Orange Bike

When I was five I had a friend called Sebastian. He was a thin weedy looking five year old, taller than everybody else in our class and a little bit weird. He was always covered in mud, with bits of grass or leaves in his hair and usually had his pet frog, Toad, hiding in his pocket. Once, our teacher Mrs. Carr caught him putting Toad back in his pocket and Toad spent the rest of the day happily living in the old fish tank (we had previously had two fish named Heathcliffe and Mr. Darcy but Cathy Adams put paint in the tank and killed them). Sebastian spent the rest of the day crying.

On our way home on this particular day, escorted by my mother (on Wednesday, Sebastian came to my house; on Thursday I went to his), we had to stop by TESCO otherwise neither Sebastian nor I would have anything for our dinner. She knew that Toad had been to school with us on this day and so she made us wait outside, and I quote, “Because Imogen, TESCO has nice bread and I do not want it shut down because your bloody frog escaped Sebastian’s box.”

It wasn’t my bloody frog, it was Sebastian’s bloody frog but as such we had to stay outside. He took great offence claiming that Toad wouldn’t jump out and cause the shop to shut down. He had huffed greatly and the frog merely croaked from the little box Mrs. Carr had given him for the journey home with some damp paper. Suddenly he had jumped up (Sebastian, not Toad) and ran across the road to the other side - thankfully it wasn’t a busy traffic day because of the road works.

As I had joined him in front of the shop the pair of us had gazed through the window at the display of shiny bicycles stood in the middle of fake snow between two overly decorated Christmas trees whilst the window was rimmed with twinkling fairy lights. I had quite thought, at the time, that he was looking at the man dressed as an Elf but apparently he hadn’t.

“Look at that bike, Immy!” He had gasped, shoving his gloved finger against the window and pressing his face into the freezing cold glass as his big green eyes stared at the bicycle in front of him. “Immy look!”

It was nothing but your average push bike with gears and pedals but it was bright orange. I hadn’t been particularly impressed if I was being honest; I already had a bike, it was red and very muddy and it had those coloured beads all over the spokes of the wheels and a bell that didn’t work because Dad had broken it putting it onto the handlebars.

My mum came back and we had to go but when his mother had picked him up the first thing he asked her was if she thought Santa would buy him an orange bike for Christmas. On Boxing Day when I had gone round to show him my scooter he had sat on the drive way, miserable with his own new scooter and had looked up at me.

“I’m going to have that orange bike,” he had said. “I’m going to get that bike and then you’ll love me and we’ll go away on the orange bike together.”

That sentence had stayed with me for every Christmas after, all through primary school and all the way through secondary school. And yet fourteen years later he still had no orange bike. Oh he did own bikes, he had a Spiderman bike for three years and after that he had a proper mountain bike. He owned a car but that was silver and his scooter he had gotten when he was five had lasted till it had rusted, unlike poor Toad.

TESCO also had not shut down and Toad had entered that shop more times than my mother actually realised. In fact as I clocked off from my early morning shift in that very shop, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself quietly. Toad had never quite left us; he mated and since then lots of little Toads sprung forth. Since Sebastian (now fondly known as Seb because you’re head would probably be lopped off if you called him Sebastian) went off to university I wasn’t sure of what had come of the Junior Toad’s but I’m sure his cousin kept them well.

The bike shop was no longer opposite TESCO; it had since been a fried chicken shop, a squatters abode and now it was a travel agents. I didn’t linger because I wanted to go home and sleep; I hated early morning shifts, loathed them. I only had four more weeks to go though before I was back at university for my second year.

“Immy! Imogen! Im- oops, sorry.” Turning at the sound of Sebastian’s voice calling me, I saw him picking up potatoes that had scattered across the path and I laughed. At nineteen, Sebastian was still tall but he was no longer weedy; his teen years had been very good to him, filling him out nicely in all the right places and leaving him with extremely few spots. It was quite annoying actually because I got them bad and his skin was next to clear.

I waited whilst he returned the spilt potatoes to their owner before he grabbed off the floor a bike and pushed it out onto the disserted road out of pedestrians way. I felt my eyebrows disappear as my eyes widened beyond belief.

Sebastian was riding an orange bike.

“Look what I got Immy!” He yelled with delight. “I got my bike! I finally got it!”

“I’m not colour blind,” I laughed. “Where’d you get that from?”

“I sold my Wii,” he replied enthusiastically as he stopped at the side of the road by me. “I sold some other stuff too. I was going to buy some books for university but then I saw the bike in this shop and-”

“And you couldn’t help yourself?” I finished. “You’re so predictable Sebastian.”

He scowled and ground his teeth together; I smirked and ran my hand over the shiny orange frame. Finally he sighed and before too long there was a smile on his face; he didn’t protest when I slung my jacket over the handlebars but rode the bike at my side as I walked down the high street.

“You know what this means,” he spoke, “now I have this bike?”

I shook my head no and he grinned.

“You’re going to fall in love with me and we’re going to go away together.”

I chuckled and patted his cheek. “One thing at a time, dear.”