To an outside observer, the Velazquest family was solidly middle class. They had a big house with a trampoline and a spacious backyard, two fairly new cars, and high speed internet access that got you from zero to Discord in 0.1 seconds (nope, still nothing good in my Ace Savvy OC server, dang it).
But looks, as they say, can be deceiving. In actuality, Lincoln and Johnny's family was kind of poor. Dad worked at a meat packing plant stacking hamburger patties into boxes, Mom was a homemaker who occasionally sold crafts online, and Lincoln and Johnny were kids, so they didn't make any money on their own. Dad brought home enough to put food on the table, clothes on their backs, and pay the bills, but outside of that, finances were a little tight. Add in Dad's wrestling obsession and you have a recipe for broke-as-a-joke stew.
Did you know this man once saved up 20,000 dollars over five years to buy one of Ric Flair's frilly sequin robes? And he didn't even put it on display or anything, he literally had it chilling in his closet and wore it around the house. He even ate in it, a fact to which the patchwork of food stains across the front bore damning testament.
Anyway, he was always spending money on wrestling junk so Lincoln had Johnny had to make their own coin. At first, they hustled and scammed other kids at the playground and earned a reputation as a couple snake oil salesmen. When people stopped buying what they were selling, they tried to pick pockets, but their first time they got caught and roughed up by a gang of greasers who looked like The Bubble Poppin' Boys only scarier. Hey, it was Johnny's idea to try and lift a wallet from a pair of skin tight Levi's attached to a 250 pound James Dean wannabe. Lincoln told him he'd crash and burn and he did...boy, did he ever
Anyway, Lincoln and Johnny weren't cut out for robbing people, so they had to get creative. They tried having a garage sale but there wasn't much to sell except Dad's old WWF action figures from the eighties. They'd been sitting in a box in the attic for years and Dad occasionally asked Mom where they were, but didn't seem too concerned with them. Maybe they could hock them and get a little bit of cash.
Nope.
Dad pulled into the driveway, saw, and ran over with a big NOOOOOOO that responded through the neighborhood like thunder. His pants started to fall, he pulled them up, fell, got back to his feet, and fell again. Lincoln and Johnny just looked at each other. Is this really happening? Johnny's eyes asked.
He's worse than the 3 Stooges, Lincoln's replied.
"MY THINGS!" Dad wailed. He gathered them all up like a mother hen pulling her chicks to her bosom and shot them a dirty look. "You monsters," he said in a low, cracking voice, "monsters."
Back into the box they went.
Sigh.
Dude, you don't even play with them, Johnny said.
After that he did. Lincoln and Johnny would come into the living room and find him sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and action figures strewn around. He smashed them together and made little explody noises with his mouth every time one took a bump.
Okay then.
Finally, after a lot of bickering, brainstorming, and slap fighting, Lincoln and Johnny decided to open a bike repair shop in their garage. They did paintjobs, sanding, rims, you name it, and they kept costs low by stealing parts from the junkyard. Steve, the guy who ran the place, didn't chase them out because he stopped caring around 2009. They usually passed his Airstream trailer on the way out, and if he happened to be sitting at the broken down plastic patio table out front, he waved.
They waved back.
Working on bikes was the perfect moneymaker: Lincoln and Johnny both enjoyed it and they always had a steady stream of customers in their friends and classmates. Poppa Wheelie, a big gearhead (and I mean big as in overweight) came in once a month like clockwork to have his seat re enforced. Sella had them attach a white wicker basket and pink tassles to hers, then came back to have the frame painted pink. She asked them to draw little white flowers on it. They haggled a bit and agreed to 25 cents per flower.
They got a little carried away and added a bunch.
Like a bunch a bunch.
Anyway, their best customers were, surprisingly, the Loud girls. They lived right across the street and bringing a damaged rig in was as easy as looking both ways and walking. Lincoln wasn't surprised that they needed a lot of repair jobs - they were rough, tumble, and always breaking stuff - but he was shocked they had the money to afford them. Their family was even poorer than Lincoln and Johnny's; there were twelve people in that house, it'd be strange if they weren't poor. Somehow, though, each and every one of them had ready cash on hand. Sometimes, they didn't even need a repair, they just wanted an upgrade.
Like, seriously, where are getting all this green?
I guess that's what it's like to have a Dad who doesn't blow his paycheck on toys, Lincoln said to Johnny once.
