me.
I was pleasantly surprised that all the boys did was talk as we drove home. No trying to touch and no real innuendo of any sort. Just a couple of casual friends running a friend home. That lasted for four miles out of the five that it took to reach my place.
Just a mile short of my place there was a track that led off into the hills. It wasn't much of a track, suitable only for 4WD vehicles, and not even them if you valued your car. It was used during hunting season and by forest rangers and fire services. It was the rangers' responsibility to keep the track passable but their idea of passable didn't seem to match anyone else's. Still, it was there and theoretically passable.