The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle

by Christina Uss

  The horse flicked his ears back and forth again, and then put his muzzle down and blew Bicycle’s wild hair off her cheeks. Taking this as a sign of agreement, she started setting up camp near the riverside in a grassy patch surrounded by skinny white birches.

  The Cannibal whinnied and shook his head insistently, his bridle jingling.

  Griffin piped up. “He probably wants that bit out of his mouth. Unbuckle those straps around his head and throat and take it off—he’ll be a lot more comfortable.”

  The Cannibal stopped shaking his head and bent his neck low as Bicycle approached, standing stock-still as she gingerly reached up to undo the straps. Feeling them loosened, the horse shook his head one more time, and the reins and bridle dropped to the ground.

  “Should I do the saddle, too?” Bicycle asked.

  “Might as well,” Griffin agreed.

  Softly saying, “There’s a good Cannibal…Who’s a good Cannibal? You’re a good Cannibal,” she undid the buckles on the saddle girth while the horse patiently waited. She gave the saddle blanket a tug, and the whole thing slid off and thumped on the sand. The Cannibal turned and gave her a big horsey grin. She waited to see if he wanted anything else, but he just started cropping grass.

  “Looks like he plans to stick around,” Bicycle said. “I guess we have another traveling companion.” She picked up the bridle and reins and put them neatly on top of the saddle and blanket. She liked the idea of someone coming upon the heap of racehorse accessories and trying to figure out how on earth they’d ended up here.

  “The more the merrier,” Griffin said. “Hey, you wanna hear me sing ‘My Old Kentucky Home’?” He didn’t wait for her answer and launched into it. “Oh, the sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home…”

  * * *

  —

  Bicycle, Griffin, and The Cannibal continued to follow the river for several days. The weather was balmy and the river was bordered by a firm dirt path that made bike riding easy, so they were all in good moods. The horse seemed to particularly enjoy when Griffin would talk or sing, nodding and snorting in time to “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain.”

  Toward the end of the fifth day, they crossed a metal bridge over the river. On the other side, there was another sign informing them in big letters that this was the Illinois state line and that THE PRAIRIE STATE WELCOMES YOU. A smaller sign welcomed them in a smaller way to SHAWNEETOWN, IL.

  Bicycle parked Clunk against a tree and sat down, spreading out her maps to determine if they were where she thought they should be. It was now getting toward mid-May and she didn’t want to fall behind in her schedule. “Hey, The Cannibal hijacking us could have been worse,” she said to Griffin. “We’re back on the route I planned out. And check out all the words jumbled up in the name ‘Shawneetown,’ there’s SWEET and SWEAT and…” She was about to tell The Cannibal she’d found OATS when she heard wailing from a small red house across the road. The Cannibal pricked up his ears as the wailing got louder. A young woman dressed in black-and-white checked pants, a double-breasted white jacket, and an apron with a neat white cap over her short hair burst out of the door and collapsed in a heap on the front steps. “C’est tout! That’s it! Ruined! I am ruined!”

  Bicycle recognized her accent as French, and, apparently, so did The Cannibal. He trotted over to the woman, who had curled up in a miserable little ball and was rocking back and forth. The horse leaned down to nudge her with his large black nose. The woman looked up and called out to the heavens, “Mon Dieu! My God! It is un démon noir, a black demon, come to devour me! Why not? There is nothing left to live for! Go ahead, mangez, eat me, demon, it does not matter anymore!”

  The horse cocked his head to one side and looked over at Bicycle for some help.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” Bicycle pushed Clunk across the street and said, “It’s not a demon, it’s a racehorse.”

  The woman looked at her, sniffling and sniveling. “A racehorse? Un cheval?” She peered at The Cannibal. “Ah oui, it is as you say. Well, if your cheval would like to eat a French chef, he is welcome to. My life is over.”

  “I’m pretty sure he does not want to eat a French chef,” Bicycle said. “I think he’s a vegetarian.”

  The woman’s eyes began welling with fresh tears. “A vegetarian. Ah! I could have made him such delicacies, but instead, I am ruinée! Ruined!” She took off her white cap and wiped her cheeks with it.

  This was clearly a woman who needed to talk to someone. Bicycle slid her map back in its plastic bag, sat down, and gave the chef a look that said “I’m listening.”

