For a second, Mark forgot every explanation he’d planned in his head. He just stood there looking caught. Darren looked from Mark, to the blueprints, to the open shed door — and then, to Mark’s surprise, he didn’t look angry at all. If anything, he looked mildly amused.
Mark started explaining immediately. The tire. The broken planter. The fact that the gate had been open. The fact that the entire neighborhood had practically built its own conspiracy around whatever was happening in Darren’s backyard. That got a laugh out of Darren.
A real one. Then Darren looked around the shed, shook his head, and said the one thing Mark had secretly been thinking for days. “Yeah… I guess this probably looks completely insane from the outside.” Mark didn’t argue. He just asked him directly. What was all of this for? Darren didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he walked over to the table, flattened one of the blueprint pages with his hand, and started pointing to different parts of the design — the layout, the spacing, the safety areas, the cut rubber, the way the tires would be used.
Mark followed along as best he could. And then, finally, Darren told him what he’d been building the whole time.
