Owen in Trouble

Owen swung the bat. He swung hard. He knew he wasn't aiming at the baseball very well, but he didn't care. He just wanted to swing his bat and hit something. The baseball was balanced on a rubber orange traffic cone that he used as a tee. Owen missed the baseball but hit the traffic cone so hard that the cone and the ball both went flying. The ball only dribbled into the grass a few feet, so Owen set it up on the cone again. This time he got a piece of the ball and it smacked into the side of the house. Good. Owen hoped that he broke a window.

He was in the backyard playing baseball because his bike was taken away. Father hadn't even told him how long it was going to be confiscated. It was just "for a couple of days." Everyone else was miserable too. James was upset because his mouth hurt and because Owen wasn't sharing the baseball equipment. Owen hoped James was miserable. Felix was crying because he didn't like wearing suntan spray. Serves him right too.

It had been a hard few days. Owen still didn't have a dog. Father had found a mole in the basement, and Owen would have gladly taken a mole for a pet instead of a dog, but Father hadn't let him keep it. Owen thought a mole would have been a great pet. He asked Google about moles, and he found out that they could run up to 60 kilometers per hour. This made sense, because Father couldn't catch the mole or hit it with a broomstick. It just ran around and around the basement in circles. Owen was sure it was lonely, but Father wouldn't let him catch it.

Two days ago Mother and Father did something that Owen had always wanted to do--they put a ladder up on the side of the house and climbed into a window through the roof. But they didn't let Owen climb the ladder. They didn't even let him stand under the ladder to watch Father give Mother a boost up to the bathroom window. (His parents had locked the family out of the house by accident.)

But the real reason that Owen was upset--the reason that his bike was taken away--was because of what happened last night. Last night the whole family was biking home after a long ride and a hike in the woods. Father was in the lead with Felix in his bike seat, and James was following behind. James always got to be in front of Owen "for safety's sake" on his green bike, and Owen was following close behind on his yellow, with Mother riding on her black bike last of all.

They were going down the long hill that led past the Primary School and back to their house, and because Father was leading they didn't have to do a full stop at every single stop sign--Father would just slow up a bit and wave them through with an all clear. So they were going fast. Owen didn't even need to peddle, but it felt good to peddle when you were already flying down the hill. James was gliding up in front of him and had drifted over to the right side of the sidewalk.

Instead of braking to slow down to James' speed, Owen decided to pass him. He put on an extra burst of speed and closed on James' left. James started drifting back into the middle of the sidewalk and glanced behind him.

"Owen, hey OWEN, NO PASSING!"

It was too late to stop now, but then Owen realized that James was wobbling from looking behind him. Owen braked as he smashed into the back of James' wheel, and then James fishtailed wildly, slammed into a car that was parked in the driveway, and crashed onto the pavement with a terrible scream.

Owen did feel bad. He apologized right away, but no one listened to him. Mother and Father both went right to James, as did a neighbor who had heard the crash from across the street.

Owen started to insist again that he apologized right away, and then suddenly realized that he had done the thing that Mother and Father had warned him so often against--he had turned the bike ride into a race and tried to pass James.

In the end, James had a chipped front tooth and Father had to ring the doorbell (and then, since no one was was home, walk back up with a note) of the person whose car had been scratched.

When Father told Owen that he was taking his bike away for a few days Owen didn't even blink. He was angry, but he wasn't going to let it show.

"Fine," he answered "I'm just going to use my money to buy myself ANOTHER bike, then."

And he stomped off into the garage. He didn't know how much bikes cost, though, or where he would even buy one. He thought maybe he had seen some in a Target once, but it wasn't the Target where his family usually shopped and he couldn't remember where it was. So he asked his Father how many days "a few days" would be. Would he, for example, be able to have his bike back tomorrow?

Father and Mother were still much too busy with James' mouth to pay much attention to Owen. This hardly helped Owen feel better about the bike.

But hitting the baseball (or, at least, the traffic cone) did help him feel better. Owen wondered how all the bike scabs on his knees would look if he didn't ride his bike for two days. Would they be all gone? Would he get new ones right away? (He had landed on the end of his handelbar the day before and now had a nasty bruise on his stomach as well...would that go away?)

Felix had recovered from being sprayed by the time Owen was done hitting the baseball, so the two of them played football for a bit. James was pretending to be Robin Hood in the back bush, and still stopping every few minutes to rub his mouth.