FREEWHEELING

"It was like being Peter Pan, flying around," the book begins. Here are the adventures of two young vagabonds, Emery and Pike, on the loose in Europe, North Africa, and Greece. The author did in fact once ride a bike, with a cohort, from Northern Italy south to Sicily and on to North Africa -- and so on -- years ago now. From that long and grueling journey sprang these collected stories. The "freewheeling" is not only in Pike and Emery's sometimes fun, sometimes harrowing adventures, but also in the author's exuberant telling of his tales.