Girl Bikes
By Avery Kaplan
We were unleashed upon the neighborhood at age ten. Katie and I had gotten bikes for Christmas. They were Goodwill bikes, kind of rusted and Katie’s made a whining noise as she peddled. They sat in our garages until the second half of fourth grade thawed into summer. The frozen grass in our midwestern neighborhood melted and softened and later it burned in the afternoon sun.
We would meet in front of my house in the afternoon. Katie lived two blocks away. Every time I saw her peddling over the hill and down my street towards me, I’d wave both hands wildly at her.
At first, we pedalled around the block, raced down some hills. This was fun for a while but it was not ultimately satiating.
Soon we were joined by other neighborhood girls, some with girl bikes decorated with streamers flying from their handlebars and baskets full of treasures like little ratted-hair dolls or smooth rocks of an interesting shape. They were the kind of bikes Katie and I always wished to have instead of the hand-me-down kinds we owned.
Many of the girls would come and go depending on when and if their parents let them out unsupervised for long hours. There were often other girls with us but Katie and I stuck together most of all. We didn’t say it, but we were the ones whose parents weren’t calling us home for dinner, filling our stomachs with warm food.
As the summer droned on, we got tired of aimless peddling.
It started with a rock thrown at a wheel. It bounced off and made this great clanking sound. We threw more rocks, in ponds, at trees, at animals crossing our path. We started waiting for the preschoolers to get off the school bus and circled them on our bikes, taunting and closing in–but always letting them go. We liked to feel rebellious, a force to be reckoned with.
We started riding through the woods, tearing our exposed skin on branches and dirtying our bikes with mud. We rode to the creek and stripped off our clothes except for our underwear and training bras. Jumping into the cool water, we left our Sketchers and denim shorts and T-shirts on the rocky shore.
Katie and I wore matching best friend necklaces made with fraying thread that stuck to our necks when we got wet. We’d wade in the shallow water and pull the strings back so the half-heart charms rested on our prepubescent chests. We splashed each other and kicked our legs in the murky pond-water.
All of us girls felt bonded irrevocably by our rebellions. So, one evening as the sun was setting, we stood by the creek and held the sharpest rock we could find. We took turns pressing it against the pads of our index fingers until a dot of blood bloomed. And then we pushed our hands together, mixing the blood around. We were excited by the idea of dirty things. We were hoping someone might ask us how we got hurt. We were blood sisters.
And then the bad thing happened.
One day, Katie didn’t come by my house like she always did. I tried to call her landline with a number I found in the school phone book but no one answered. When I biked by her house no one answered and when I biked by her house again, Katie’s mom said Katie wasn’t feeling well.
I had nothing to do but ride my bike with the other neighborhood girls. But it never felt the same. I guess it was just something to do to pass the time. Or it was something we did because we always did it and if we stopped, we would have to ask ourselves why.
When classes started in the fall, kids started calling Katie a slut because someone had seen her with a bunch of boys near the woods. Kids said that she was dirty and she had done it.
She looked different, kind of older.
Now when I ride past Katie’s house, her bike is on the front lawn like always but the handlebar is sinking into the earth, the ground is swallowing it up slowly, pulled by grabbing weeds.
THE END
Author Bio: Avery Kaplan is a recent graduate of Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in Creative Writing. Her work has been featured in The Bell Tower Literary Magazine and she is excited to pursue a master’s degree in Creative Writing in Fall 2026.