  The chef poured out her story. “I am Chef Marie Petitchou, part of the Petitchou family, a proud family of chefs since forever. I am the first to branch out across the Atlantic Ocean and launch a series of restaurants in the United States. We had our grand opening last month. I foresaw such success. You see, these restaurants are not fast food. They do not serve the pig swill that people eat on the go, quick-quick, with no time to taste and enjoy.” She made a face of disgust. “That is not food. So I open up my little restaurants. I named them the SlowDown Cafés because they are serving slow food instead of fast food.

  “My chefs, I train them well—we make our food quickly, we serve it quickly, but”—she raised a calloused finger—“it must be eaten slowly and with delight.” She stood up now, hat pressed against her chest. “I came to give my gift of slow food to the American people”—here she broke down again and crumpled back into a sitting position—“but no one comes. My business adviser says it is because I refused to put in an American drive-up window. Ha!” She scowled. “I will not allow people to drive their smelly cars up to my restaurants and drive away while eating.” She paused. “But it seems he is correct. The restaurants are empty. I am a failure, ruined. What will I tell the rest of my family?” She took a big shuddering breath and sank into herself.

  Bicycle patted Marie’s arm and the horse nuzzled the top of the chef’s head. Marie looked up and gazed at The Cannibal for a moment. The Cannibal gazed back and smacked his lips. “But I am being rude!” exclaimed the chef. “Here we are outside my very own café, and I do not invite you in to eat!” She got up, dusting off her white chef’s uniform. “S’il vous plaît, please, come inside and let me feed you. My treat.”

  Bicycle liked this weepy chef, who reminded her of Brother Otto. She parked Clunk in the grass outside the little red building and let the chef lead her inside. The Cannibal ducked his head under the doorframe and came in, too.

  It turned out that the red house wasn’t a house at all, but a very homey café. Inside, there were small cloth-covered tables with sturdy wooden chairs, photos on the wall of the French countryside, and quiet accordion music playing in the background. “Please, make yourselves comfortable,” Chef Marie said.

  “Do you have a menu?” asked Bicycle.

  “Non, non, that is part of the SlowDown Café philosophy, n’est-ce pas? There is no set menu. We cook whatever is in season,” the chef explained. “Would you like a bowl of soup? Maybe some meat, vegetables, some fresh bread? Or une salade? I have many good lettuces today.”

  Bicycle’s mouth began to water. “Anything is fine,” she managed, swallowing hard.

  “Very good,” said the chef. “You leave it to moi, Marie Petitchou.” She disappeared through a small door in the back.

  Almost at once, the most astonishing smells started to waft into the room. Bicycle walked over to the door and pushed it open a crack to peek inside. The chef looked like a magician. She zoomed between cutting board, sauté pans, and tart tins. Bicycle had never seen anyone cook so fast. Before she knew it, Chef Marie was sweeping past her, back into the dining room, arms loaded with trays and plates. “Asseyez-vous! Sit! Eat!” She seemed much happier after her spin through the kitchen.

  Bicycle fell on the food as though she’d ridden a thousand miles. (She had, actually, ridden 1,175, to be exact.) The tender catfish in a tangy herb sauce melted in her mouth, and the pan
fried potatoes were crispy and golden brown. The Cannibal buried his head deep in a wooden bowl filled with chopped lettuce and sliced apples. There was silence for some time, broken only by the sounds of chewing, tasting, swallowing, and reaching for more. Bicycle had three helpings of the warm strawberry-cocoa tart and fell back into her seat, deliciously full. “How did you cook this so fast?”

  The chef’s face filled with pride as she put more lettuce in the wooden bowl for The Cannibal. “It is a technique passed down through my family, and I taught it to my SlowDown Café chefs.”

  Bicycle stifled a burp. “There must be a way to get people into your restaurants so they can taste this food. Once they try it, I’m sure they’d come back again and again.”

  The chef beamed. “You are very kind, ma petite. You appreciate a fine meal, I see this.” Her eyes darkened. “But the fact remains that no one comes, because I don’t have the drive-up window. And I will not bend on this. Non!” She shouted this last word and banged her fist on the table.

