They came over and looked it all over and it was like old times again. Arn tried to spoil it by saying it was a junky make, but Mitch said it was pretty hot, and I liked him for that. They wanted to try it but there wasn’t time before the bell. I locked it and we all went into the school together, the five of us, like it used to be. I guess that was the longest school day there ever was. We agreed to meet out on Garden Road after school. I made a fast trip home and unloaded the books and went out there. It’s a good broad paved dead-end road without many houses. We did all kinds of things, trading off, and racing and so on, and mine turned out to be second fastest after Mitch’s. Bobby was sore about that, because he’d been second fastest. There was one thing — they’d all had a lot of practice and they could handle theirs better, but I knew it wouldn’t take but a couple of days to catch up, because I could always handle a bike better than the others and almost as good as Mitch.
I finally said I had to go and Bobby said to drive it over to his house after supper. I said I couldn’t. And they looked at each other and for a minute it was like I was out of the club again. We went barreling down Garden Road to Collier Street and they cut out into traffic, cutting it pretty fine so that people blared horns at them, but I had to stick to the curb like I promised, and they made a lot better time than I did. That made me sore, mine being the second fastest, but I’d sworn my word of honor and I just had to learn to like it.
You know how it is when people have secrets. They stop talking when you come around. And there’s a special way they look at you. We’d be in the school yard and Arn would say, “How about that guy last night? I never did see anybody so mad...”
And Mitch would say, “Knock it off.”
They wouldn’t look at me then, but I knew something was going on. There was still something I wasn’t part of. I tried to find out. Bobby said, “Come on along with us Friday night and see, Dave.”
But I couldn’t, on account of that promise. Just by having a motor scooter I’d gotten a little way back into the group, but I still wasn’t a part of it. I was a daytime part, but that wasn’t much good except on weekends, and it wasn’t too good then.
A funny thing happened. I was coming home from school and a prowl car stopped me. A fat cop made me give him my name and address. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t tell me. I was doing my homework that night when a different cop came to the house. He talked with Dad. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It made me nervous, even though I knew I hadn’t done anything. Then Dad called me in. They both stared at me as if I was some kind of a bug.
“David, have you ever taken that scooter out at night when your mother and I haven’t been home?”
“No sir.” I always use sir when he starts calling me David.
The cop said, “You can’t believe kids any more these days.”
I looked at Dad. I said, “I made a promise and I kept it.”
The cop got up. “Okay, sonny. There’s nothing I can do about it, but we’re looking for you and your pals, and people are getting sick and tired of this nonsense so you better not let me catch you out on that thing at night.”
Dad said, with his face getting red, “Don’t bully the kid. He doesn’t lie. I’m getting a little tired of your attitude.”
The cop gave a tired smile. “Sure. I hope he doesn’t lie. Thanks for your cooperation.” He left.
“What’s it all about?” I asked Dad.
“There’s a gang of kids on motor scooters who’ve been going around at night raising hell. Setting fire to palm trees, ripping down signs, smashing rural mail boxes, dumping over trash cans, tossing rocks through windows. Do you know anything about that, Davie. Do you know who they are?”
“No, I don’t.”
He looked at me for a long time. “If you did, you wouldn’t say so, and I suppose that’s okay. But don’t get mixed up in it. It could be bad.”
That was a Monday. The next day in the school yard I said, very casual, that a cop had been to the house.
“Mine too,” Bobby said, and he snickered. Then he made his eyes very round and made his voice higher and said, “Gee, officer, I don’t know anything about those boys. They must be terrible boys to do things like that. I’d be scared to do things like that.”
Arn laughed so hard he rolled on the ground.
“It is you guys, isn’t it?” I said. By that time I knew the answer.
Mitch looked at me in a hard way and then shrugged. “Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You come along some night and we’ll initiate you, Dave. You’ll have to learn to ride in formation. That’s tough, at night, wide open and about six inches apart. You pass that and maybe we’ll make you a member of the Night Raiders,” Del said.
“Don’t shoot off your fat mouth,” Mitch told him.
The bell rang then, and I was saved from having to tell them that I couldn’t go along. Arn walked in with me and said, half-whispering, “We’ve been hitting the beach houses.”
It all gave me a strange feeling. I wanted to go along to prove I wasn’t scared to go along, because I knew that’s what they were thinking. I had to make up a lie. I thought it up in history class. I told Mitch at lunch. I said, “I’d like to go along, but my father doesn’t want me driving it after dark, so he takes the key when he goes out.”
“That’s tough,” Mitch said.
It turned out that wasn’t a very good lie. Because the very next day Mitch asked to borrow my key. He pressed it hard into a little cake of soap and picked it out with his finger nail and gave it back to me. The next day in school he showed me the duplicate key. He’d filed it out of a key blank himself. He had a little file with him. It didn’t work when we tried it, but he filed it a little more and it worked as good as the one that came with it. Then he didn’t give it to me. He winked and put it in his pocket and said he was going to save it for emergencies. I had the feeling I was getting into something, and I didn’t know how to get out.
The next week Del said to me, in front of the others, “I heard my old lady talking to yours on the phone. Your folks are going to Lakeland overnight Thursday, aren’t they? And taking your kid sister and leaving you here?”
“That’s right. They didn’t want me to miss school. I’m staying alone.”
Del looked at Mitch. “Have things eased off enough by now?”
“Could be.”
They looked at me. “Old Dave is kind of pale, isn’t he?” Bobby said.
I knew they were nervous about it too, but they were making themselves feel big and brave by acting like I was chicken. Maybe I was. I know that all day Thursday I felt like the bottom was out of my stomach. In the morning when I had gone to school, I’d gotten all the usual orders and instructions about food, and what was where, and be good, and get to bed early and so on, because they would be gone when I got home from school. I kept wishing they’d have car trouble or something or other, and they’d be home when I got home from school.
But they had gone by then and the house was empty. My footsteps sounded too loud. I thought of a dozen things, like going alone to the movies and sitting right through until the theater closed, or like doing something to the yellow scooter so it wouldn’t run. But I didn’t do anything, and I couldn’t get the food down that they’d left me when it was time to eat. It got dark too fast and they didn’t come. They didn’t come for so long I decided they weren’t going to. And then after ten thirty I heard the motor sounds and they all came into the driveway.
I went out and Mitch handed me the key and said, “Let’s go, kid. If you still want to.”