Free The Nickum by Doris Davidson

fruitless; on one tip they found two wheels, tyres as flat as pancakes .
    ‘Och, the rubber’s fair perished,’ Malcie exclaimed, ‘they’re nae use.’
    Willie was not discouraged. ‘We’ll mebbe get better tyres someplace else,’ he crowed.
    And so they took the wheels back and hid them in one of the outhouses he knew his father never used, shoving them under a piece of old tarpaulin covering something at the very back. ‘It’s a frame, Malcie,’ shouted Willie, almost jumping his own height with joy. ‘I never ken’t that was there.’
    Over the next few weeks, taking them well into 1932, their pilgrimage spawned most of the other parts Willie needed. The final item eluded them for six further weeks, but at last, on top of a dump they had searched in months earlier, they found the handlebars. The two boys couldn’t get back quickly enough to start assembling their trophies, doing their best to keep their activities hidden from Willie’s mother and father.
    Jake, of course, whose own search for parts had come up with nothing more than his initial find, decided that he had wasted his time and would be best to throw it on a tip somewhere. When he went to retrieve it from his outhouse, he was astonished to find a bicycle under construction, but decided to keep the boy’s ploy secret from his wife.
    Keeping a lookout for his son going to school the following morning, he called him over to the paling he was repairing. ‘I see you’ve got the makin’s o’ yer bike,’ he began. Willie waited for the row he was sure would come, but his father went on, ‘You’ve done real weel, son, but I think ye’d best let me tighten up the screws and things for you.’
    ‘Was it you that got the frame?’ At his father’s smiling nod, he added, ‘You see, Dad, I want to be able to say it was just me an’ Malcie Middleton that did it.’
    Jake guffawed. ‘Weel, I’m real prood o’ you, lad, but mind an’ tighten every screw as far as it’ll go.’
    ‘We’ll mak’ sure o’ that, Dad, dinna worry.’
    It was a good three weeks before the two boys were satisfied that their creation was roadworthy and started going for cycle runs together. Knowing how reckless her son was, Emily wasn’t too happy about him being let loose on a vehicle he’d made himself, but he was a big laddie now, nearly as big as Jake, so she resolved to stop being over-protective. He wouldn’t listen to any of her fears in any case.
    She soon discovered that he was much more amenable to being asked to go to the shop in the village for anything she needed, and was there and back in less than thirty minutes. With little thought to his safety on such a rickety contraption, she sent him on all sorts of errands – although the first time she asked him to take her usual three dozen eggs to the village shop to be sold – the grocer’s van had stopped coming some time ago – she was a wee bit worried about the safety of the eggs. But there had been no complaint from the shop and it became a regular task for Willie every Friday.
    She felt strangely pleased with him now. As she observed to Connie one day, ‘What a difference that bike’s made to him. I can depend on him now, for he’s not as daft as he used to be.’
    Connie nodded. ‘You were aye too hard on hm. He wasna as bad as you made out.’
    ‘I suppose you’re right, lass, but … well, a leopard never changes its spots, as it says in the good book. I just wonder, though …’ Shaking her head, she broke off.
    Glad of the chance to air her little piece of good news, Connie said, hesitantly, ‘Gordie’s asked me to his house for my supper the morra. He says it was his mother’s idea.’ Emily’s expression made her add, hastily, ‘I think he’s serious about me, Mam, and I’m serious about him.’
    ‘Are you sure he’s the lad for you, lass?’ Emily had never taken to Gordon Brodie. He was too full of his own importance, and had treated Jake and her like dirt the few times