The big girl turned off her hog, pulled it up on a kickstand, and parked. Next, she climbed off the bike with a Herculean effort and took off her helmet and sunglasses. She carefully folded the glasses and put them in the metal hat, which she then flipped over and placed on the vinyl seat. Sweating profusely after the exertion, she turned her gaze to the scrawny boy in the window. Donny stood in awe. Her eyes were the size of dinosaur eggs. And they were road mapped with red veins—cracked dinosaur eggs! He marveled at the sight, the monstrous girl with the fearsome features. As if reading his thoughts, she smiled and held him transfixed—rigid as a manikin. Her mouth opened Grand Canyon wide, revealing mammoth molars, and her eyes gleamed fanatically as she contemplated the boy like an ogre might a delectable morsel.

Sizing up the situation, Mr. Looper snapped from across the room, “Donny! Don’t be gawking and scaring customers away . . . .” His voice faded as he talked and his eyebrows rose, but not so much as to be noticed. Maybe he was thinking ahead, his thoughts dark. The big girl walked over and skeptically eyed the porch. Pulling on a thin hand rail as if a life line, anguishing in each step, she carefully climbed the stairs. Only one of the three remaining bikers got off his hog and followed. Allowing ample time for Bod to clear the deck, the other two climbed off and proceeded to systematically inspect their bikes.

When an immense weight moves, be it alive or be it inert, it’s an event. When a bull elephant trumpets a threatening presence while lumbering across a mesa, or when a rhinoceros lowers a spiked horn and paws at the ground before charging an antagonist, or when a humungous halibut swings from a scale hook on a fish canary floor, for example, it’s an event to witness and to wonder at. Something about sheer bulk in motion captures the imagination. Arguably, building for normality, human engineering has never learned to master mass. Such was the case when Bod came up the stairs of Mr. Looper’s wobbly front porch.

Once her feet left the ground and her weight rested solely on the flimsy staircase, the kindly storekeeper adjusted his eyeglasses and took a breath, and the boy looked from him to the porch and back again. When she reached the top and pulled herself up on the deck, the glory of ascending the summit—a personal conquest—was clearly etched in her face, and she paused for a breather. During the interval, timbers creaked and nails squeaked as the porch did a quick analysis to see if the load exceeded specifications. The same breakdown might have been running through the engineer’s mind. His thin shoulders slumped, his scrimping ways haunting him. A faint groaning caused Donny to brighten in anticipation.

It wasn’t the porch.

Glancing around, he recoiled at the features of the storekeeper behind him. His face was drained of color and glistened with beads of moisture, and his hands adjusted a red cravat as if a hangman’s noose. By the grim expression on Mr. Looper’s face, an implosion appeared imminent.

It didn’t happen.

Donny quickly turned back as the door banged open, the space darkened, and a new structure was tested. He backed away and felt the floor stiffen under his feet. Then the two, the small boy and the large girl, came face-to-face. Except for, it wasn’t that way. Looking up, Donny peered into the enormous eyes looking down on him. He let out a peep but held the gaze, his own eyes bulging.

Suddenly, an explosion of movement caused hearts to pound and pulses to race. The other biker, who had earlier followed her to the foot of the stairs, sidestepped Bod and entered the room—appearing from out of nowhere like a magic trick! Once again the boy gasped, his hand moving to cover his mouth. He hadn’t looked at the others, Bod the center of attention, except to note they all had facial hair, wore biker jackets . . . looked scruffy. Now he faced a menace he grew up fearing: the Wolfman!

Tall and lean, he had thick eyebrows and a face covered in hair—copper brown in color—that started from below his dark eyes and ran clear down to his throat and over to his long and pointed ears. At the sound of the gasp, suddenly fearful, the Wolfman drew up and crept cautiously past Donny, his eyes never once leaving the boy. Seeing an out, Donny began edging around Bod, orbiting her like a planet a sun. Maybe recalling the biblical saga of David and Goliath—boy versus giant—her eyes grew large and her features tense as she readied for an assault. With feet firmly planted and massive arms raised like a kung-fu fighter, the big girl turned along with the boy, her eyes boring into his. Donny broke the gaze at the door, bolted outside, and startled the other two riders who were just now starting up the stairs.

He dove between them, through the opening they created, and snatched up his bike from where it leaned against a far corner of the porch. Thrusting it out ahead to gain momentum, he ran alongside a short distance before leaping on and peddling like crazy for Danny Dart’s place. Wheezing slightly, his lungs starving for air, he shook his head in disbelief at what just happened. His cousin wasn’t going to believe it either, the weirdness going down!