The flat tire is patched, so Mitchell and Dudley ride to a wide drainage ditch outside Coffman’s Landing. Its bottom is dry, and its banks are gentle enough to ride down and climb again. To the boys, it is practically a bicycle park.
They begin measuring each other’s climbs by a clump of grass and then a pale rock. Mitchell fixes his eyes on getting higher than Dudley.
He doesn’t hear the truck on the gravel road beyond the far bank until Dudley warns him. When Mitchell finally sees it, he presses back on his pedals. His tire skids in the loose dirt, and he tumbles into the ditch.
The scrape on his knee will heal. The question about Dudley’s cousin—and the truck in that story—can wait until Cecil Boone opens his barbershop tomorrow.
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