It was the last Friday of the school year, and there was a dangerously exuberant mood. The sun was shining. The fountain was shimmering at Ballard Commons. For most schools, it was either Field Day or an after-school party at Golden Gardens beach.

At Salmon Bay School, it was yet another retirement party for Jay Sasnett, this one ending with cake in his west-facing classroom.

“I’ve got my bicycle lock,” I called to my daughter as we went our separate ways on two wheels.

“You’re the one who needs its,” she replied.

I had the lock, but outside of Salmon Bay School I realized I didn’t have the key. I carried the bicycle into the building and left it near the office, thinking the side doors were locked.

Half an hour later, the only thing on the floor was my helmet and keyless Kryptonite lock. My bicycle had been stolen.

I raced around the old Monroe School in hopes that it was being ridden impulsively through the halls and the gym the way my stolen car once looped a soccer field. The janitors checked hidey-holes. The bike was still nearby. We all knew it.

“I’m going to get my bike back,” I shouted and ran to where I had summoned Martin to meet me in his car. I buckled up as though prepared for a “follow that car” chase. The car didn’t move.

“Where are we going?” Martin asked reasonably.

Where would my bicycle be on its joy ride? Heading out of Ballard on a bridge? Surely not climbing up the Phinney hill?

“Ballard Commons,” I suggested, but in the golden light there were only wet toddlers and skateboarders appearing briefly at the top of the bowl like colorful swallows. It was practically pastoral.

“Home,” I said, suddenly deflated.

Martin turned right onto 24th Avenue Northwest at the south corner of the QFC and went north. A bicycle passed in the other direction.

“That’s it!” he barked and swung the car in a smooth loop.

My bicycle and its rider moved east, but Martin pulled close and jumped out of the car. I dialed 911 as Martin began yelling, “That bike is stolen.”

The rider took off dodging traffic as he crossed 24th Avenue again with Martin following him into the street. People all along the sidewalk on either side took up the yell with pointing fingers.

“Stolen bike! Stolen bike!”

I continued my play-by-play to police dispatch. We’d come so close to my Trek 820 (a gorgeous bronze), but it was getting away from me, “West on Northwest 57th!”

Martin pulled up, and I got back in the car describing the rider and my bicycle all the way. Dispatch asked me questions. “Did this person forcibly take the bike? Have you seen any weapons?”

Well no, I left it sitting unlocked, but it was in a school!

Suddenly there was my bike and its alien rider again, perched on an upper lawn by 28th Avenue Northwest as though watching to see if the chase was over.

Martin jumped out the car and this time the kid (anybody under 25 in my book) dropped the bicycle in the street and backed away saying, “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”

As he moved away Martin countered. “Don’t touch my car.” (He had left the engine running).

Then the kid in his baggy sweats, backward hat, untied work boots and swagger
set off on foot, while I continued to describe him to dispatch.

Even as they told me to wait for an officer at the intersection, I watched the kid turn the corner and then reappear a few minutes later, having shed the sweatpants and sweatshirt, but still with a strut in his step.

Martin and I waited at the traffic island of 28th Avenue and Northwest 57th Street for almost an hour. I read a cookbook and considered having a pizza delivered.

“We haven’t forgotten you,” dispatch called to say. “We’re just having a really crazy afternoon.”

So, it was hours later when an officer rang my front doorbell. I blocked a never-seen-before cat from entering my house. “Not my cat,” I explained.

The officer sighed at my impassioned account and closed his little notebook. “But you got your bike back, right?”

He apologized for the fact that an officer hadn’t been available earlier and recommended writing down the serial numbers and, of course, in the future, locking the bike. A cat tried to go in the house covered in leaves. I blocked her.

“Not your cat?” he asked.

“No, that it is my cat,” I said.

Then he went wearily down the front steps. Hours earlier it had seemed dramatic and urgent. The cries of “Stolen bike!” The car chase.

The officer paused and pointed at a box mistakenly delivered by UPS to our front porch. “You’d better take in your package.”

“It’s not my package,” I protested. He gave me a long look. Officers must dread the last day of school. Friday nights. Summer. People like me.

With that, I took in the package. The least I could do is keep the box behind a locked door until, like my bicycle, it can be safely delivered home.