Johnny pursed his lips. Dude...Mr. Loud makes them eat Vienna sausage pieces in Van Camp Pork 'n' Beans. They're obviously making it on their own.
True. If the Loud parents were reaping in mad bank, they wouldn't eat garbage. Luan had her comedy business (serving birthdays, office parties, and bar mitzvahs, read her ad in the Royal Woods Moderate). Lori...uh...didn't she work at the gas station? Leni sold stuff over the internet like Mom, Lana had a handyman business and, rumor had it, sold small animals she found at the park.
In other words, some of the girls had a steady source of income, but others didn't. Who knew, maybe they had a rich grandfather who died and left them each a fortune, or maybe their dad was really loaded but pretended to be poor so that distant relatives he'd never met before didn't come at him with their hands stuck out.
Or maybe the girls were running some kind of cookie cartel and using the Bluebell Scouts as a front for selling their illegal wares.
LOL.
Wow, talk about a dumb idea.
Regardless, they all had cash on hand and they frequented Lincoln and Johnny's Garage the way Dad frequented WWE On Demand. Lincoln and Johnny split the profits 50/50, and Lincoln had at least two hundred bucks hidden in his sock drawer. Johnny, not as frugal, had, like, fifty; he kept making it rain at Flip's and the mall. He once shoved a twenty into Mrs. Johnson's pocket, winked, and said, for looking the other way while I skip the math test.
She reported him to Principal Bodner and he got three days ISS. LMAO. Get rekt, dummy.
Of the Loud girls, the one who came over most was Lynn. Lincoln and Johnny called her Wreck-It Ralph, because that's exactly what she did to her bike - wrecked it. Royal Woods is surrounded by steep, densely forested hills crisscrossed with bike paths. Lynn just loved charging down each one like the police were after her, which resulted in lots of accidents and lots of business for L&J's. Lincoln and Johnny had buffed, sanded, painted, and restored her bike so many times that they were practically one a first name basis with it: Johnny called it Calamity Jane. Lynn liked it and started calling it that too. She thought it was some kind of female empowerment thing, since Calamity Jane was a tough cowgirl or something, but no, Johnny called it that because it went through one calamity after another.
The most work they ever had to do on it was the time it went over a cliff. Not only did they have to hike into the hills with Lynn to retrieve it, they had to fix EVERYTHING. When they found it, it was just the frame. The seat was gone, the wheels were gone, the handlebars were gone, it was a mess. They made fifty off it, though, and Lincoln secretly hoped she wrecked it that bad again.
On a sunny Friday afternoon in mid-May, Lincoln and Johnny were putzing around the garage. The big roll top door was open to the street and warm puffs of spring wind swept through, bringing with it the smell of honeysuckle, freshly cut grass, and barbequing chicken. Lincoln sat on a dusty work bench and sipped from a can of Chocolate Cherry Cola while Johnny swept the cracked and oil stained cement floor. They hadn't had any business in days and were using the lull to tidy the place up; normally, there were parts, debris, and trash strewn all over, and by the end of the day they were too tired to deal with it.
Setting the broom aside, Johnny came over, leaned against the table, and crossed his arms. He surveyed the room, looking for something else to do. "I think that's it," he said sadly.
Lincoln reached behind his back, grabbed another can, and handed it to Johnny, who cracked it open and took a long, thirsty drink. "Let's wait a few more minutes," Lincoln said.
"Five," Johnny said. He belched and sat his soda aside. "Then I'm going inside to play video games."
That was fair. Lincoln didn't want to sit around an empty garage and twiddle his thumbs either, but he also didn't relish the idea of giving up so soon. He wanted an X-Station 3000 and those things went for 400 dollars. If they didn't start generating some income, he'd never get one. His mind flashed back to Poppa Wheelie and his daily taunts. Still don't have the new X-Station? Dude, you're a loser! That was bad, but even worse was Stella and Liam. They both had one and at lunch, they talked about all the cool games. Steal That Car: 2393 AD; Call of Honor: War in Space; Ace Savvy 3 (the open world sandbox one); RoadKill 2: CoronaVirus; and WAWR, the Wrestling Alliance World Rumble game where you and a friend assume the roles of color commentary and play-by-play announcer. Johnny said if they got it, they could call the matches all wrong and trigger Dad.
That's not how you do it, Lincoln could hear his father saying sourly. Lincoln couldn't wait to call a match where a steel chair came into play. Oh my God, he just hit him with a foam-padded, fake steel chair!
