Dirt Bike Runaway

by Matt Christopher

  To my daughter, Pamela Jean

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1983 by Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  First eBook Edition: December 2009

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Matt Christopher® is a registered trademark of

  Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-09552-5

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Matt Christopher®

  THE #1 SPORTS SERIES FOR KIDS: MATT CHRISTOPHER®

  1

  Murder was in the Kid’s eyes.

  He came flying at Peter the instant Peter was off the motorcycle, and hit him in the stomach with his shoulders like a football tackle, sending Peter crashing to the hard, blacktop surface of the parking lot.

  “Hey! What’re you —!” Peter started to yell, but he couldn’t finish what he wanted to say. The kid — about sixteen or seventeen, dark-haired, tall and slim — was on top of him in a flash, pounding him on his face and head, mashing him with his fists.

  He’ll kill me! Peter thought, becoming dazed from the blows. The darned guy’s gone crazy!

  Covering his face with one hand, Peter made a fist of the other and drove it hard at his attacker, striking him a glancing blow on the shoulder. His next blow struck the guy on the side of his head, slowing him down just long enough for Peter to roll over onto his stomach, and then crawl up onto his knees so that he was able to swing his elbows up and down like pistons in hopes of striking the kid above him on the face, or somewhere vulnerable to make the kid stop.

  “Dex! Hold it! Hold it!” cried one of the two other guys standing close by, watching the fight. The ones who were really responsible for starting it.

  The pounding against Peter’s body ceased, leaving it throbbing with aches and pains, and he stopped flailing his elbows. He laid his hands protectively against the sides of his face and remained crouched like a fetus, his forehead resting against the hot pavement. He had to be sure the crazy fool wasn’t going to start pounding him again.

  The moment he felt the weight leave his back, he rolled over and sprang to his feet. He brushed his dark, disheveled hair away from his oval, suntanned face, feeling a burn on his cheek that he figured he must have sustained while lying against the pavement. For just a brief instant he glanced down at the dirt on the front of his green, zippered sport shirt and blue jeans and at his dirt-smudged white sneakers. These, and his underwear, were the only clothes he owned. Get a large tear in them and he’d be in tougher shape than he already was.

  He looked up and his anxious eyes settled on the blond kid, the one wearing orange sunglasses and blue jeans. The one who had stopped the fight. The other member of the trio was a redhead. He was wearing silver reflective sunglasses and knee-length shorts, and chewing bubble gum, which he’d often blow up and pop.

  The blond kid looked at Peter intensely while he motioned to Dex. Dex frowned, then approached the blond kid and bent an ear toward his mouth.

  Peter watched them both intently, curiously. What did the blond have in mind now? Something worse than a beating? What could be worse?

  His glance narrowed furtively on the blond, who, because of a crooked twist of his mouth and a crescent-shaped scar on his right cheek, looked meaner than the other two combined. Peter wondered how he’d gotten the scar. A knife fight?

  And what about the bubble-gum popper? Was he as friendly as he looked? Or was that calm, handsome face just a mask hiding evil thoughts? Were the eyes behind the sunglasses on a constant search for mischief?

  Peter could only guess, and hope that he would never do anything that would provoke all three of them into jumping on him at the same time. The thought reminded him of his own smaller stature and of his vulnerability to guys like these three. But then he remembered his battles with bigger guys back at The Good Spirit Home — the children’s home in Cross Point, Florida, where he had lived most of his young life. Most of them had backed off after they discovered that they were not dealing with a spineless, chicken-livered kid, and he told himself that he wasn’t going to cower from these guys either. But then he remembered where he was, and why he was here, and excused himself for not having fought back as hard against Dex as he might have.

  “Hey, right! Right!” Dex exclaimed, interrupting Peters’s thoughts, nodding and smiling agreeably to whatever his blond friend had said to him.

  The two separated, and Dex turned and swaggered toward Peter, the smile replacing the cold, bitter look that had darkened his features earlier. He put out his hand.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. All right? Guess I lost my head,” he said apologetically. “Jess explained what happened. Forgive me, will you? It was all a big joke.”

  A big joke? Sure, it was. I’m probably going to have a black eye, and you call it a joke, Peter thought.

  He glanced down at the extended hand. Finally, figuring that the guy really meant it, he took the hand and shook it.

  “My friend Jess is sometimes sharper than I am,” Dex went on amiably. “He just came up with a terrific idea.”

  Terrific idea? What? A new style of fighting?

  “First, let me introduce these characters,” Dex said. “This is Jess Kutter, and under this mop of red hair is Bill Rocco. I’m Dexter Pasini.”

  “Hi,” said Peter, his voice a soft, deep drawl. He shook hands with Rocco and Kutter, neither of whom gripped his hand as firmly as he gripped theirs. “Like holding a cold fish,” Mr. Fairchild, his friend back at The Good Spirit Home, used to call it when anyone shook hands like that.

