The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher

Book excerpt: A young orphan's hopes and an unusual bicycle bring about magical results in this imaginative middle grade adventure from award-winning author Bill Harley. Life is an adventure for ten-year-old Darius Frobisher. His eccentric father Rudy sells insurance four days a week. The other three days he goes on exotic journeys. But when his father flies off in a hot air balloon and doesn't come back, Darius's happy, carefree life suddenly comes to an end. He is sent to live with his notoriously nasty Aunt Ida, where he has to sleep alone in a cold, damp basement and dodge the horrible teenage boy next door. Darius sees a ray of hope when he finds a rusty old bicycle in the basement and begins to repair it in secret. Then one day he is startled to see an old man with long flowing hair riding a bicycle across the sky! That gives Darius a strange and wonderful idea. Now he knows what he has to do to get away from his miserable life.