IT'S NOT FAKE! Dad would seethe. IT'S REAL! REAL! REAL!
Sure it is, Dad, sure it is.
They needed cold, hard greenbacks if they were going to make their dreams a reality, and that meant not dipping out before -
That thought broke off when Lynn Loud, clad in jogging shorts and a red T-shirt, pushed her bike into the garage. 'Hey, fellas," she said, "I need some work done on Ol' Calamity."
Some work was soldering a crack in the frame, replacing the back tire because the spokes were all messed up, and aligning the front end. For a while, Lynn hung out but left after an hour for butt ball practice. No, really, it's a sport where you bump a big beach ball across an indoor court with your butt. Lincoln thought it was dumb, but he thought most sports were dumb.
At seven, as the waning dusk drained from the day, Johnny rocked back on his knees and dragged the back of his hand across his forehead. The bike, propped upside down on its seat, was half done and the light was fading fast. "How about we pick this back up tomorrow?" Johnny asked wearily.
Lincoln gave the bike a quick once over. The tires were on but the front end still pulled to the left and the frame was still cracked. They had roughly two hours of work left. If they kept going, they wouldn't be done until nine.
"Yeah, might as well," Lincoln said and yawned, "I'm tired." He got to his feet and stretched.
"I'll clean up."
"Alright," Lincoln said, "close the garage door when you're done."
"'Kay."
Lincoln went inside while Johnny turned the bike right side up and leaned it against the work bench. He picked up the hand tools fanned out across the floor, put them away, and wheeled the welding tank over to its customary corner. He dusted his hands off and patted himself on the back. "Ya did good today, Johnny," he congratulated himself.
Snapping the light off, he went inside.
Totally forgetting to close the garage door.
The next morning, Johnny sat next to Lincoln at the kitchen table, grabbed a box of Coco Os, and poured them into a bowl. Bright spring sunshine streamed through the window over the sink and decked the room in golden hues. It was warm, mild, and as soon as he and Lincoln were done with Lynn's bike, he was going to the park. He didn't know what exactly he was going to do there, but the day was too nice to waste; he'd figure something out.
Mom poured a mug of coffee, sat it next to Dad's plate, and went back to the counter for toast. The man himself had yet to put in his first appearance of the day. He worked 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and slept in on the weekends. "How come Dad gets fried eggs and toast and we have to eat cold cereal?" Johnny asked.
"Would you like an egg, honey?" Mom asked.
Johnny's nose crinkled. "Ew, no, you just never offer."
"Because I know you don't like them."
Lincoln glanced at him and rolled his eyes as if to say wow, you're really dumb. Johnny didn't like that, so he rammed his elbow into Lincoln's side. Lincoln cried out and slammed his fist against Johnny's leg. Pain rippled out from the point of impact and he yelped.
"Boys," Mom said sharply, "knock it off or -"
A loud gong echoed through the house. Mom jumped, Lincoln froze, and Johnny cried out. Another followed, and suddenly, smoke rolled in through the archway leading to the living room. "What's happening?" Mom screamed.
The mist grew thicker, and a figure appeared in its depths like a terrifying creature beneath placid waters. Johnny's heart jumped into his throat, Lincoln's face went white, and Mom grabbed a carving knife from the butcher block and thrust it shakily out in front of her. The figure seemed to grow until it was massive, ten feet if not more, and Lincoln and Johnny clung to each other in terror.
It stepped out of the fog and -
Record scratch.
It was just Dad, dressed in a long black trench coat, a wide brim hat, and purple gloves. Mom's face dropped into a disapproving glower and Johnny shoved Lincoln away. Was this guy really doing this?
"Really, Jason?" Mom demanded.
Dad lifted his head and looked at her, his expression blank.
"Really?" she asked again and crossed her arms. Her hip cocked to one side and Johnny looked away. That meant she was mad.
Johnny glanced at Lincoln, and Lincoln nodded. Let's get out of here.
"It's Undertaker Day," Dad said.
Mom's jaw clenched. "It's how about you dress like a normal person for once day."
"You never let me have any fun, Elizabeth," Dad charged.
Johnny and Lincoln got up and slunk to the back door. The last thing Johnny heard was Mom telling Dad, "You don't even look like The Undertaker, you look like the guy from the Quaker Oats box."
BURN.