  Peter almost smiled at the thought, and just for an instant he tightened his grip on Jess Kutter’s hand and saw the look of surprise come over Kutter’s face, making the scar on his cheek turn white. Peter relaxed his grip and let go of the hand, wondering why he had done what he did. Well, he didn’t care. Maybe the grip would tell Kutter that Peter wasn’t a pushover or as weak as he might think.

  Peter ran his hand through his hair, which he knew needed cutting, and felt the snarls in it as he pushed it back, trying at the same time to straighten them out to make his hair look more presentable.

  “You live here in Cypress Corners?” Bill wanted to know, and popped his gum again.

  “No. I’m from New York,” he answered.

  It was a lie. He’d never been out of Florida in his life. But he had a reason to lie, and these guys didn’t have to know what it was.

  Dex laughed. “How about that? New York. You’re a long way from home, pal.”

  “Yeah.”

  He felt something on the corner of his mouth, took a
handkerchief out of his pocket, and dabbed at it. It was blood.

  “Sorry about that,” Dex said.

  Peter shrugged. “That’s okay,” he said.

  He turned the bloodied spot of the handkerchief over and wiped his face with the clean part of it, rubbing harder over the high cheekbones than the strong, rounded chin that had been a haven for pimples as long as he could remember. The pimples embarrassed him. Fortunately, they never appeared anywhere else.

  “How did you start my bike? That’s what I’d like to know,” Dex asked, curious.

  Peter grinned. “With a wire.”

  “I know. But how?”

  Peter shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Sorry. That’s my secret.”

  Dex’s eyes blazed as he looked at Peter.

  “You want me to shake it out of him, Dex?” Rocco asked, his head turning from Peter to Dex and back to Peter.

  Peter braced himself. He was in no mood for another fight, but he wasn’t going to stand there and take it from Rocco without fighting back either.

  Dex gave Rocco a shove with his elbow. “Let me handle this, okay?” he snapped. He looked at Peter, rocked back and forth on his heels a couple of times, and said, “Pretty sharp, aren’t you?” His smile, which had faded slightly, came back, even broader than before. “You own a bike?”

  “No. But I’ve ridden them. Fixed them, too.”

  He wasn’t lying now. He had learned a lot about bikes from Jim Fairchild, one of the maintenance men at The Good Spirit Home. Thinking back to those days seemed like it was a hundred years ago.

  Dex eyed him thoughtfully for a while before he went on. “Ever raced in a moto?”

  “Sure.”

  As a matter of fact, the most fun he’d had was in motos, or motocross meets — races conducted on a closed course that included hills, jumps (something like miniature ski jumps), rough terrain that required gear changing, and both right- and left-hand turns. He had Jim Fairchild to thank for that, too, for getting him started in them.

  Dex brought out a ring of keys from his pocket, pushed a forefinger through the loop of the ring, and began to twirl it in a slow, small circle.

  “How’d you like to race in one later on this morning?”

  Peter stared at him. “How would I like to what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “But I don’t have a bike,” he said, puzzled at Dex’s offer.

  “That’s easy.” Dex eyed him arrogantly. “The guy who usually rides our Una Mae is down with the flu. You can ride it. That is, if you think you can. It’s a one twenty-five LC. Just like my Corella.”

  The Una Mae, Peter knew, was an American-made bike, considered a little bit faster than the Japanese Suzuki.

  Dex pointed at his bike, which, Peter had noticed the first time he’d set eyes on it, was a real beauty. And not more than a year old. It, too, was an American-manufactured bike.

  “Liquid-cooled,” Peter said.

  “Right. Ever ride one?”

  “No. We just had two bikes, both of them air-cooled.”

  “The LCs are better,” Dex said authoritatively. “You just have to be sure that the mixture — in the Una Mae, anyway — is fifty percent distilled water and fifty percent antifreeze. Otherwise, without the antifreeze, the water could boil and blow the tank.”

  “Right.”

  The idea of racing a bike again made Peter’s heart throb. The thought that someone — a detective, or the cops — could be searching for him in Cypress Corners always lingered in the back of his mind. But that they would be looking for him right here — now — was pretty remote.

  “Well? Will you or won’t you?” Dex prompted him.

  “I will.”

  Dex smiled. The other two glanced at Dex and smiled, too.

  “Come on, get on behind me,” Dex invited, going to his bike and climbing on it. “Hey, you guys, see you later. Okay?”

  “Okay,” they replied in unison.

  Rocco and Kutter turned on their heels and walked away. For a moment Peter watched them, wondering if he was doing the right thing. After all, look at what those guys had done to him. Jess Kutter, specifically. Pretending that the bike belonged to him. Saying that he had lost his key. How much could you trust guys like him? Were all three like that? Birds of a feather …

  Peter got on the yellow-fendered, black-tanked bike behind Dex, who put on his shiny black helmet, clicked the fasteners, then kick-started the machine.

