Hey, I know I don’t have a licence. But if Dopey can do it . . .

OK. So I chickened out. Look, isn’t it better I chose not to drive? I mean, not knowing how and all. Not that I don’t know how. Of course I know how to drive. I just haven’t had a whole lot of practice, having lived all my life in the public-transportation capital of the world . . .

Oh, never mind. I turned around, and started heading for the garage. There had to be a bike around somewhere. Three boys, right? There had to be at least one bike.

I found one. It was a boy’s bike, of course, with that stupid bar, and a really hard, really skinny seat. But it seemed to work all right. At least the tyres weren’t flat.

Then I thought, OK, girl dressed in black, riding a bike on the streets after midnight, what do I need?

I didn’t think I was going to find any reflective tape, but I thought maybe a bike helmet might do the trick. There was one hanging on a peg on the side of the garage. I put down the hood of my sweatshirt, and fastened the thing on. Oh, yeah. Stylish and safety conscious, that’s me.

And then I was off, rolling down the driveway – OK, gravel is not the easiest stuff to ride a bike on, especially going downhill. And the whole way turned out to be downhill since the house, looking out over the bay, was perched on the side of this mountainy kind of thing. Going downhill was certainly better than going uphill – there was no way I was ever going to be able to ride back up this thing; I had a pretty good idea I’d be doing some pushing on my way home – but going downhill was pretty harrowing. I mean, the hill was so steep, the way so twisty, and the night air so cold, that I rode with my heart in my throat practically the whole time, tears streaming down the sides of my cheeks because of the wind. And those potholes—

God! Did that stupid seat hurt when I hit a pothole.

But the hill wasn’t the worst of it. When I got down the hill I hit an intersection. This was much scarier than the hill because even though it was after midnight, there were cars there. One of them honked at me. But it wasn’t my fault. I was going so fast, because of the hill and all, that if I’d stopped I’d probably have gone right over the handlebars. So I kept on going, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a pickup, and then, I don’t know how, I was pulling into the school parking lot.

The Mission looked a lot different at night than it did during the day. For one thing, during the day the parking lot was always full, packed with cars belonging to teachers, students, and tourists visiting the church. The lot was empty now, not a single car, and so quiet that you could hear, way off in the distance, the sound of waves hitting Carmel Beach.