"Dad needs an intervention," Lincoln says as they went around to the front of the garage.
"No, what he really needs is to step into the ring with a real wrestler," Johnny said, "that'll sober him up real quick."
Lincoln started to reply, but the words died on his lips.
The garage door was open.
"Uh...did you close the door last night?" Lincoln asked.
Johnny opened his mouth to say yes, but couldn't since he kind of, uh, didn't. He nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "I forgot."
"Dude," Lincoln cried. He shoved Johnny out of the way and ran in. Johnny followed. "Where's Lynn's bike?"
"I put it over -"
It wasn't there.
They looked at each other.
Breaking up, they tore the garage apart looking for Lynn's bike, just on the off chance that Johnny misplaced it...or Dad moved it, or it changed places on its own accord. "I'm not finding it!" Lincoln shouted hysterically over his shoulder.
"Neither am I," Johnny said and rifled through a plastic cup full of screws. "It's not in here."
They met up in the middle of the room. Sweat lightly coated Johnny's face and his lungs burst for air. This was not good. He messed up and now Lynn's bike was MIA. If she found out, she'd pound him into a mud patch. They'd have to use dental records to identify him. That's if they ever found him in the first place. "She's gonna kill us," he moaned.
"Us?" Lincoln asked. "You're the one who left the door open like a doofus."
"You should have checked my work!"
Lincoln cocked his fist, then pressed it to his lips and worriedly chewed his thumbnail. "Alright, we gotta find it before Lynn -"
"Hey, guys," Lynn Loud said.
No two words had ever been more terrifying, not even Wrestlemania marathon. A chill went down Johnny's spine and his life flashed before his eyes. Well...it's been a good run. Not a long one, but a good one.
"Uh, hey, Lynn," Lincoln said. They both turned to face her, neither one able to meet her eyes. "How's it going?"
Lynn shrugged. "Eh, been worse. I'm here to pick up Ol' Calamity."
Heh. Too late...someone else already did.
Lincoln was sweating. "Uh, well, there's been a slight delay…"
"Why?" Lynn asked.
Johnny coughed. "You see…"
Picking up on their nervousness, Lynn narrowed her eyes. "What did you do to my bike?"
"Nothing," Lincoln said.
"We just -"
She snatched both of them by the fronts of their shirts and dragged their faces to hers. Lincoln squealed in terror and Johnny whipped his head to one side so she couldn't break his nose or knock his teeth out. He could stand a fractured cheek but not a broken schnozz. "It was Lincoln," he blurted. "He left the garage door open and someone stole your bike."
Lincoln gasped. Sorry, bro, every man for himself. "No! It was Johnny! He did it!"
"You losers let someone steal my bike?" Lynn growled.
"We're sorry," they trembled in unison.
Johnny squeezed his eyes closed in anticipation of being beaten to a pulp, but instead, Lynn released them. Drawing a deep sigh, she hung her head in a stooped shouldered posture of grief. "Man...now I'm gonna lose the tournament."
"Tournament?" Johnny asked.
"The big mountain trail race," Lynn explained. "I've been practicing for weeks and it's today."
Oh.
"You can borrow Lincoln's bike," Johnny offered.
Lincoln nodded quickly, egare to do anything to molify her. "Yeah, you can borrow my bike."
"Your bike sucks," Lynn said, and Lincoln flinched a little. "I need Ol' Calamity." She sighed heavily and turned around. "I guess I'll just forfeit. Thanks a lot, guys."
She dragged herself miserably away, and Johnny frowned. Lynn Loud Jr. wasn't the type to get dejected. Mad, yes, upset, totally, but not...this. He had known her for a while (he couldn't remember exactly how long) and he had never seen sadness and desolation on her face.
Until now.
If she was this bummed, that race was probably really important to her, and the thought of her missing it - all because of him - twisted his stomach in knots. "Wait," he said.
She stopped and looked over her shoulder.
"We'll help you find it."
Lincoln's lips puckered ever so slightly in expression of his doubt. 'We will?" he asked.
"Sure," Johnny said. "We'll find it in no time."
Lynn mulled over his proposition for a moment, then the natural fire in her eyes returned. "Alright," she said, "let's get started."
An hour later, Johnny and Lincoln walked down Main Street with teetering stacks of fliers in their arms. Lincoln's knees bent and shook and his arms visibly strained. "Dude," he grunted, "this is really heavy."
