By the time they replaced the coil and got the engine bolted down once again, the fall light was beginning to fade. The air carried a crispness, a harbinger of winter to come. Sweater time now; pretty soon it'll be winter jacket time. Rats.
She looked at Burt and grinned. "Here we go again."
He reached down and pulled out the choke, then put a foot on the platform and nodded to her. She gave a yank on the cord. Nothing. Another yank and the engine belched a puff of white smoke. Another pull, and it coughed, then slowly turned over putt-puttputt--puttputtputt. Burt pushed in the choke and the thing roared to life before leveling out at a fixed RPM.
"All riiiiiiiiiight!" Lindy yelled over the din, leaping into the air and clapping her hands.
"Yeeeeeah!" hollered Burt, doing the same.
They gave each other dirty-handed high fives and low fives as the engine bellowed away. A smiling Mr. O'Brian appeared on the porch, followed in short order by Mrs. O'Brian. Lindy was somehow encouraged by the fact her mother looked utterly terrified.
"Hey, look!" Burt pointed at the platform--it was slowly vibrating its way down the O'Brians' driveway toward Collins Ave. "It can't even wait for the kart--it wants to go now!"
They ran over and Lindy yelled, "How do we turn it off?"
)
