Saturday at the repair shed

An original first-person fictional account of preparing an old bicycle for sale.

I had promised to spend an hour helping at the repair shed, but the bicycle waiting for me looked as if it would swallow the whole morning. Its tyres were flat, its mudguards were brown with rust and its chain hung loose like a tired skipping rope. I picked up a cloth and wondered why anyone wanted to rescue such a heap.

As I rubbed the dirt from the frame, a strip of deep green paint appeared. Then another. Beneath the dust on the handlebars, I found a small silver bell. I pressed its lever and a clear note rang across the shed. For the first time, the bicycle seemed less like rubbish and more like something waiting to be noticed.

There were two initials scratched beneath the saddle and a row of tiny marks on the metal beside them. I knew nothing about the person who had made them, but I began to imagine the bicycle leaning outside shops or carrying someone home in the rain. I cleaned more carefully after that. When the chain caught, I stopped pulling and worked it free with a drop of oil. It felt as though I owed the bicycle some patience.

By midday, the tyres were firm and the wheels turned smoothly. Someone tied a sale label to the handlebars. I had spent the morning preparing the bicycle for a new owner, yet the label made me unexpectedly reluctant to leave it. Before going, I rang the bell once more. This time, its note did not sound like a complaint from something forgotten. It sounded like an invitation to begin another journey.

How does the writer present the changes in the narrator's response as the bicycle is prepared for sale? Support your answer with references to the passage.

You may write about:

• the narrator's response when the bicycle is first seen
• the details noticed while the bicycle is being cleaned
• the narrator's thoughts at the end of the passage