Johnny knew. He was the one who divided the fliers in the first place, and he made sure to give his brother more. Hey, work smarter, not harder, right? "Don't be a baby," he said. "Slap one on that telephone pole."
Gritting his teeth, Lincoln waddled over, swaying left and right like a drunk, then bent and sat his stack on the sidewalk. He took a sheet off the top and stapled it to the pole while Johnny taped one of his own in the front window of a consignment shop. From there, they papered every surface they could reach: Doors, windows, walls, fences, parked cars, a fire hydrant, Johnny even pinned one to a homeless man curled up on his side asleep. Feeling bad, Johnny tucked a dollar into the beer bottle clutched in his hand.
At Flip's, they put a flier on every gas pump. Lincoln plastered his last one to the window, and Johnny stuck his to the ice chest flanking the door. He put his hands on his hips and studied it. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? It read. Below was a crude drawing of Lynn's bike. IF YOU FIND ME CALL LINCOLN AND JOHNNY.
He reread it three times before revelation struck him, and his smile dropped. "Uh, Linc?"
Lincoln sat against the wall with his head down. "What?" he panted.
"You think we should have added our phone number to the fliers?"
Silence.
"What?"
He got to his feet and examined Johnny's flier, then his. "Aw, crud."
Before Johnny could suggest going back and penciling it in on all 250 copies, the walkie talkie in his coat pocket crackled and Lynn's voice issued forth. "Dumb and Dumber, this is Sports Goddess, over."
After making the fliers, Lynn went to canvas the neighborhood for witnesses starting with her own family. She wanted to start with Mom and Dad, but Johnny nixed that idea. They're arguing over Dad dressing like the Undertaker again.
The Underwho? Lynn asked, confused.
He's an undead mortician, Lincoln said.
I thought he was a biker, Johnny said.
Lincoln furrowed his brow. Wait, maybe that Paul Bear guy was the mortician and Taker was some random dead body he brought back to life and forced into wrestling.
Imagine dying and waking up in the WWF.
Lincoln looked around as if at strange and unpleasant surroundings. Deepening his voice, he asked, Is this heaven?
No, it's the World Wrestling Federation.
Dude, all you had to say was no.
They laughed and Lynn looked at them like they were crazy.
"Dumb and Dumber, do you copy, over?"
Whoops. Daydreaming again. He dug the radio out and held down the TALK button. "Dumb and Dumber, over."
"Little Jimmy across the street says he saw a boy riding off on my bike. He said it went due west down Franklin then turned onto Carsdale Street. I'm going to check it out. You guys go to the park. Over."
"Copy. Over and out."
He shoved the radio back into his pocket and jerked his chin in the general direction of Miller Park. "C'mon."
They set off and arrived fifteen minutes later. Being a Saturday, the place was packed with kids, some flying kites by the duck pond, others climbing over playground equipment, and others still riding bikes. Johnny looked around and froze. "Dude," he said and slapped Lincoln's chest with the back of his hand, "Lynn's bike."
50 feet away, a boy about eight in a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads, rode up and down a ribbon of sidewalk. Lincoln squinted and held up his hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. "It is Lynn's bike."
"Let's go."
They ran over and got there just as the kid started off. "Hey!" Johnny yelled.
The kid looked over his shoulder, saw them, and looked scared, just like he ought to. He pedeled faster, and Johnny pushed himself harder. He caught up to the kid, grabbed him by the back of his shirt, and dragged him off. "You little punk," he said and threw him to the ground. "You get off on stealing people's bikes, huh?"
The kid lay on his back like a turtle, his eyes wide with fear. "I oughta beat you up." Johnny balled his fist, and the boy cringed.
"Uh...Johnny?"
"Not now, Linc," Johnny said, "I'm gonna kick this kid's butt and teach him a lesson."
He started to fall on his prey, but Lincoln pulled him back. "Dude, that's not Lynn's bike."
Johnny blinked. "Huh?"
"It's not her bike. It doesn't have the crack on the frame."
Oh.
OH.
Johnny turned to the kid. "Uh, I'm sorry. I -"
"MOM!"
Oh no. "Hey, kid, I'm sorry, I -"
"MOM HELP!"
Johnny tried to calm the boy, but stopped when the earth rumbled. He and Lincoln turned just in time to see a massive woman charging at them like a bull. Her leg muscles flexed and her toned arms pumped. From the fuzz on her upper lip and the hard set of her eyes, Johnny knew exactly who she was.
