Page 53 of A Shore Thing

“Britomart? Belphoebe. No, I’ve got it—La Belle Dame sans Merci!”

“Daisy,” blurted Muriel. She scowled with enough ferocity to preempt James’s smirk.

He smirked regardless, a well-satisfied smirk.

Thanks to his horseplay, her bicycle had a name. A non-poetical, non-warriorlike name that probably struck fear in Griffith’s heart. Fear that she’d plant herself in a field about five paces from the starting line, and that would be that.

She didn’t look at Griffith.

“Daisies are hardy,” she muttered. “They’re extremely reliable. Also, they’re quick. Quick to grow, I mean. Relatively speaking.”

James was nodding along. “Brilliant.” His lips twitched. “Now can I say upsy-daisy when you topple over?”

“I can’t see how you’ll refrain.” She marched up to him and stuck out her hand. “Sherry.”

He obliged her, and she wet her lips delicately, knowing the sherry was too rich to gulp. She’d underestimated her thirst. Her throat moved convulsively, and she tipped the flask again.

James eyed her with amusement.

“You should name your bicycle too,” he said, as Griffith came to stand at her throbbing elbow.

“Agreed,” Griffith drawled. “I’m thinking Vercingetorix. Or Buttercup.”

Muriel sputtered and had to wipe her mouth on her sleeve.

“Buttercup,” approved James. “And your bicycle club is…” He drew out the pause, grinning with anticipation. “The Flower Pedals!”

Muriel groaned, which made her battered ribs ache the more.

“Not another peep,” she commanded. “Unless I need a spoke surgically removed from my backside.” She slapped the flask into James’s hand.

“On second thought,” she added, “not even then.”

—

Another hour later, she was lying in a bruised, sweaty heap, a rock drilling into her hip. Her only consolation—other than the fact that she did not, yet, have a spoke embedded in her backside—was that she’d traveled an appreciable distance from the engine house before an instinctive zigzag around a stick had precipitated her doom.

She levered up, palms on the grass. Griffith was loping toward her.

The sound of a bell brought her head around.

A cyclist was spinning down the narrow road that wound past the farms. She pedaled smoothly, homespun skirt hiked to her knees, checked apron fluttering. A basket sat above her front wheel.

“Geddon, Kit!” she hollered as she flashed by, bright braids swinging across her back.

Muriel was still staring when Griffith dropped down beside her.

“Good form,” he said. “I’d say you went fifty yards.”

“She has good form.” Muriel turned to him, unable to grudge the girl her admiration, even as disappointment with her own progress weighed in her gut. “She’s a marvel.”

“Martha Curnow?” Griffith stretched out his long legs. “She is. She rides like a fish in water.”

“Whereas I ride like a fish on a bicycle.” Muriel made a face.

Griffith’s lips twitched. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

“You should have asked her.”