Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

some kitchen chairs together later that night and stood on the one in the centre, handing himself foil-wrapped chocolate coins. I booed and made farting noises. Ignoring me, he waved to imaginary fans, sang himself “O Canada,” then ate his gold medal.
    Jimmy got his first bike three months after me. He turned to me and stuck out his tongue. “You can’t even ride yours.”
    “Can so,” I said.
    “Can’t. Bet you I can ride mine tomorrow.”
    “Enough,” Dad said. They disappeared to the back of the house for Dad to adjust Jimmy’s banana seat and oil the chain.
    I was so pissed off that I decided to learn how to ride my bike right then and there. I dragged it out of the garage and pushed it out of sight of our house.
    When I sat on it and tried to pedal, I tilted over. I couldn’t get my balance. The afternoon sped by as I pictured Jimmy circling me on his bike, snickering. I finally got my balance, but I couldn’t keep it when I started pedaling. It dawned on me that if I was on a hill, I could balance and roll at the same time. I was going to try it on a small hill first, but then decided that a big hill would be better.
    I went to the top of Council Hill, which slants as steep as a roller-coaster ride. I balanced, then pushed myself over. The bike went so fast that the handlebars started to shake. I put on the brakes, hard, and my bike flipped over. I crashed near the big tree that marks the halfway point of the hill. My bike lay with both tires spinning crazily. I got up and felt blood leak down my knee where the skin was scraped open.
    Damned if Jimmy was going to lord it over me for the rest of eternity. It was embarrassing enough that he could swim, dive and snorkel while I was still dog-paddling in the shallow end. I picked up my bike and got back on it. I pushed off and flew down the hill. At the bottom of Council Hill there is a four-way stop. The trees blocked my view, so I never saw the truck coming until it honked.
    I zipped through the stop, heart thudding as the truck swooshed by me. I tried to pedal, but the bike was going so fast that the chain just ran loose. My hair whipped behind me and my skin tingled. As the bike slowed, I tried to pedal again. The chain caught and I was biking.
    The truckdriver turned out to be Uncle Geordie, who drove around until he found me, made me get off my bike, threw it in his truck and drove me home. Dad confiscated my bike and we went to Emergency, even though I kept telling everybody I was fine.
    Jimmy got training wheels and didn’t learn to bike without them for another four months, but I wasn’t allowed to ride my bike for two weeks. I gloated as much as I could, but Jimmy spoiled it by pointing out that half of my face looked like a pizza. The scars are still there, but you can’t see them until I get tanned, and then they stand out like freckles.
    My wounds were still oozing and raw three days later when Mom said I wasn’t grounded any more, and I decided to go spend the day at my cousin Tab’s. Her house was only a few years old, but it already looked run-down. The walls had punched-out holes and the carpet was grey and cigarette-burnt. Her room was in an unfinished basement and never seemed to get warm. I liked going over to Tab’s house because her mother didn’t act like I was going to break something or watch me nervously like Aunt Kate when Erica had the gang over.
    No one ever came down to the basement, so we had complete privacy. As a change from playing cards, which I usually lost, I brought Tab
True Stories
and weread “In Love with a Felon,” about a woman who eventually married the burglar that had kidnapped her.
    “Holy, what a dummy,” Tab said. “Why didn’t she just turn him in?”
    “She was in love,” I said. “Didn’t you read that part?”
    “She was a horny slut,” Tab said.
    I sucked in a breath, shocked, thrilled. Mom would never let me get away with swearing the way Tab’s did. But Gertrude, Tab’s mother,