Learning to ride a bike — a bedtime story

"I can do it myself," said Amelia, and she pushed the little red bike away from the barn.

Amelia was five. She wanted to ride all the way across the yard to the hayloft door, with no one holding the seat. Her big cousin could. Her dog, Biscuit, could not, but he ran beside her anyway, because running was his job.

Amelia climbed on. She pushed one foot. Wobble, wobble, wobble. Her feet came down. Plop.

"Again," said Amelia.

She tried again. Wobble, wobble, wobble. Plop.

"I can do it myself," she said, a little smaller this time.

She tried going faster. That was worse. The bike tipped into the straw pile, and straw stuck to her trainers and her hair. Biscuit sneezed.

Amelia sat in the straw and looked at her feet. They kept shooting down every time the bike leaned. Then she looked at the rope swing hanging from the hayloft rafters. It swung out and back, out and back, and never fell over.

"Biscuit," she said, "the swing doesn't look at its feet. It looks at the door."

Biscuit wagged. He was not listening. He was watching a chicken, and the chicken had its own plans for the afternoon.

Amelia got back on. She did not look down. She looked at the hayloft door, round and dark and far away. She pushed off.

Wobble. Wobble. Then the wobble went smooth, like a spoon gliding through porridge.

The wheels went whirr. The wind went whoosh. The chicken squawked and flapped out of the way, and Biscuit barked and raced after it, and the two of them zigzagged round the yard like a pair of lost socks.

"I'm doing it!" shouted Amelia. "I'm doing it myself!"

She rolled right up to the hayloft door and stopped, with one foot down, easy as anything.

Behind her, Biscuit flopped onto the warm ground, panting. The chicken sat down on the seat of a cart, looking cross. And the rope swing creaked, out and back, out and back, in the quiet.