by PD Kiernan
A slow metal scraping noise shook her awake. She froze for a long moment with her eyes wide open. Had she really heard that? Was she dreaming? She laid still. She had rolled over sometime in the night. Her head was still laying out of the tent’s door, but now she was facing away from the driveway. She dared not move. She tried not to breathe. She looked straight ahead at the jar Peter had left on the deck with all of the fireflies inside.
As she stared at the jar sitting on the porch floor she strained to hear anything. The lightning bugs inside the jar seemed to sense something as they all started to blink feverishly at one another. She wondered if they had some kind of sixth sense to danger.
Maybe she was dreaming, she thought after a while as her eyes started to close again.
There was another metal scrape. It was very slow and quiet this time, much softer than the last one, but she was sure now it was real. Then another! A shorter one, like the pull of something heavy. There was no doubt. Someone was moving those trash cans behind her, off the side of the porch in the driveway. It must be him!
Her heart started to pound in her ears. It was so loud she thought the thief must have heard it! As quietly as she could, she slowly started to roll over. The coolness of the night air was falling on her face as she looked up at the ceiling of the porch, with its wood slats of slightly peeled paint. She rolled all the way around until she could see the white railings on the side of the porch. All was in darkness in the driveway beyond. The street light didn’t help to make out the shapes. It looked like dark masses of blobs on the other side.
She tried to remember where Peter’s bike was placed. She remembered distinctly she could see it through the spindles. She peered through the railing with such intensity her eyes started to hurt. She quickly came to a shocking conclusion: the bike was gone!
She firmly pushed the shoulder of Cassidy who was sleeping near her on the other side of the tent’s doorway. Cass stirred a little, then rolled over away from Suzie, and went right back to sleep. Suzie pushed her shoulder again.
“Huh, wha?” she groaned.
“Shhhh!” Suzie leaned over and whispered.
“What?” Cass whispered back.
“Somebody was moving the cans! I can’t see the bike anymore,” Suzie whispered with as much urgency as she could convey.
“What!” Cass said as she leaned up and looked towards the railing spindles. She saw nothing as well. “We have to take a closer look!”
Cassidy stood up half way in a crouch and very quietly moved towards the railing. The porch creaked slightly under her feet with each step, so she stopped every second or so. She heard nothing from the driveway. Suzie heard nothing as well, so she got up to join Cass.
As she swung her foot around to stand up she inadvertently kicked the jar that contained all of Pete’s lightning bugs. It tipped over with a tink and rolled away from Suzie. She tried to grab it, but it rolled too far from her.
“Cass!” Suzie gasped.
Cassidy turned around too late to stop the jar from passing by her opposite side. She reached for it but it was too far along. It picked up speed on the slanted deck and rolled towards the railing. Suzie moved up next to Cass as the jar rolled towards the back corner of the porch and under the wooden base of the railing. It rolled right off the porch deck.
Crash!
The glass jar shattered into a million pieces. On the other side of the railing dozens of trails of yellow lights from the now free lightning bugs shot up. Illuminated in the driveway beyond was the unmistakable shape of Peter’s bike. Sitting on the bike was the darkened silhouette of a short man. He had a hood on his head and was looking down at the bike. After the glass shattered he instantly pulled his head up and looked right in the direction of the porch.
Suzie and Cass stood frozen. The man had thick glasses that reflected the twinkling light of the fireflies. Suzie was amazed as he didn’t seem to see them. Instead he looked wildly at the circling creatures that flew all around him. Suzie felt a hard shove from behind her back.
“Ahhh! My bike!” It was Peter. He had pushed his way between Cass and Suzie and was pointing at the man. “Thieeeef!”
“Pete!” Cass yelled, knocking his pointed arm down.
The man stood up tall and looked at the porch. The tent shook with the noise of everyone scampering to their feet inside. He rose up on Peter’s bike and crashed it through the remaining garbage cans. He was already at the end of the driveway and into the street when Suzie and Cass reached the railing and leaned over to get a closer look at him.
“Pete! Dog gone it! Ya scared him away!” Cass yelled at Peter as she pushed him out of the way and ran past him down the front steps of the porch. “Now I gotta chase this guy, again!”
Cass disappeared into the darkness around the other side of the house. Roberto and Dwayne came charging out of the tent. Roberto was struggling to turn on his little camping flashlight, while Dwayne was still rubbing his eyes to wake up. Meanwhile the lights turned on inside of Pete’s house.
“So much for quietly following the dude,” Roberto said, shining his light off the side of the porch, revealing the tipped over garbage cans.
The blur of a passing bicycle raced by on the driveway. It was Cass on her dirt bike. She turned and yelled back at them.
“C’mon, slow pokes! He’s gettin’ away!” she said. Then she bounced her bike out onto an empty Lefferts Boulevard and rode off to the left.
Suzie quickly turned around. “Pete, stay here. Talk to your dad, tell him what happened, and call the cops. Roberto and Dwayne, come with me. Let’s catch up as fast as we can.”
Chapter 18
