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dirt bike his dad had in the garage. We’d always wanted to ride it, but we knew we couldn’t even ask.
    But one day we were eating Froot Loops on my front porch and it was hot and boring and there was nothing to do.
    So Zyler said: I don’t even care.
    Before I could think what he’d said, he was already on his bike. I ran to catch up and soon we were at his dirt-yard house.
    Me: What are we doing?
    Zyler: I’m bored and he never even rides it.
    Me: You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.
    He smiled at me and said: Are you scared?
    And yes, yes I was sort of scared.
    Me: I don’t know.
    Zyler: I knew it. You got to get over it, Paloney. You got to live.
    He laughed and so did I. It was a line from our favorite movie,
Destinos,
and it was supposed to be our motto — sort of. If we had one.
    So we went in the garage.
    Me: Are you going to take it out on the street?
    Zyler: I don’t know yet. I’m not sure if it has gas.
    Me: I don’t think we should take it out there. What if your dad comes home?
    Zyler: I’m sick of my dad.
    I looked at him and he seemed serious. He usually wasn’t serious.
    Me: Yeah, but what if he found out?
    Zyler: He’d kick the crap out of me.
    And he really, really would.
    Me: Then why are we doing this?
    Zyler: Then why wouldn’t we do this? What are we supposed to do? Sit on the front porch eating soggy cereal all day?
    Me: Yeah, yeah we could do that all day. It’s better than getting the crap kicked out of us.
    Zyler: Logan, you don’t need to worry. He won’t touch you.
    It was true. Zyler’s dad had yelled yelled yelled at me but he had never hit me or anything.
    Zyler, however, was a different story. A very different story.
    He had a lot of “household accidents”:
    a broken arm.
    a broken collarbone.
    stitches eight times.
    a couple of black eyes.
    and bruises.
    So we went in the garage and there it was: his dad’s dirt bike. And it wasn’t the biggest bike or anything but it was really cool. Like fast and loud cool and we’d looked at it a ton of times.
    Zyler opened the door to the backyard.
    Zyler: I’m just going to ride it out back and then back in. Then you can if you want.
    I didn’t want.
    He went to the side of the bike where it leans on the kickstand and threw his leg over the lowest part of the seat.
    I couldn’t believe he was doing this.
    I tried to hear if anything was coming down the street.
    Anything.
    Zyler was having a hard time getting it started or something. But when he finally kicked the kickstand back up, a black cloud belched out the exhaust pipe.
    He pulled a lever by his left hand and tapped down with his left foot.
    Dirt bike: Vroom put put Vroom (or something like that)
    The garage funneled the sound of the motor. Then the bike jumped and sputtered out.
    Zyler: I can’t get the clutch to work.
    Me: I have no idea how to work that thing.
    Zyler: It’s not that hard — see, you just pull the choke, pull back on the throttle once, and kick down on the starter.
    Me:
    So then he did it again.
    This time the motor revved and revved and didn’t sputter out.
    Zyler yelling: Oh my crap, this is so awesome!
    Me yelling back: Yeah!
    Zyler still yelling — the motor was really loud: I’m going to take it in the backyard!
    Me: Okay!
    And then I watched him go out the back door of the garage. He sort of jumped at first, but then he was really riding it. He was really riding it, and it was really loud.
    I followed him out there and watched him ride around and around their weedy, trashy dump-yard lot.
    He was screaming and laughing and I had a stomachache worrying his dad would get home, but then I watched him almost pop a wheelie and then I was screaming and laughing.
    We were out there for almost an hour or so: It was so long.
    But it was fun and awful and better than I thought.
    I mean, I didn’t drive the bike but I did sit on back a couple times and we fell over and everything.
    It was so cool.
    His dad never found out. At least not