Keith was trying to see the bright side of the situation, but there wasn't a whole lot of that to see. He had at least managed to place most of his own clothes that needed washing on top of the laundry pile, so his grandmother's flowery dresses and (eeew!) underwear were tucked further down in the basket, largely out of sight. And, he admitted to himself resignedly, this was still a preferable activity to hanging around his mother's house and getting yelled at by his step-father for every little thing. Still, the boy was in a grim mood.
Then he looked up and saw someone coming the other direction, who honestly didn't look much happier. This was a little surprising, since the person coming the other direction was Keith's best friend Martin, who usually was a very upbeat and chipper youngster. Martin was on his bicycle, but somewhat incongruously dressed in clothes better suited for Sunday morning church services. Long-sleeved white shirt, dark trousers, and his hair was ridiculously neatly combed.
Martin saw Keith and brightened just a bit. "Hey, Keith!" Martin stopped the bike next to his friend.
"What's with the formal wear?" asked Keith. Then he sniffed the air. "And why do you smell like room freshener spray?"
Martin groaned. "My Aunt Matilda. She hasn't visited in like three years, so my mom wanted everything to look special for her visit. Including me."
"And smell special, apparently." added Keith, trying not to laugh.
"No, that was HER." said Martin. "I think she weighs about 300 pounds and she took one look at me and said, 'What a BIG boy you are! and started kissing me! Gross!"
Keith did his best not to laugh. He knew the type of relative Martin was describing. He didn't have any such aunts himself, thank goodness, but he knew a few other kids who did. "Does your mom know you ducked out dressed like that?"
"Yeah," said Martin. "I ran into the kitchen when she started kissing me. I couldn't get up to my room without getting past HER, and Mom saw I wasn't too happy. So she said I could go ride my bike around for a few hours as long as I was careful not to get these clothes too dirty. So what about you?"
"Our washing machine is broken." explained Keith. "My grandma's sending me to that laundromat at the edge of town. You can help, if you want."
Martin chewed his lip. "Um, how?"
"You've got a bike." said Keith. "I can get there a lot faster on that than walking. If you let me ride the bike, you can ride on the handlebars or something, and we can tie the skateboard with the laundry basket to the back of your bike."
Martin pondered this idea for a minute. "Are you sure you can keep the bike balanced with me on it?"
"It's not that far to go on the bike," said Keith. "I'm sure I can manage it."
"Well… okay." Martin hopped off the bike and helped Keith tie the skateboard to the back of it.
"By the way, how'd your hair get so wet?" asked Keith.
"Oh, I forgot about that." said Martin, as they headed back to the bike. "Mom slicked it back so I'd look neater. It's just water. I guess I thought it'd've dried off by now."
"In THIS summer's humidity?" remarked Keith.
Martin then shook his head several times rapidly, spraying water on Keith. "Thanks a lot. You get that idea from that mutt of yours?"
"Oops, sorry," said Martin. "But how does my hair look now?"
Keith tried not to laugh. By shaking his head, Martin had gotten a fair amount of the water out of his hair, but his hair had also stuck up in every direction as a result, "Like you stuck your finger in an electrical outlet."
Martin's eyes went wide, and he patted down his hair with his hands a bit. "That's better," said Keith. "Almost normal. Now climb on and let's go."
It was relatively slow going. Balancing Martin on the bicycle was more difficult than Keith had expected. Though the younger boy was almost one foot smaller, Keith has underestimated his weight on the front wheel so that steering the bike became a surprisingly tough job. And since Martin's bike was a bit smaller than Keith's as well, its seat was so low that Keith had some problems looking past the slightly wet head that was swaying before his nose. While pedaling slowly he passed the time by describing the laundromat to Martin, who had never been there. Keith had only been there once before, about a year ago, when the same thing had happened. His grandmother's washing machine had broken down. The place was run by this old guy who actually lived in an apartment in the back. It was fully automated, so he hardly ever even bothered to come out to the counter area. There was a small arcade in the back. The laundry machines were surprisingly state-of-the-art, but the arcade was ancient. The games all still worked, though.
Keith couldn't see much more than the sidewalk and the middle of the road left and right of Martin's head, but this was still enough to find their way to the laundromat. At least he thought so. But then disaster struck. All of a sudden the front wheel ran into a pothole that was filled with dirty water. Keith had mistaken it for nothing more than a small puddle, but it was deep enough to unbalance the overloaded bike instantly. Keith felt the handlebars slipping through his fingers and ramming into his stomach while at the same time the seat under his butt lifted and chucked him out. He flew through the air and landed half on Martin, half in a rather cold and soft material just to the side of the road. It was a large, dirty, and somewhat thick puddle … half-water and half-mud, leftover from a recent thunderstorm.
Squirming to regain his footing, Keith stood up. Besides the fact that the handlebars had hit him and that one half of him was soaked with dirty water, he wasn't hurt. But Martin still lay face-down in the puddle, stunned. With a concerned look Keith bent down to his friend and touched the boy's shoulder. Finally, Martin lifted his head, dripping with dirty water and mud, and after a moment of silence he began to cry.
"Are you okay?" asked Keith and tried to find out if Martin had suffered any injuries.
The small boy took a deep breath just to cry out: "Noooo!"
Carefully, Keith dragged his friend out of the puddle and pulled him up to his feet though Martin was almost too upset to stand. "I mean, are you hurt or something?" he asked the crying boy.
"Noooo!" answered Martin with the same deep breath. "But… look!" He spread his arms a little and looked down himself. His formerly white shirt was greyish-brown. splattered with mud and dirty water, his dark pants were similarly splattered, they just didn't show it as much. "My mom's gonna kill meeeee!"
"It was an accident," said Keith. "And I don't see your mom killing much of anybody." Keith said it gently. Martin's parents were the kind of parents Keith wished he had. They doted on the boy almost to excess. Martin, in turn, did everything he could within reason to behave, but was also terrified of getting out of line. Though Keith was sure that his friend wasn't in too much trouble, he still felt guilty about the mishap. It had been his idea to ride the bike as they had, and Keith should've noticed at the outset that they were misbalanced.
"What do we do now?" cried Martin.
"Um… I think there's probably a way to fix this mess", Keith said after a moment of thinking. "I mean, we're heading for a laundromat. We have detergent and we have money."
They reached the laundromat about ten minutes later. It was a huge place, really the only laundromat in town, and it had literally dozens of machines. Martin was protesting. "Keith, I don't understand. How are we supposed to wash the clothes we're wearing! We don't have anything else to wear!"