  The Cannibal whinnied, smacking his lips around a piece of apple. He shuffled his hooves and knocked over a couple of chairs, which Bicycle jumped up to set right. As she was doing so, she looked thoughtfully at the large horse, who took up most of the room. Then she glanced out the window at Clunk. “Chef Marie, you might be able to get a whole bunch of people to come to your restaurants. Instead of a drive-up window for cars, what do you think about a ride-up window for bicycles and horses?”

  Chef Marie stared at her. The she turned and stared at The Cannibal, still crunching and munching. Bicycle’s mind was racing, fueled by the strawberry-cocoa tart. “You could have outdoor picnic areas right next to the restaurant where bicyclists and horse riders could eat their orders. You could have big take-out bowls of salad for the horses! You could advertise alongside bike paths and horse tracks and even build little detours straight to your cafés. And people could order at the window or come inside, whatever they want.”

  The chef’s eyes got a faraway look. “Les bicyclettes and les chevaux…This is not a bad idea. They do not belch smoke on your food, and you cannot ride your bike or horse and eat a meal at the same time. You must stop and enjoy it. And people who ride bicycles, they are always hungry, non? And horse riders and horses—who is more hungry than a horse?” She began to get excited. “We must try it! I will call my manager tout de suite, right now, and see how fast we can do this. We are ruined anyway if we do not try—what do we have to lose? So we feed some bicyclists and some horses and their riders before we go bankrupt. There are worse things to do in life!” She grabbed Bicycle’s hand and started pumping it up and down. “Merci! Merci, merci, merci!” she shouted, thanking her in French until The Cannibal drowned her out, whinnying insistently for more salad. Chef Marie filled his bowl one last time.

  Bicycle said they needed to head out and started to explain about her trip to San Francisco.

  Chef Marie interrupted. “How merveilleux, marvelous, that you have the chance to ride across the country. Everyone in my village in France rides bikes everywhere. You must have a good family like mine, eh? They let you stretch your wings and go where your heart leads you?”

  Bicycle made a noncommittal noise that might have meant anything. Marie invited her to stay the night and Bicycle accepted.

  The chef led The Cannibal into the fenced-in backyard while Bicycle wheeled Clunk into the café’s backroom, where there was a sofa bed. Chef Marie came in with a stack of fresh white sheets, and she and Bicycle made up the bed. Then Marie gave Bicycle a couple of oversize postcards and wished her sweet dreams, excusing herself to make some phone calls to her business manager.

  While listening to Chef Marie talking on the phone down the hall, Bicycle said to Griffin, “It’s too bad ghosts don’t have to eat. I wish you could have tried some of the things Chef Marie cooked.”

  “Me, too,” Griffin said wistfully. “This whole place smells great.”

  Bicycle snuggled into the sofa bed and addressed one postcard to the monastery. The front of the postcard showed a U.S. map with a green star marking each SlowDown Café location, and the back listed forty addresses under the heading “SlowDown Towns.” Bicycle noticed that there were at least two green stars in each of the six states she had left to cycle across. She wrote very small and squeezed in a note around the edge of the café list.

  Please tell Brother Otto I think I’m beginning to appreciate eating as much as he does. I’ll never take his pork chops for granted again.

  Bicycle

  In the morning, she devoured one of Chef Marie’s fluffy cheese omelettes, along with several fruit-filled crepes and warm muffins. Bicycle was strapping her belongings to Clunk when Chef Marie walked over with a thick brown paper sack and a small card in her hand. “Ma petite, you have given me hope, and that is a precious gift. I offer you this in return.” She handed Bicycle the sack, which was filled with foil-wrapped muffins and crepes, and the card, on which was printed in beautiful calligraphy:

  FREE EATS!

  The bearer of the this card is entitled to as many free meals as she can eat at any SlowDown Café across the United States.

  Chef Marie had signed the bottom in an elaborate curlicue script. “Wherever you find one of my cafés, you will be welcome there. I hope enough of them will succeed with this new plan that you may enjoy some more good food along your way.”

  They hugged each other, and Bicycle whistled for The Cannibal. She started pedaling down the road, but the horse took no more than a couple of steps before turning back. Bicycle stopped, too. The horse was gazing at Chef Marie with a great deal of affection. He’d apparently found something that made him feel even more at home than a bicycle: French cooking.

