Learning to ride a bike – William and Zach, by Courtney

The next morning, Mr. Tom went upstairs to wake up William but he was already up and dressed. They both went downstairs to drink some tea and eat breakfast. A few minutes after they had done, there was a knock on the wooden door. Mr. Tom walked away from the tub of heated water that he was washing the dirty dishes in and made his way to the wooden door. The door was knocked on again but this time it was louder, “I’m coming; I’m coming,” he muttered grumpily to himself.

The door had been swung open before the person could knock again.

“Hi Mr. Tom,” the visitor said to him. It was Zach.

Mr. Tom replied with, “What do you want?” as he looked down on the little boy.

“Is it ok if William comes out to play I want to teach him how to ride a bike on the field,” Zach said very confidently.

Mr. Tom looked back and called, “William, come here someone is here to play with you!”

William rushed to the front door. He was pretty surprised that someone actually came back to play with him. No-one ever liked him or said they did. Sometimes they would lie and say that they liked him but then never talked to him again or tried to avoid him.

“Ok you can go and have some fun,” he said to them.

“Ok, thank you Mr. Tom,” William replied politely.

William and Zack started walking to the field together, “but be back soon ok, it’s going to’ start getting’ dark soon,” Mr. Tom said just loud enough so they could hear him.

After about 7 minutes they finally got to the fence on the side of the field border.

Zach started to untie something from the fence.

“What’s that?!” William said in shock and confusion.

 “You’ve never seen a bike before…?” he questioned him.

“You ride it, do you want to learn how to?” he said with a big smile.

William was a bit scared of the bike.

“I-I would love to learn how to use it and I have never seen the bike….”

He looked at his shoes feeling embarrassed and tearing up. Feeling bad Zach was bright red, “I-its f-fine just don’t cry please…...,” he said trying to comfort him.

He got onto the bike and started to ride it around him in circles, “Look,” he said hoping it would cheer him up.

Willie wiped his eyes and smiled, “I wasn’t crying of sadness.”

“You weren’t?”  Zach said in relief.

“N-no I was j-just thinking about how you are such a good friend and that you actually came back to play with me today like you said you would…” he said with also a bright red face. Willie was thinking, ‘Why am I saying how I feel, I don’t think he wants to hear.’  

Zack was blushing and said, “W-well off course I would why wouldn’t I come back?” Zach turned away from him.

“Ok do you want to start to learn how to ride the bike then?”

“Can you stand on one leg and not fall over?”

“I-I don’t know I’ve never tried it…” Willie said to him.

“Try,” he said confidently.

William stood on one leg and after 7 seconds he fell onto the field.

“Good for a first try!” he said in shock he said this to make him feel better, 7 seconds isn’t that good but I can’t tell him that.

“R-really!” he said proudly.

“Here…” he held Williams hands.

“Try again.”

Zach’s hands felt so soft. As he was telling him tips William just about managed to hear them because he was wondering how he kept his hands soft.

Once again William stood on one leg and after a few minutes on each leg to warm up he let William hold on to his shoulders for about 20 more minutes. When William was holding his shoulders, he felt the jacket he was wearing it was almost as soft as his hands.

“Ok now try without my help,” he said to William.

He tried on his own and held it for 1 minute and 12 seconds although he was quite wobbly.

“Would you like to try the bike now?” Zach asked William.

“Sure,” he said.

Zach showed William all of the stuff he needed to know like how to stop, how to go and how to turn left and right.

He helped William get on to the bike.

“I will hold the side of the bike so you don’t tip over, ok,” he said to him.

William felt more comfortable that he heard that Zach will hold the bike for extra balance support.

“When you are ready you can start pushing the peddles on the bike.”

“Ok,” William replied.

He started to push the peddles and not long later her was moving quite fast.

 

“If he gets faster I will haft to let go…” he thought.

“but would he trust me still…?”

“Zach” William said.

“Yeah William.”

“You can let go now,” he shouted to make sure he could hear him.

Zach let go and William was doing fine.