  The Corella was indeed an eye-stopper, every inch of it polished to a sheen. This baby is really given the TLC treatment — tender loving care — and it deserves every bit of it, Peter told himself.

  Now Peter heard the engine roar to life, glanced back to see the smoke bursting from the twin exhausts, and then felt the bike take off gracefully, the sun reflecting off the silver spokes and cuplike hubs onto the blacktop.

  He let his cares, his fears, his past drift away from him as he clung to the grips at his sides and felt the wind tangle his hair and brush past his face. There was nothing that should make him afraid of these guys, he thought. There was nothing he couldn’t handle. He’d ride the Una Mae in the moto, and if the bike was as good as Dex said it was, he’d show them a thing or two.

  And then he’d leave and head south, as he had planned to do. Fort Myers was his target. That was far enough from Cross Point to avoid being seen, caught, and returned to the Bentleys’, the foster family with whom he’d lived for the last several months.

  If it wasn’t, he could move on. Florida was a big state. He had studied every bit of it on a map days before he had planned his escape.

  The afternoon was hot, much hotter than it had been that morning.

  And the track was super. Nothing like the one near Cross Point, the Cedar Hills Speedway.

  This one had more twists and turns than a pretzel factory.

  Peter, riding the white-fendered, black-tanked Una Mae 125 LC, careened around a high berm with the wind humming past his helmet-covered ears. Twenty-three other bikers were scattered in the mad, roaring race around the 1.3-mile track, with him — No. 150 — somewhere among the first ten.

  Now came the long stretch, and Peter lowered his shoulders and head, twisting the throttle quickly and firmly, feeling the bike’s power as the rear knobbies bit into the hard dirt track and propelled the machine forward.

  He sailed by No. 17, a blue-fendered 125 that had been in front of him ever since the moto had started some three laps ago. Then he crept up to a blue-tanked YZ 125 Yamaha with red-and-white striped fenders, and the number 99 emblazoned on the plate behind the seat as well as on the back of the white-helmeted rider.

  Peter remembered having seen 99 scrambling for the lead from the very start of the race. Even in the densest traffic the rider, wearing a deep red, satiny suit and shiny leather boots, would stand out like a blazing torch. Maybe he had posed for a motorcycle advertisement before coming to race in the moto, Peter mused.

  Peter got to within five feet of the bike, staying directly on its tail, before he made his move toward the left side of it. He gave the handle a gentle twist, got his bike out of the line made for him by the Yamaha, and started to press on by.

  He saw the rider glance briefly in his direction, and for a second or two he saw that 99’s eyes were wide and determined. Peter recognized from experience the spirit and dogged determination that were kindled in them.

  No. 99 had probably never won a moto. Maybe he had never even placed up there among the top four or five, either spot not to be looked down upon in a motocross with twenty-four riders competing. No. 99’s heart was probably set on making it this time. He wanted today to be the day that his losing streak would be broken.

  But as Peter crept past 99’s Yamaha, he knew that today would not be the day for 99 to win. Not unless something drastic happened to Peter, or to Dex, or to any one of those riders leading the pack.

  “Good-bye, ninety-nine,” he whispered as he shot by.

  Another b
erm came up sharply, rising up along the outside of the track in a high, crest-shaped curve, although it wasn’t as high as the initial one. Peter rode it side by side with two other riders.

  Then — being on the inside — he careened off the berm and headed down a short stretch toward a jump-hill, the third one on the twisting, challenging track.

  In spite of the many jumps he had made — some successful, some not — there was always a bit of worry that began in the pit of his stomach and stayed there till it was over, for flying off the edge of a jump-hill was no simple feat, even for an expert. The hill from which a bike took off like a skier from a ski jump was formed purposely to give variety to the track, to make the race a challenge to the rider, and provoke excitement for the spectator. Peter knew that catastrophes were always possible. He had seen them happen, although — thank goodness — he had never been involved in one himself. Sometimes they resulted in minor injuries, sometimes major ones, for the front and rear wheels had to make re-contact with the ground just right, otherwise the rider would lose his balance and control of his bike. The inevitable spill could result in critical injury to himself and damage his bike, or — as was so often the case — both rider and bike could escape the unlucky consequences and continue the race with nothing lost except precious time.

  Now, as the jump-hill came up, Peter braced himself, rising off the seat as he felt the machine leave the earth and start flying through the air. His feet had left the foot rests, leaving only his hands — gripping the handlebars with steel-like fingers — in contact with the bike.

  It was only a second or two that he and the Una Mae were airborne, but it seemed much longer than that to him. During that brief interval his heart seemed to have stopped, and he wondered, as he saw the ground coming up to meet him and the bike, whether the front and rear wheels would make perfect contact. If they didn’t — if the front wheel came down and struck the ground at an oblique angle — it could result in a catastrophe.

  Peter waited.

  2

  The rear wheel made contact first, and then the front, and Peter came back down upon the seat with a bump that jarred him.