  “Eh? You want to stay with Marie?” The chef reached out and rubbed the horse’s nose. “This is fine by me. You can help me test the vegetarian recipes, non?” She looked at Bicycle. “What is his name?”

  Bicycle grimaced. “Well, his owners called him The Cannibal, but he doesn’t seem much like a cannibal to me.”

  Chef Marie was aghast. “They called a vegetarian The Cannibal? This will not do! Non, non, non.” She put a hand on the horse’s mane and proclaimed, “I will call you Truffle. I think you will like this better.” She turned back to Bicycle. “You don’t mind if he stays? You will be all right on your own?”

  Bicycle smiled to think of the powerful racehorse retiring and getting fat with Chef Marie. “I’m not on my own. I’ve got Clunk and…” She figured there was no easy way to explain Griffin. “And I’ve got my Free Eats card. I’m a lot better than all right. Au revoir! Good-bye!” Bicycle waved and pedaled away.

  If Bicycle had blinked while biking through Illinois, she might have missed it. She traveled through the very bottom of the state, where it came to a point, so two days of riding took her from one border to the other. Before she could get accustomed to Illinois’s open fields and grand old houses, she was biking over the Mississippi River. She wasn’t quite halfway across the country, but crossing the Mighty Mississippi was a milestone to celebrate. She stopped on the big metal bridge and gazed down at the wide swath of muddy water rushing far beneath her feet. Griffin hummed a patriotic song, and Bicycle solemnly saluted the rippling waves below. Clunk dropped a screw into the water.

  On the other side, a green sign with curlicue writing announced WELCOME TO MISSOURI—THE SHOW-ME STATE.

  Griffin shouted, “That’s right! Show me my hometown! Show me the fried-pie shop!”

  Around dinnertime, Bicycle pulled out the other oversize postcard Chef Marie had given her and saw that she was near a SlowDown Café. She told a passing man on a tractor the address, and he directed her toward the next street. The café had a blackboard out front with the words NEW RIDE-UP WINDOW chalked on it, with an arrow pointing around the side of the building. It looked like Chef Marie’s café managers weren’t wasting any time trying out the new idea for attracting customers.

  Bicycle coasted up to order her food. T
he ride-up window was clearly nothing more than a regular window in the kitchen that the chef had slid open. She showed her Free Eats card over the sill and was surprised when the chef said he’d been hoping she’d stop by—Chef Marie had called and told him to be on the lookout for her. He handed Bicycle a heaping plate of the daily special, a crawfish meatloaf with asparagus and mashed potatoes. She balanced her plate on her handlebars with one hand and pushed Clunk around back to look for a picnic table. Three of the seven tables were already taken, two by groups of cyclists, and one by a couple who had come on horseback. Bicycle smiled to herself. Word about the ride-up café was spreading already.

  She finished every bite of her dinner, licking the last of the potatoes right off the plate with a contented hiccup. Reluctant to leave such a hospitable spot, Bicycle set up camp next to a picnic table that night.

  When she awoke the next morning, she waited until the chef opened shop for the day and ordered the breakfast special—lemon waffles and chicken-apple sausages.

  “Let’s get go-ing, let’s get go-ing, let’s get go-ing!” chanted Griffin while she ate outside. “We’re in the Ozark Mountains now, we’re getting real close!”

  Bicycle finished swallowing a maple-syrupy mouthful and grumbled at Griffin, “Look, I have to eat if I’m going to pedal us anywhere, so just hold on.”

  Griffin tried to be patient while she ate, but he kept asking, “Are you done now? How about now? Now? Can you eat faster?”

  Finally, she gave up trying to eat. “Okay, okay, let’s get you home, Griffin G. Griffin,” she said, folding up her leftovers in a napkin. Right before she left, the chef came out with a paper sack of extra breakfast goodies, calling it a “Feed Bag,” and said Chef Marie had asked all the cafés to provide them to her. Bicycle added her leftovers to the sack and gratefully packed it up. She knew Chef Marie had said hope was a precious gift, but gifts of free food had to be just as precious. Probably more. Bicycle thought hope could take care of itself when her bike was stocked with homemade waffles.