“Where are your houses?”
“I’m right there,” Trevor said, twisting and pointing at the last house on the street. “Pigeon lives on the other side of the circle.”
“And I live across the creek,” Summer said.
The bottom curve of Monroe Circle had no houses. Instead there was a paved jogging path, beyond which a brushy slope descended to a creek lined with trees and shrubs. From where they were standing, Summer could see the roof of her home.
“Do you surf?” Pigeon asked.
Summer rolled her eyes. “Just because he’s from Southern California doesn’t make him a surfer.”
“I tried it once,” Nate said. “I kept wiping out. My uncle surfs a lot. What do you guys do for fun besides ride bikes?”
“We’ve got a club,” Pigeon said.
Summer glared at him.
“What kind of club?” Nate asked.
Pigeon squinted uncertainly at Trevor. “We’re still working on that,” Trevor said.
“We started as a detective agency,” Summer explained. “We sent out flyers, but nobody wanted to hire us, except for Pigeon’s mom who sent us to buy groceries. So we became a treasure-hunting society. We didn’t have much success with that either. Now we’re mainly a trespassing club.”
“Trespassing club?”
“We sneak into places,” Summer said.
“Like where?”
“We broke into a water-processing plant,” Trevor said.
“And a rich guy’s barn,” Pigeon added.
“Do you take stuff?” Nate asked.
“No way!” Summer said. “We don’t harm anything. We just sneak in, check things out, and take off.”
“And keep an eye out for treasure,” Pigeon added.
“That sounds really cool,” Nate said. “How do I join?”
“I don’t know,” Summer said. “We’re pretty selective.”
“Let me guess,” Nate said. “Nobody has ever tried to join.”
“Something like that,” Summer admitted. “We need to figure out the specifics. We can’t just let any random kid become a member. Why don’t you go back to your house for a while and let us talk things over.”
“For how long?” Nate asked.
Summer shrugged. “Come back in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay.”
*****
“Back so soon?” his mom asked when Nate entered the kitchen from the garage. She was loading dishes from a box into the dishwasher.
“Yeah.”
“Did you talk to those kids?”
“They have some club, but they’re not sure if I can join.”
His mom put her hands on her hips. “Do you want me to go talk with them?”
“No!” Nate exclaimed, feeling a surge of genuine alarm. Then he saw that his mom was grinning. She was teasing. “I think they’re trying to make up an initiation.”
“Don’t eat anything unsanitary. What sort of club is it?”
“Mainly bike riding,” Nate said, plopping down in a chair at the kitchen table. He pushed aside a box and began flicking a quarter to spin it, periodically checking the digital clock on the microwave.
“Are the kids nice?” his mom asked, closing the dishwasher.
“I guess. One is called Pigeon. He seems like a wuss. There’s also a kid named Trevor who seems all right, and a girl named Summer who’s a real comedian.”
“Don’t tell me she was giving you competition.” His mom pressed a couple of buttons and started the dishwasher. “So why are you in here?”
“They said they need time. I’m supposed to go back after I give them a few minutes to decide what I need to do to join.”
“Does the club have a name?”
“I forgot to ask.”
*****
After about ten minutes, Nate rode down the street to the end of the circle where the kids stood by their bikes. Summer had short brown hair and scabs on one knee. Trevor had olive skin, dark hair, and a slim build. And Pigeon was chubby with his hair buzzed short. How could such an obvious doofus be part of a club he was having trouble joining?
“You still want to join?” Summer asked.
“What are you guys called?”
“The Blue Falcons,” Summer said.
“Come on, that sounds like a soccer team.”
“You want in or not?”
“I guess.”
“Follow us.”
They hopped the curb and rode a short distance down the jogging path, stopping at the top of a steep slope covered in dry brush. Near the bottom of the slope, just before the ground leveled out, a ramp had been constructed. “You have to take that jump going full speed,” Summer said.
“Whatever!” Nate exclaimed. “I’m not a stunt man. What are you planning to do, rob my corpse?”
“I’ve done it,” Summer said. “We need to know you’re serious about joining. If you do the jump, we’ll believe you.”
“You just want a free show at my expense. That has got to be the most rickety ramp I’ve ever seen!”
“The ramp is fine,” Summer assured him. “It’s wood propped up on bricks. And I jump it just for fun.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Sure you do.”
“She’s done it more than once,” Trevor said.
“And I’m supposed to believe Pigeon jumped it?”
“He doesn’t need to,” Summer said. “He got in on the ground floor.”
“Lucky for the ramp. Fine. You say you jump it for fun, go ahead and do it again so I can see. If you land it, I’ll do it too.”
They all looked at Summer. She pressed her lips together. “Okay. But if I do it and you wimp out, you’re never in our club.”
“Deal.”
She turned her bike to face downhill. Showing no hesitation, Summer started pedaling. Nate frowned. He had dug himself into a serious hole. If he wussed out after a girl did the jump on her goofy pink bike, he would look like the biggest chicken in the world.
She gained speed, approaching the ramp in a rush as her bicycle rattled over the uneven terrain. Just before the ramp, her front wheel jagged sharply to the left, and the bike flipped over, catapulting her into an awkward flight. Summer tumbled through the brush until she came to a rest beside the splintery ramp.
Dropping their bikes, the boys dashed down the hill. Nate and Trevor reached Summer together. She stared up at them, flat on her back with her head pointed downhill. Her white shirt was torn and covered in stickers, her face was smudged with dirt, and her elbow was scraped and bleeding. But there were no tears in her brown eyes.