The badger didn’t have a response to this; he seemed genuinely confused. Up ahead, a small group of teenage boys in the road stalled his progress.

“’Ey,” shouted one of the boys. “Not so fast, there, Citizen Badger.”

There were four of them, ranging in age from what looked to be fourteen to nineteen. They had typical teenage complexions—flushed and spotty—and they all wore identical caps with the visor knocked back. Cycling casquettes, Prue realized. Tricolored sashes—blue, yellow, and green—were draped across their chests, and on the lapels of their natty plaid vests they wore brooches similar to the one the badger wore: a single metal sprocket.

“Hello, lads, citizens,” said the badger cheerily—though Prue could detect a wariness beneath his happy tone. “You’ll be amazed to see—”

He was cut short; the youngest boy stepped forward and approached the rickshaw. “Where’s your brooch, citizen? You ain’t forgot to wear the badge, now have you?”

“N-no!” sputtered the badger. “Of course, I always wear the sprocket. With pride!” This accusation seemed to have put him off finishing his previous, interrupted proclamation.

“I see it, there,” said one of the other boys, chewing on a too-large bite of apple. “It’s on his coat, there.”

“Good,” said the youngest one, now within a few feet of the badger. “Nice to see the guy’s a patriot. Might want to wear it a little more conspicuously, though. You’re not ashamed of the sprocket, now are you?”

“Not in the least!” the badger complained. “The very opposite, in fact. I—”

“Shhh,” said the boy. “Don’t want to upset your passenger.” The boys had now taken an interest in Prue and were beginning to study her, hidden as she was beneath the drapery of the rickshaw’s dangling baubles.

“Actually, you’d be surprised to find—” began the badger, before he was again rudely interrupted.

“Citizen, stand down,” said one of the other boys. Prue looked closely and saw that he was swinging a bicycle chain.

Another observed, “A citizen in servitude. Carryin’ around some bourgeois too lazy to walk. I believe that’s a symptom of the old order, don’t you think?”

“Citizen,” responded the boy, referring to the other, “I believe you are right.”

“We all threw off the bonds of servitude,” said the boy with the apple in his mouth, “when the Bicycle Coup came.” He then referred back to the badger. “You may be a patriot, but you sure ain’t no revolutionary.”

Prue couldn’t stand it any longer; she was appalled by the boys’ bullying behavior. “Leave him alone!”

The boys froze; they stared at the figure in the back of the rickshaw. “Says who?” said one of the boys.

“Says the Bicycle Maiden,” said Prue, and she hopped from her seat to the road.

The boy eating the apple promptly spat out the white, globby contents of his mouth; the young boy by the rickshaw fell backward into the chest of his friend, and they both spilled out into the road, toppling comically to the gravelly ground. The fourth boy, who’d remained silent during the whole exchange, stumbled forward and addressed Prue in a startled and aghast tone: “You’re . . . her?”

“Yep,” said Prue definitively. “And I don’t really like how you’re talking to my friend the badger here.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” said the boy, swiping the casquette from his head and squashing it reverently to his chest. “It’s just that, these days . . .” His voice faltered. “You really are her? Like, from the songs? The real Bicycle Maiden?”

“It was a LeMond, actually. Red single speeder. My dad bought it for me for my eleventh birthday. Towed a wagon behind it. My brother, Mac, if you remember, started it all.” She waved her hand at the sky, as if to say: all of this.

The two boys who’d fallen had by now stood up and were approaching the rickshaw as if it were wired with explosives. They’d followed the example of the other boy and had removed their caps, holding them ceremoniously at their chests. “We had . . . ,” said one. “We had no idea!”

The badger s

tayed quiet, seemingly pleased by the turn of events.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” said Prue, “let this badger get on with his day; we’ve got some very sensitive information to deliver to the Mansion.” The words seemed to roll from her tongue. She liked being in this position: four boys trembling in her presence.

The oldest boy spoke up: “In fact, would you do us the honor of allowing us to escort you, personally, to the Mansion?”

“We’re Spoke Cadre Twenty-Four,” said one of the other boys. “Sworn to serve the revolution.”

It occurred to Prue that the boys had changed their attitude fairly quickly—what once was a ragtag group of snotty teenagers had suddenly transformed into a fawning clique; it was not becoming of a group of kids who were supposed to be representing the radical change that she herself had set in motion. “I’ve got a better idea,” she said.

And that was how four boys in bicycle caps and woolen vests ended up parading into the more populous part of South Wood as the yoked-up carriage horses to a brightly colored rickshaw with a girl and a badger as passengers.

Tags: Colin Meloy Wildwood Chronicles Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net