Learning how to ride a bike at 12 years old
By: Leticia Beltran
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Fiction Writing, Storytelling, Fiction

Photo by Razvan Mirel on Unsplash

Marie was sitting on a sidewalk wondering how she had reached this point. It was a sunny summer day that was just slightly on the wrong side of scorching heat, too hot for other kids to come out and play. She was sitting there while her mom was packing the boxes in the house.

They were moving, again.

The idea of moving made Marie look at her sketch. She ripped it violently from her notebook, leaving a bunch of frilly ends in the spiral. Then she spitefully crumpled it into a ball. Holding the ball in her hand, she stared at the trashcan at the end of their driveway. It was five feet to her right, she mentally calculated, and lined up for the shot. Then she missed. There were four other crumpled balls near the trash and two inside the can.

She heaved a sigh. Each of those papers had a rough sketch of her mom and dad.

It was because of her mom’s desire to get away from her dad that they were moving. Her mom was walking around the house stuffing things in boxes and muttering about men who were ‘fudging everywhere!’ and ‘couldn’t be bothered to get his own friends’. Marie felt uncomfortable after listening to her mom and just left the room.

Marie refused to help her mom drag her away from her friends and school, so that’s why she was sitting on the sidewalk to the right of her driveway.

Marie was told by her mom to empty out the trash from their garage, but knew that her mom just wanted her out of the way. Marie had made her displeasure known by rebelling in small ways. A small stack of misplaced papers, piles of junk being moved around the house, and mislabeled boxes eventually convinced Marie’s mom that she wasn’t going to be much help. Marie was conflicted; she wanted to help, but she also had an urge to go to the nearest box and empty it onto the floor.

Sighing again, Marie got up and stuffed her notebook into her backpack and walked to the garage. There were boxes lining up the garage walls filled with various decoration for holidays and other junk. Next to an old fish tank in the corner, lay a bike. It was technically her bike that her uncle had bought for her birthday…when she turned three. She is honestly convinced that her uncle had no clue what she liked because he always got the worst gifts. The bike had sat in the garage for years but her parents never got rid of it. Marie didn’t even know how to ride a bike.

A thought came to Marie, anything is better than helping her mom uproot her life.

Learning how to ride a bike at the age 12 is, in one word: embarrassing. However, Marie supposes the idea that applies is ‘better late than ever’. Marie sighed, just another kid with classic divorced parents, neither having much time to bother with a kid. Neither of them bothering to teach her how to ride a a bike, and both assuming that the other had taught her. Newsflash! Neither of them didn’t teach her and neither bothered to notice her never riding a bike.

Marie remembers when her classmates had found out that she didn’t know how to ride a bike. She didn’t tell anyone, too embarrassed, but her friends noticed that she didn’t know after a birthday party. It was her friend, Josh, who was celebrating his birthday. He like to ride his bike off ramps and do mini stunts. Many of her friends were giving it a shot and then it was her turn. She refused but they kept badgering her, thinking that she was just nervous. However, when Marie told them that she didn’t even know how to ride a bike…it just got awkward. None of them wanted to point out her parent’s divorce since at the time it was too fresh. Her parents hadn’t paid attention to her in awhile and not teaching her to ride a bike was just one more thing.

Marie grabbed the bike and looked for a helmet. Maybe if she learned how to ride a bike, she could explore their new neighborhood after they moved. She shifted around a few more boxes then shrugged, guess they didn’t have a helmet. Well, that’s stupid.

She walked out of the garage and paused. Well getting comfortable on a bike and getting used to balancing is probably a good place to start. She sat on the seat, it was uncomfortable.

Marie moved her feet to the front tire and with her hands tightly gripping the handlebars, she pushed off down the driveway. It was a ten second trip but Marie felt wobbly while balancing. When she reached the bottom of the driveway, she used her feet to stop, got off, and then walked the bike to the top of the driveway. She did this for about 30 minutes.

Sit. Coast. Stop. Walk back. Repeat.

Again and again, Marie then started to gain confidence. She could do this. She grabbed her bike and this time didn’t walk back to the top of the driveway. She looked at her street and had a thought.

The hill. It looked like it could be fun to go down, it was much longer than her driveway.

The street that Marie lived on was a hill. She lived at the bottom of the hill and the top of the hill started about five houses up. She thought it was perfect, long enough to get comfortable but not long enough to go really fast.

Marie walked up the hill with the bike. She had no helmet, but she wasn’t bothered. She sat down and grabbed the handlebars.

Lifting her feet off the ground, she started to move down the hill. This time, instead of putting her feet in front of her, she placed her feet on the pedals. She was coasting when she decided that she wanted to go faster. She pedaled one and then twice.

Continuing to pedal, Marie grinned widely. Then she laughed to herself, riding a bike was so much fun! Marie passed two houses, when another thought occurred to her.

Should she have practiced braking or steering?

The bike started to pick up speed at a higher rate than before.

Faster and faster.

Marie was officially worried. How could she have forgotten to practice braking and steering? That was like one of the most important parts of actually riding a bike!

It was as she passed the third house that she realized the true problem. The moving-truck was blocking the entire street! She felt a pressure squeeze her throat and panicked. Jerking her hand to the right, the bike moved suddenly and Marie lost her balance.

Wham!

Marie fell to the ground, her knee scraping the sidewalk and the pedal scraped the back of her calf. She kicked the bike away from her and lay on her bike. Wow, that was definitely one interesting first try.

Checking her injury, Marie sat up a bit. She looked down at her knee and there was a huge four inch long scrape. It has asphalt stuck in her skin and it stung.

Marie was wearing shorts because of the hot weather and so her skin had absolutely no protection from the harsh asphalt.

She stood up and limped up the driveway, leaving her bike behind. She walked into the house. Her mom turned around, “Hey? Do you know what the noise was? I just heard-”.

Her mom turned around mid-sentence and stopped.

Sighing, “Well, I didn’t know that cleaning the garage was that dangerous.”