"Huh?" I asked, rubbing sleep out of my eyes and stretching.
"Get dressed in some appropriate traveling clothes and throw something in your container on the back of your bike. Some clothes, toothbrush, pictures…whatever…" she paused and looked at me. "Just grab some stuff."
I stood up and crossed my arms. "We're not coming back?" I questioned, raising an eyebrow.
Mom shook her head. "No, probably not. At least not for awhile." I snorted angrily to myself as she left to continue her own packing.
I pulled on a pair of black windbreaker pants, a red T-shirt, sporting the name of my favorite band that my friend and I had seen together, and my stretched out tennis shoes. Then, I tossed on my navy jacket and pulled out the container that hooked onto the back of my bike from under my bed.
Truthfully, I really didn't know what I was throwing in that container. Whatever was in reach went into the case. In the end, I had to sit on top of it to close it. After much cursing, the lid clicked shut. I hauled it out to the kitchen area where my mom was sipping at a mug of coffee. I hoped it was decaf. Mom was jumpy enough even without the caffeine. With it? Ouch.
She saw me approaching, lugging the suitcase like thing, and set her mug down on the cheap table. "Here, I'll take that," she offered.
"Nah, I can just throw it on the back of my own bike."
She shrugged. "Fine, suit yourself."
I slung the container over my shoulder and proceeded to put in on my bike. As I was latching it down, Mom came out to the public garage with her own suitcase thing.
Her bike was a lot older than mine, and I truthfully didn't see why she kept it. The only reason I could think of was that the bike could be sold as an antique for lots of money. But the bike was so beat up, I couldn't even see that as an effective reason.
My bike was sweet. Only a couple years old and one of the best a person could buy these day. Whereas Mom called her bike only the extension of her soul, I had to wonder if my bike was my soul.
We wheeled our bikes out of the garage together, unspeaking in the morning mist. It was going to be a beautiful day; I could easily see that. After putting our helmets on because Mom said it was going to be a long trip, she rechecked her luggage.
"What about Dad?" I asked her.
"He knows where we're going, I told him before he left last month."
"So he can find us, then?"
"Yes," she replied, but unlike I had expected, she didn't offer our destination.
"Alright," I said, placing one hand on my hip and balancing the bike with the other. "Can you puh-leeze tell me where the heck we are going? I really don't like riding around for miles to nowhere."
This time, my mom turned to look at me, resting one of her hands on the handle. "Seattle, Alanza. Seattle." And before I could ask any more pestering questions, she hopped on her bike, and began to zoom off, forcing me to follow her.
