She zooms down the other side ahead of me, her hands high in the air. I let go of my handlebars. The bike picks up speed, and I feel the rush of air in my face. Not so long ago I was scared to ride no hands, but Skylar has made me more reckless. Not as reckless as she is, but more reckless than my mom thinks I am.

We stop to rest beside a street sign for Marie Drive. A dead-end sign leans to the left beside it, like it’s too tired to stand up straight.

“I’ve always wondered what’s at the end of a dead-end street,” Skylar says. “It’s kind of like a riddle.”

Even though my legs are tired and my T-shirt is soaked with sweat, I get back on my bike and follow her down Marie Drive. We cruise past a row of little ranch-style houses side by side, one after another, as tightly packed as a brand-new box of building blocks. Chain-link fences separate each green lawn from the one next to it.

It’s as ordinary as our neighborhood, I think, and even more boring because it’s so new and tidy and sort of unlived in. No one walks a dog. No kids play in the yards. No one mows grass or weeds the garden. All I hear is the hum of air conditioners. It’s weirdly quiet, almost like it’s under a spell.

I can’t imagine Slap Your Face living in a little brick house with flowers in the front yard. Or Jason or Carter either.

After we leave the ranches behind, the houses get bigger and older. Weeds grow in some of the yards. We’re in Slap Your Face territory for sure. I keep an eye out for her angry red face and squinty eyes, but all I see is a woman sitting on a porch. She watches us go by, as if she’s been waiting for us to come along and put on a show for her.

Skylar says, “Maybe we should entertain her with some wheelies.”

Dogs to beware of come out from under porches and hurl themselves against sagging chain-link fences. They snarl and bark and growl at us. We pump up speed and leave them behind, still barking. They look like the kind of dogs Carter and Jason might own—trained to kill.

At the bottom of a hill, we skid around a curve and Marie Drive turns into a rutted dirt road. A few houses, shabby and mysterious, hide way back in the trees. You can’t tell if people live in them or not, but if someone does, you might not want to meet them. Rusty mailboxes lean this way and that. Some hang open like nobody’s gotten any mail for a long time.