Mom.
Screaming, Johnny and Lincoln bolted. Johnny's paper bag hat thing flew off and landed on the ground, but he didn't stop until he and Lincoln were three blocks away. Johnny bent, clasped his hands to his knees, and fought to catch his breath. Lincoln sank to his knees, slapped his hands to the ground, and dry heaved. Johnny looked back.
The woman was gone.
"Darn," he said, "I guess we -"
He caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye and turned just as someone on a bike turned a corner and disappeared. His eyes went to the crack on the frame and he jolted. "Lynn's bike!"
Lincoln shot him a dirty look. "Shut up."
"No, really!"
"I'm not falling for it, dude," Lincoln said.
Okay, then don't. Johnny snatched the back of Lincoln's jacket and pulled him to his feet. He dragged him along until he ripped away. "Fine," Lincoln said, "but if you're wrong this time, I'm chokeslamming you through a steel cage."
Johnny ignored him.
At the end of the street, the biker turned right. "C'mon!"
Johnny started running and Lincoln fell in behind him. They rounded the corner, and up ahead, the dastardly scoundrel who stole Lynn's bike parked it against a tree and jumped off. They wore jeans, a hoodie, and had black hair..
Oh, and two soon to be black eyes.
"Hey," Johnny cried, but it came out as a pained wheezed. "You...you're toast, buddy."
The thief turned, and Johnny came to a shuffling halt.
Those brown eyes, narrowed in defiance; that ponytail; that overbite; that thick, bushy unibrow.
"What was that?" Ronnie Anne Santiago asked.
Of all the people in the world, Ronnie Anne was the last person Johnny would have suspected, mainly because he didn't think to. He and Lincoln had kind of a love/hate thing going on with her. They were kind of friends, kind of enemies...almost like tag team partners thrown together and forced to wrestle side-by-side even though they hated one another. Think Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, or Vince Russo and Jim Cornette.
Okay, maybe it wasn't quite like that, but things were complicated. Johnny couldn't say he trusted Ronnie Anne to never do anything messed up, but yoinking a bike from his garage?
"Why?" he asked.
"Why what?"
"Why'd you steal Lynn's bike?" Lincoln put in.
Ronnie Anne rolled her eyes. "I didn't steal it," she said. "I borrowed it. Now I'm done."
"Why'd you do it?" Lincoln asked.
Johnny hooked his thumb at his brother. "Answer the man's question."
Ronnie Anne shoved her hands into the oversized pockets of her hoodie and shrugged her shoulders. "I came over to your house earlier, you guys weren't out, so I hung around your garage and finished off your Chocolate Cherry Cola, then I got bored and wanted to go for a ride."
Johnny's jaw dropped. "Wait, you drank all our stuff?"
Leaning forward, Ronnie Anne belched in his face. Yep, it smelled like Chocolate Cherry Cola alright. "I'm going home, see you losers later."
With that, she brushed past him and took her leave. He and Lincoln watched her go, then looked at each other. "Why do we even hang with her?" Lincoln asked.
Johnny had no answer for that. "Whatever, just grab Lynn's bike."
Letting Lincoln pedal, Johnny stood on the back pegs and braced himself on his brother's shoulders. Lynn was sitting despondent in their driveway, legs crossed and head down. She looked up, saw her bike, and jumped to her feet. "You found it!"
"Yep," Johnny said and jumped off. "I did it all on my own. Lincoln here wasn't much help at all."
"You almost got us killed," Lincoln said.
"Yeah, but -"
Lynn held up her hand. "Just finish fixing my bike so I can go do my thing."
"Right," Johnny said.
Normally, it would have taken two hours to fix the frame and align the front end, but they hauled butt and got it done in just over an hour as a gesture of apology. When they were finished, Lynn hopped on and rode in circles around the garage to test it out. "It rides like brand new," she said.
Johnny put his hands proudly on his hips. That, of course, was his doing. If it rode like crap, it'd be Lincoln's. "So it's all good."
"Yep," Lynn said, doing doughnuts.
"Great. Now the matter of pay."
But Lynn was already riding out the door. Ding ding.
"I guess we deserved that," Johnny said.
Lincoln sighed. "Probably."
They made their way inside to do something - anything - not involving bikes.
That wound up being watching their father play with wrestling action figures on the coffee table.
Best. Saturday. Ever.
Not.