Doodlebug & Dandelion - Bike Dreams

“THIS WAS A great idea, Tomiko!” Dandelion Pinkley said to her best friend. “But I’m not good at it. In fact, I’m terrible!”

- Pamela Dell

“That’s not true!” Tomiko said. Dandelion’s beloved dog, Don’t, whined and nudged Dandelion’s leg as if agreeing with Tomiko.

The girls sat in the park beneath a big sign they’d made. It read, “Bling Your Bike Here!” The park managers had set up a bike obstacle course, and Dandelion and Tomiko planned to earn extra money by making kids’ bikes super flashy for the event.

Tomiko’s dad, an inventor, had given them a giant basket full of bells, whistles, odd gadgets, and spare moving parts to use. Dandelion had brought paints, paintbrushes, stickers, feathers, and every other kind of decoration she had. And they’d already put some good “bling” on a few bikes. But Dandelion was frustrated.

“Your stuff is way better,” she grumbled. She’d laced sparkly ribbons through wheel spokes. She’d made a pirate flag for one bike. But what she really wanted was to be like Tomiko, a master of weird mechanical stuff. Dandelion watched as her friend twisted gears inside an oddlooking homemade stopwatch.

“The hand-painted horn you made was fantastic!” Tomiko said. “It looked just like a dragon.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t hiss like a dragon,” Dandelion whined. “It honks like a stupid goose.”