It was just some random saturday in the middle of the summer. Around August. But, I had nothing to do, so my brother and I decided to go hang out with our cousins. At their house. Like every other time, we did dumb stuff. Nothing special. It was getting dark soon, so we had the idea of going on a bike ride. I thought it was a bit odd, but I did not mind the idea. I don’t know why. But we did. We all went together, Erik, Patryk, Adam, Alex, Jakub, and I. We all went to the shed to pick out the bikes we were going to use. We found 5 bikes, but we needed six. The only bike left belonged to Patryk’s friend, Connor. He left it there because he was too lazy to bike home.(and he left specific instructions that no one could ride it. It was a GT Zaskar) Since we only had 5 bikes, my cousin Adam, the only one without a bike, took his. We were biking to this placed known as the Nike Site. We stopped off at Patryk and Adam’s cousins house to see if they had a bike to use, so we wouldn’t have to use Connor’s. They did not have any bikes, and right when we were about to leave, Patryk got a facetime call from Connor. Connor asked what we were doing. Patryk informed him about the bike ride. He asked if anyone was using his bike. Patryk said maybe. Then Hung Up. We then departed down towards our destination. We planned on biking on the trails that were near there. (It was mostly used for ATVs and Dirt Bikes.) Once we got there, Patryk got another facetime call. It was Connor. He asked who was on his bike, he knew what was going on. Patryk showed Adam on his beloved bike. Connor was furious. He told us that he was going to round up his friends and that they were coming to hunt us down on dirt bikes and Atvs. They threatened to run us over if we did not surrender the bike. So, we biked farther into the Nike Site. We found a place to hide, which was behind a shipping container. I sat there thinking about the purpose of this. The buzzing of the mosquitos helping me lose my train of thought. The smell of fresh chopped weeds. The red summer sunset. It all reminded me. It was summer, I don’t have much time left before school. It is time to have fun. We weren’t going to give up the bike without a fight.

“Patryk, come on. It’s so boring.” I said.

“No, we can’t get caught.”

“Come on Patty, PLEASE!”

I used the nickname “Patty for him all the time. Usually when I wanted something from him.

“Ok, I’m going.” Jacob responded.

“Then we’re going together.” I said

“Fine” Patryk agreed.

We were then our our merry way.

Our plan was to bait them into getting off their ATV. So one of us could hop on and take it. We got Erik and Adam to set up. It was going well, until one of Connor’s henchmen ran back and pushed Adam off the ATV. Adam decided to leave the bike, and Connor’s friend took Adam as a hostage, with the growling of the ATV being our only sign. We were down one person. Erik had no choice, he had to run. Run with the bike. We had to call Patryk’s dad to pick up the bike. He was baffled when he figured out the situation. We brought the bike back. And set out to find Erik. (When we went home, Jakub’s parents were there to take him home.) We were down another person. Once we got to the road that the nike site was on, we saw Erik sprinting towards us from the woods while breathing heavily. Once he got to us he was out of breath. hE told us that he ran off and hid the bike in a ditch. He then ran through people’s backyards. He stood on the outskirts of an Elementary School. He was laying in the woods. When a car stopped and a person got out and ran towards him. She was rustling through the woods. 1 foot away from his hiding place.

At this point, I thought Erik had lost his mind. Like he was on drugs or something.

Once the girl ran off, erik saw us at the end of the road, and ran towards us. When we were at the house Patryk got his moped because he was tired of biking. Erik Hoped on. We were on our way to bring the bike back without getting spotted. It was a dark and we were flying down the road. Erik and Patryk completely relaxed but Alex and I were pedalling like an olympian on a elliptical. We were just a few blocks away from where Erik left the bike.

“Over here.” I heard Erik yell.

I slid my back tire to a stop and Erik jumped into the ditch while waving for me to join him.

“Follow me John, I need your help getting the bike out.

I jumped into the ditch without hesitation. I grabbed the handlebars while Erik grabbed the seat, and we slowly lifted the bike out. Erik got on right away, and we were on our way to Connor’s house to drop it on his front lawn.

The first mile was smooth and silky. But once we got onto his road is when it went bad. As we were biking down that road, we heard the roar of an engine and headlights coming up over the hill ahead. It was Connor and his friends. Erik jumped off the bike and brought it over the rock wall that just happened to be where we stopped. He lay in the bushes just 2 feet away from me.

Connor’s Crew arrived. Adam was sitting on the back of Connor’s Polaris Scrambler.

“You have my bike and I want it and whoever has it.” Connor said.

“We have Adam, so we know someone else has it.”

“We are out looking for him too, We saw him go the way we came. But, we went this way because we were going to bike on the trails.” I replied

We obviously knew that Erik was 2 feet away. But, we were thinking of his safety. We knew Connor had a knife and we knew he wasn’t afraid to use it. They went the way we pointed and we biked on suspecting nothing to happen. But, like usual we were wrong. They were all right behind us yet again.

“There is no way he could have possibly went that way, it is a dead end.” one of Connor’s friends said.

“Then follow us and we will all look for him.” I replied.

This idea was risky but it was all I could manage to squeeze out of my mouth. Since they were on ATVs, they flew by us right away. This was perfect for us. So we ordered Erik to bike close to the woods just in case we had to pull our previous maneuver again. We biked all the way down to Connor’s house and hid the bike in the darkness of his front lawn. Erik got onto the back of the moped and we pulled out of the driveway.

“It should be smooth sailing from here.” Alex said

We all nodded our head towards him in a “yes” motion. But, our sailing wasn’t so smooth after a few minutes. The gang was back, and they were coming in hot.

“Ok, this is it. I want my bike and I want it now.” Connor said.

“Please, don’t hurt any of us. We got a call and he is at your house. Go get him.” Patryk said.

Right when they heard those words, they hit the gas and headed towards their house.

Once we saw that they were out of view we pedalled as hard as we could. Then we finally got home and we were all safe. Or so we thought.

After about 30 minutes of waiting for Adam, we saw a ATV pull up and he got off. Adam came running and the kid on the ATV left. Just a few seconds later, we got a phone call.

“I see you left my bike at my house, this will not go unforgiven. You better watch out.” He said.

Now we look out, or Connor will come.