A round house. A very important little wedge.
Not Quite Yet
Sol had brought three cups of tea when Ned asked everyone to stop moving.
Bea paused with one paw on the little bicycle at her workbench. Behind her, Jo stood holding a wheel.
Sol remained beside the round table, his tray level.
“Even me?” he asked.
“Especially the tea.”
Ned knelt at the entrance of the tyre house. His teal sleeves were pushed back, and a wooden mallet lay beside his knee.
He had come to collect the bread money before going to Pella’s bakery. At the threshold, he had noticed a small gap above one of the wooden wedges.
Then Jo had crossed the room with the wheel.
The spoons had given a little ring.
Before the Bicycle
Their workshop occupied the lower curve of an old tyre. A wooden floor ran across its base; shelves followed the round wall above it. Outside, stout wooden supports kept the whole place from remembering that it had once been meant to roll.
One wedge was no longer sitting snugly against the rubber.
Bea looked from it to the bicycle.
“I’ve only got the front brake to finish.”
Jo glanced at the wheel between his paws.
“And this to put back.”
For a moment, Bea kept her paw on the handlebars. The customer would be coming after breakfast. There was another repair booked behind it.
Ned ran one finger along the small gap.
“It moves when someone crosses.”
Bea let go of the bicycle.
“Then this comes first.”
She took the little Open board from its hook and laid it face down on the bench.
Sol looked towards the table.
“May I put these down?”
“Yes,” Bea said. “We’ll all put things down.”
Jo rested the wheel against its stand. Sol lowered the tray, and Ned moved back to give Bea room to look.
The Small Job First
Bea crouched beside the entrance.
The other supports were still in place. She checked them before coming back to the loose wedge.
“This one,” she said.
Ned picked up the mallet.
“Will you watch the floor?”
Bea went inside and stood near the table. Jo remained beside the bench, one paw resting on the wheel’s stand.
Outside, the mallet made a few small, solid knocks.
Sol sat on a stool and watched the tea.
The hanging lamp had stopped moving. A pale thread of steam rose from each cup.
Ned put the mallet down.
“All right?”
Bea crossed to the workbench, then came back.
Nothing shifted.
Jo lifted the wheel and took one step towards the bicycle. The spoons stayed quiet.
Bea returned to the entrance. Ned was running his paw along the wedge, checking the place where the gap had been.
She looked over it once more, then nodded.
“That’s the first job finished.”
From the table, Sol lifted a cup.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the second.”
Going Nowhere
Jo fetched his own mug from the shelf above the bench. Sol pushed one of the three waiting cups towards Ned and another towards Bea.
Ned sat with the mallet safely beside the doorway.
“Pella’s keeping the long loaf for us,” he said. “I should go before she sells it to someone taller.”
“She knows it’s ours,” Bea said.
“Does she know how hungry we are?”
Sol looked at the empty middle of the table.
“She may have guessed.”
They drank while the room stayed still around them.
After a little while, Bea rose. She returned the Open board to its hook and went to the bicycle. Jo brought the wheel across.
At the entrance, Ned picked up the small purse Bea had left for the bread and tucked it into his pocket.
Sol settled back on his stool.
“So we’re not going anywhere this morning?”
Bea looked at the solid floor, then at the bicycle waiting on her bench.
“That one can.”
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