Mountain Bike Mania (11 page)

Danny blinked, totally speechless for once in his life.

“I think we need something to call the event,” Juliette said. “You know, a catchy name.”

“How about Biker Courtesy Day?” Will suggested.

“If we’re raising money for trail repair, we could call it the Repairathon,” Danny suggested, recovering his voice.

“Repairathon — that’s excellent!” Gail enthused. “Like, it’s about repairing relations
and
repairing trails! I’m going up to the school newspaper office to write out some notices right now!”

“I’ll help you!” Juliette said. “Come on, everyone — we can write out the new rule sheet and the brochure!”

They all trooped up to the newspaper office, full of energy and excitement. “Hey!” Mitch said as they all sat down to work.
“What about our bike ride? Weren’t we going to go riding today?”

“It can wait till Wednesday,” Gail said, already starting to type at the computer keyboard. “We’ve got work to do!”

T
he Repairathon was put together in record time. When the club members went to Mr. Rivera with their plan on Tuesday morning,
he was thrilled and promised to help get the word out. They decided to hold the event a week from Saturday, to give people
enough time to hear about it. The Thursday edition of the school paper trumpeted the news as well.

When the day arrived, the entire school campus was given over to the big event. There was a table with free cookies and soft
drinks, a raffle to benefit trail repair, brochures about biking etiquette and safety, with a list of the club’s rules included,
and lots of other handouts, too. And there was a suggestion box for anyone who wanted to say their piece.

There were several attractions the club had planned for the big event. Since Ace had made himself
unavailable to do a biking demonstration, Gail and Will asked Julian to come and give a talk about how to keep a bike in good
repair. Julian also brought half a dozen beautiful bikes with him. Mr. Diamond had agreed to sponsor the event on condition
that some of his bikes were put on display.

Ace had objected, but his father had had the last word, saying that it would help sell bikes, and that was that.

A local rock band composed of eighth graders played songs about freedom and the open road. And the club members spent their
time talking to anyone they could collar about how great mountain biking was and how things were going to be different now
between bikers and nonbikers.

The Repairathon committee had added another event during the week as well: a trail litter pickup. The club members had let
everyone know that they were going out on their bikes the next day with plastic garbage bags, to pick up whatever trailside
litter they could find.

“How much have we brought in?” Will asked Danny and Gail. Over a hundred people had shown up for the Saturday event, and Will
thought that
each had contributed from two to ten dollars toward trail repair. Gail and Danny were counting up the money as the day’s festivities
were coming to an end.

“Let’s see,” Danny said. “Exactly four hundred twenty-two dollars and fifty cents!”

“Awesome!” Gail said, writing down the number. “Man, this is great — I can’t believe we didn’t think of doing this before!”

“We signed up five new members for the club,” Will informed them. “Juliette has the rule sheets they signed.”

“Cool!” Gail bubbled. “Hey, Will, when I graduate, I know who I’m nominating as club president. You!”

“Me?” he said, shocked. “I only started a couple months ago, and I’m not that good.”

“Who cares?” Gail asked. “Look how much you’ve brought to the club. We’re not hated by everybody anymore, we’ve got a bunch
of new members, we’re gonna have clean trails, and best of all, you brought us Danny!”

“Yeah,” Will agreed. “Once everybody saw that the writer of the petition was in the biking club, it kind of made people think
again about us.”

Danny beamed at them. “I can’t believe I hated mountain biking,” he said. “What a dork I was.”

“Nah,” Will said. “You were just misinformed — that’s all.” And the three friends shared a laugh.

Just then, Will spotted his parents over by the coffee machine the club had borrowed for the occasion. “Hey, Mom! Dad!” he
called out, waving. Turning to Gail and Danny, he excused himself, saying, “I want to go see how they’re doing.”

He ran over to where they were standing. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” he said. “Pretty amazing day, huh?”

“Son,” his father said, “we’re both so proud of you. You had a problem about what to do with yourself after school, and look
what a great solution you came up with!”

“I guess so,” Will admitted with a shy grin.

“Will,” his mother added, “I have to say, I never thought things would turn out so well. Congratulations, honey!” And she
gave him a big kiss on the cheek. Will was too happy even to wipe off the lipstick she left behind.

“And you know, Will,” his dad said, “your mom and I have been talking. We’ve decided that you
were right — we’ve been working too much and not spending enough time with you.”

“Aw,” Will said, “I didn’t mean to give you a hard time about that.”

“No, you were right,” his mother said. “We deserved it. So each of us is going to leave work early one day a week. That way,
you won’t have to spend afternoons in the library anymore.”

Suddenly Will realized that in the weeks he’d been mountain biking, he’d changed his attitudes. “I’ve actually come to like
the library, to tell you the truth,” he admitted. “Oh, don’t get me wrong — I’d rather spend the time with you guys. But I
really like reading now.”

“We noticed,” his dad said with a sly grin.

“Do you realize,” his mother asked, “that you haven’t watched TV or played a computer game in weeks?”

Will had to laugh, “No,” he said, looking around at all the new mountain bikes on display, “I guess I haven’t!”

Baseball Pals	Dive Right In
Baseball Turnaround	Double Play at Short
The Basket Counts	Face-Off
Body Check	Fairway Phenom
Catch That Pass!	Football Fugitive
Catcher with a Glass Arm	Football Nightmare
Catching Waves	The Fox Steals Home
Center Court Sting	Goalkeeper in Charge