Free The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher by Bill Harley Page B

time being, you may come in, although I, too, am quite strict, at least about who works with me. Children shouldn’t wander around without their parents’ permission.”
    “I told you, I don’t have any parents.”
    “Right. Right. Sorry to hear that. But for today—let’s see. Twenty-six by one and a half, that’s my guess. Come with me.” He turned and walked up the steps, across the back porch, and into the house.
    Darius took a deep breath and followed the strange and wonderful man inside.

10
Inside Daedalus’s House
    I nside the back door, Darius looked around. To his left he could see a kitchen, very simple and sparse, with dishes stacked in the sink. On the right was a small study. The shelves lining the walls were filled with books. Hundreds of other volumes stood piled on the floor and overflowed out into the small hallway.
    Directly in front of him Darius saw Daedalus standing by a narrow doorway. The old man flipped on a light switch and started down a flight of stairs into the basement. Darius followed him, marveling at all the drawings and photographs taped and thumbtacked along the staircase walls. Every picture, whether it was a snapshot or a drawing made by children’s hands, showed boys and girls smiling proudly beside their bicycles. He recognized Daedalus in many of the pictures.
    Darius stepped down into the basement and looked around in surprise. It was the exact opposite of what he had seen on the outside. The basement was an immaculate and perfectly organized bicycle workshop. The magical space held every kind of bike part imaginable, placed in the most orderly fashion. Front forks had been hung with care from a rack on one wall, along with seats and sprockets and frames. Deflated inner tubes of different sizes had been neatly draped over a series of nails inthe ceiling. Along another wall, clipped to a pegboard, was the most wonderful array of horns, lights, and bells Darius had ever seen. Above a long workbench against the far wall was another enormous pegboard covered with tools of every size and description. A bike stood on the workbench, half put together. Darius felt his body shake with excitement. He was sure he was dreaming.
    “Wow,” he said to himself, “this is bike heaven!”
    “The discardings of a careless world, my good man,” Daedalus said in a grand voice, “left for rag and bone pickers like me to save from the horrors of some gigantic landfill. Wasteful, wasteful! But then, it gives me something to do. I don’t make much money. But I need little. The less I have, the less I have to worry about.” Daedalus moved to the far corner of the workbench and turned on a radio. A man’s voice boomed out, hitting an exceptionally high note. “There!” shouted Daedalus. “My adjustments to the antenna were successful! Listen—it’s Puccini!”
    “I’ve heard of him,” said Darius. “My dad played opera for me all the time.”
    “Did he?” Daedalus asked enthusiastically. “What an excellent fellow!”
    “Yes,” said Darius, and for a moment, he could see his father in his imagination and hear the
ching ching ching
of the coins in his father’s pocket. Something about being in this basement made his father seem close.
    Daedalus turned off the radio. “Let’s see.” He reached up to a long rack of rims and sorted through them.
    “Twenty-six by one and a half, twenty-six by one and a half,” he mumbled to himself. Then he pulled off four or five rims and took down the one behind them.
    “Twenty-six by one and a half,” said Daedalus, handing it to Darius. “It’s a bit worn, but perfectly round.”
    “Thanks,” Darius murmured. “But I’m afraid I don’t have any money.”
    “Oh, fine,” laughed Daedalus, “another customer with no money!” He didn’t seem to be at all bothered that Darius couldn’t pay. “You hold on to that rim, my good man, while I finish a little job I was working on. In the meantime, feel free to look around.”
    Darius