Trudy walked swiftly home from school, doing her best to avoid the puddles and mind her good shoes. They’d cost eleven shillings and sixpence, as her mother never tired of telling her, adding " I’m damned if I’m going to throw good money after bad if you can't take care of your belongings."
Reaching home, Trudy pulled open the side gate to the backyard to collect some newspaper from the small wooden shed to shove in her wet shoes. It was a trick taught to her by her grandfather to stop the leather from splitting.
The shed felt damp as she entered, the darkness inside broken only by the dim rays that fought their way through the scratched old panes of the small window, just managing to illuminate the eclectic collection of odds and ends her mother insisted upon keeping. "Keep a thing; its use will come’ she would say, but looking around her, Trudy couldn’t see much truth in this. What use was there for a two-legged chair, a bucket with a hole in it, or a chest of drawers with no drawers?
At seven years old, she thought herself almost grown, but she recalled many's the time her younger self would escape the storm raging inside the house and, secreted behind that drawerless chest, would ponder each abandoned item in turn, imagining how it had met its current fate.
Turning her attention to the pile of newspapers that almost hit the roof, she stood on tiptoe, reaching up as high as she could to grab at the top of the pile. The mountain teetered this way and that, and as she tried to steady it, it toppled over, papers flying hither and yon, to reveal a brand spanking new pink bike standing in the corner.
Unable to believe her eyes, Trudy reached out to touch it. She ran her fingers along the sleek metal frame, reading the words emblazoned on it. "Girl's Fun’ she mouthed silently, and she couldn’t help tipping the lever of the tiny silver bell just a little. BRRINNG BRRIING it went, making her almost squeal with delight.
With four whole days until Christmas, she didn’t know how she was going to make it without exploding with excitement. She could see herself sailing off into the far distance on her two wheels, beyond the housing estate and the convent, beyond the library, and all the way to the country. She’d never been there, but from the many books she’d read, she knew it was more peaceful, with sunshine, flowers, grass, and lots of birds and animals.
At last, the day arrived, and saw her creeping down the stairs at dawn before her parents awoke to find waiting on the table a small parcel in blue Christmas wrapping with a red bow and her name printed clearly in her father’s hand. She stared at it for a moment, puzzled, then opened it carefully to find Tressy. * Her hair grows short, long, or in between. Tressy's hair makes her a queen! *
She was simultaneously delighted and disappointed. Tressy was wonderful, but where was her bike? Perhaps her parents planned to give it to her later. After looking around her in case the bike had suddenly materialised, she tiptoed through the cold kitchen out into the yard and the darkness of the shed. Using the torch which hung on a hook by the door, she lit the space behind the paper pile, but the bike was gone. But where? Perhaps her parents had moved it, or maybe it had gone to the pawn shop. She’d once had a rocking horse that went there and didn’t come back again.
All day long she waited on tenterhooks, but ne'er a mention of the bike. Not that day nor any day.
When she thought about it in the years that followed, she wondered if she’d dreamt the entire episode, and it wasn’t until she found out, quite by accident, that her father had a second family with another daughter about her age, that she finally solved the mystery of the missing bike.
Posted in response to The Ink Well Prompt #9:Gift
The image is my own