Was It Mud? Jane Austen, Nancy Drew & Trixie Belden

He fixes another bike tire.

I was in the middle of Mansfield Park.  It was a cold, wet day and I didn't plan to go out.


When my husband suggested that we take a bicycle ride on the trail, I reluctantly closed my book.  Green fields and woodland scenes flashed past us as we rode, but I was musing about Henry Crawford, a rakish character who has announced his intention to win Fanny Price's love.


He told his sister a couple of chapters back:

"No, I will not do her any harm, dear little soul!  I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles as well as blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall be never happy again.  I want nothing more."

I was indignantly evaluating Henry's chances when my bike wheel began to roll  sideways in a squishy way. Was it mud?   

"I think it's flat."

"No, it can't be flat."


On Monday his tire was flat.  On Tuesday my tire was flat.  On Thursday his tire was flat.  Yesterday mine was flat.  

It takes him five minutes to fix it.  It takes me 12 hours. 


"There isn't any glass; it just seem deflated," he said.

It's a mystery.  It's been this way all week. 

"Maybe kids are going into the garage and deflating the tires."


"That would be a pretty tame crime."

Years of reading Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden made me a shamus.  Nancy or Trixie would find a forgery gang based in our garage, hiding the evidence of currency inside our inner tubes.  I think thieves were hanging out in Nancy's attic or Trixie's club house...or was that in a chalet on a ski trip?


In real life, we'll just keep our bikes on the porch for awhile.