Fire Solves All Problems Perfectly pt 35

Sometimes when your father has tricked somebody or caught them in a lie, he will smile at them long and slow; by now you’ve picked this up as well, and smiling at Jason you say all right and you dare him to do a Superman – and before he can ask what that is, with barely any hesitation Tim races ahead, building up speed, exiting the shadow of the woods and jumping the curb onto Sunday Street until he’s pumping his pedals as fast as he can; he finds what he’s looking for, a thick, wide border hedge in front of one of the houses, and then he climbs up on to his handlebars and launches himself straight out: the forgotten bike wobbles and crashes but the boy cannonballs right into the heart of the hedge, crashing through it in a flurry of dust and branches.