Evans to Betsy Read Online Free PDF

well get it over with and take a look at it. He couldn’t understand why he had such a negative feeling about motorbikes. He had never owned one. None of the friends of his youth had ever owned one either. So why was he so sure he’d hate riding one? It wasn’t the cold and rain in his face that was worrying him. Anyone bred in the Welsh mountains was used to cold and rain in their faces. He’d had plenty of experience of it in his life waiting for school buses or playing rugby. And he never even minded the weather when he was hiking or climbing. It had to be something more than that … . Evan racked his brains. He had never been a speed freak, but then he’d never been too worried by speed either. An image came into his head of a motorbike leaning over at an impossible angle as it rounded a sharp curve. When had he ever seen …

    Then all at once it came back to him. He was on holiday with his parents on the Isle of Mann and they had gone to watch the motorcycle grand prix race held there every year. Evan couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time. He remembered climbing up on the fence to see over. The bikes had flashed past, engines screaming, going so fast that they were a blur of bright color. He’d thought it was the most exciting thing he’d ever seen. He couldn’t wait to get home to his new two-wheeler and pretend that it was a motorbike. Then it had happened—one of the bikes took the bend too fast. It was leaning at an impossible angle, the rider’s head only inches from the tarmac. It had been raining and the surface was slick. Suddenly the motorbike was over and sliding into the other bikes. There was a horrible crunch of metal and then a great ball of flame shot up. Evan didn’t think that anyone had actually been killed, but the image was still sharp and clear in his mind. He heard his mother saying, “Promise me you’ll never ride one of those dreadful things. Promise me.” And he had promised.
    She had made him make similar promises about anything that frightened her, and extracted similar promises from his father too. But it hadn’t done any good. His father had promised, over and over, that he would be careful and yet he had fallen in a hail of bullets one night, trying to intercept a drug transaction.
    Evan hoped his mother had forgotten about the grand prix incident, but he didn’t think she would have. He’d have to remember not to mention the motorbike in their weekly phone conversations.
    His new machine, with four others, was standing in the garage, next to a dismantled squad car. It didn’t look nearly as big or impressive as Evan had feared. It was a lightweight contraption with big, knobbly tires. He let out a sigh of relief.
    A head poked out from under the squad car and Dai, the mechanic, emerged. “Hello, Constable. It’s Evans, isn’t it? Come for your bike then?”
    “I just came to take a look at it today. I’m supposed to sign up for training before I’m allowed to ride it.”
    “Oh, there’s nothing to it,” Dai said, grinning. “Any ten-year-old could ride this bike. It couldn’t go fast if it tried. Made for off
road, really, like all the farmers have around here for rounding up their sheep. See the big tires. You’ll be able to take it up to the top of Snowdon if you’ve a mind to. Ever ridden one before?” Evan shook his head. “Go on then. Hop on and get a feel for it. I’ll run you through the basic controls. After that there’s nothing to it. You could take it out for a spin today if you wanted.”
    Evan climbed onto the bike. It was small and compact, a pony not a race horse. “You switch on here,” Dai said, “and your throttle is there on your handlebar. Go on, try it.”
    As the machine sputtered into life, Evan was conscious of two figures standing in the garage doorway.
    “Would you take a look at that, Glynis?” Sergeant Watkins said, grinning to his partner. “It’s King of the Road. Don’t tell me that Hell’s Angels