Julian's Glorious Summer

Bicycles--shiny, whizzing, wobbly bicycles--scare Julian more than lions or tigers. But how can he tell that to his best friend, Gloria? She can already ride with no hands. So instead of telling the truth, Julian makes up a little fib. He tells Gloria he doesn't have time to learn to ride her bike, because his dad is giving him jobs to do all summer long.

But Julian hasn't counted on Gloria's compassion: she goes to his dad and tells him he's cruel to make Julian work all summer long. Julian's dad isn't cruel, and he's quite upset that Julian is saying false things about him. He asks Julian to explain--and Julian makes up a new fib.. Gloria misunderstood, he says--what he told her was how he really, really wanted to work all summer long..

Julian's dad loves him. He doesn't want to punish Julian, but he does want Julian to change. He takes Julian at his word and gives Julian lots of jobs to teach him a lesson about the importance of honesty. He hopes Julian will meet a tough challenge well and come out of it with more confidence and pride in himself.

When Julian is finished with the jobs--there are a lot of them, but they don't last all summer--Julian's dad gives him a wonderful reward. And the reward is, of course, the one thing Julian was trying to escape.

Now he has his own bright, shiny, new bicycle. What should he do? Walk it everywhere he goes? Be honest and say he doesn't want it? Ask his dad to take it back to the store? Or--?