Skateboard Renegade Read online

  “Have a chair,” Benny said, motioning for Zach to sit down. “How's it going so far? Not so good, huh?”

  Zach was taken aback. “Is it that obvious?” he asked.

  Benny shrugged. “First day in a new environment. Plus you look different than everybody else, which makes it worse. Believe me, I know.”

  “Oh.” Zach nodded, looking at Benny. “I see what you mean.”

  “I've always been big,” Benny confided. “Something in my genes, you know? I really don't eat much—plus I'm a vegetarian. No cheese, no nothing. Did you ever meet a fat vegetarian before?”

  Zach laughed. “Nope, can't say that I have.”

  “Well, you just met your first,” Benny said. “Probably your last, too. Oh, well. Everybody gets bad breaks. Gotta live with 'em. So what's yours?”

  Zach smiled. “I went and got this done to myself over the weekend,” he confessed. “Isn't that stupid?”

  “Thought you'd fit in better?” Benny asked dryly. “Good call. You blend in really well—with the food, of course. Not the kids.”

  Hey, Zach thought, cracking up. This kid is really funny!

  “Amherst is okay,” Benny told him between bites of his food. “It's hard, but the teachers are good, and most of them are pretty fair. Anyway, it's way better than my old school, Kingsway. I used to get tortured there every single day. Kids will look at you funny here, but they won't flush your head in the toilet or pull on your underwear or anything.”

  Zach's eyes widened. “That actually happened to you?” he gasped. Benny only shrugged, but Zach could see the pain in his eyes. Poor kid, he thought. He really needs a friend here—and so do I.

  “My friends from Brighton all got their hair bleached and their ears pierced,” Zach explained.

  “Oh, I see,” said Benny. “You're in a gang?”

  “No, not really,” Zach said with a chuckle. “We all skateboard, so we're kind of a crew, I guess. We did get in trouble with the police last week, for boarding on the steps at Brighton School.”

  “Wow!” Benny said, impressed. “You're a bad dude, huh?”

  “Yeah, that's me,” Zach said, cracking up again. “You're pretty funny, you know that?”

  “So I'm told,” Benny said. “It helps to have a sense of humor, 'specially if you're me.” Finished with his food, Benny picked up his tray. “I've gotta go. I've got Software Design next period.”

  “Hey, me too!” Zach said. “I'll come with you.”

  “Listen, what club are you gonna join?” Benny asked as they walked.

  “I don't know,” Zach said. He remembered the principal talking about clubs during the assembly, but Zach hadn't really been paying attention. He'd been too busy checking out the kids in the audience.

  “They meet after school for an hour, Mondays and Wednesdays,” Benny explained. “You can join two clubs, but you have to join at least one. So what are you interested in?”

  “You don't have a skateboarding club, do you?” Zach asked, joking.

  “Maybe virtual skateboarding,” Benny said with a grin. “Nah, we've got chess and debating and forensics and chemistry—and of course computer club, which has about six branches. A lot of kids are into it. I could introduce you around.”

  “Cool!” Zach said. “I was going to say that computers are my second interest after boarding. I've been wanting to check out the school's equipment.”

  “Oh, man, it's awesome!” Benny enthused. “Wait till you see it!”

  Zach was floored by what he saw in the school's huge computer room. All the latest equipment, with software to do anything you wanted. Full, fast Internet access and two faculty members who were experts on all of it!

  The kids Benny introduced him to were all friendly. There was Bernard, of course, and Maurice, Enid, Tabitha, and Stuart. Nice kids, all of them—but if Brian Jeffers ever laid eyes on them, he'd fall over laughing. They looked as nerdy as could be.

  “We thought you were a big snob when we saw you in the auditorium,” Enid said. She had long, greasy hair and was about six feet tall, not counting her two-inch platform heels.

  Her friend Tabitha, one of those kids who had been dressed by her parents, nodded in agreement. “You didn't talk to anybody this morning,” she pointed out. “So everyone was saying you're stuck up. But you're not! That's so cool!”

  “Yeah,” Maurice said, a lock of his red hair falling over his eyes. “You're just the new kid on the block! Hahahaha!” Maurice had a weird laugh.

  The newest nerd on the block, you mean, Zach said to himself. Great. Just great.

  “So what's up with the hair and the pants?” Enid asked. “Are you trying to annoy your parents or something?”

  Zach sighed. “You wouldn't understand,” he said.

  He wasn't even sure he understood.

  7

  By the time he got home after Computer Club, it was four o'clock. Zoey was waiting for him on the front steps, with Lorena sitting next to her.

  “Hi, Thack!” Lorena said with a big smile and a wave as he got off the late bus.

  “Where have you been?” Zoey demanded. “I've been waiting and waiting for my lesson.”

  “Your lesson!” Zach said. “Sorry, I forgot.”

  “That's nice,” Zoey said sarcastically. “I can still tell Mom and Dad about you and my piggy.”

  “No, Zoey, you don't need to do that.”

  “Fine. Let's start.”

  “Wait—wait now, I can't do it this minute.”

  “And why not?” she asked, her hands on her hips.

  “I promised the guys I'd meet them at the park.”

  “So what? This is more important.”

  “To you, maybe.”

  Zoey narrowed her eyes. “I want my lesson —now—or I'm telling Mom and Dad everything.”

  Zach gritted his teeth and threw his backpack violently on the lawn. “Okay, okay!” he barked. “Let's get started. It's already late, and I don't have all afternoon. I'll give you half an hour.”

  “An hour.”

  “Okay, okay! Come on, let's go. Start putting on the pads.”

  “I still don't see why I have to wear all this stupid equipment,” Zoey said as Zach tightened the helmet strap under her chin. “It doesn't even fit me.”

  “Neither does the board,” Zach pointed out. “You ought to get yourself a smaller one.”

  “I don't have any money until you pay me back,” she countered.

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” Not much he could say to that, Zach realized. He looked over at Lorena, who was still sitting on the steps at the side of the driveway. “Hey,” he called to her. “Your parents need me to baby-sit anytime soon?”

  “I dunno,” Lorena said with a shrug. “Are you gonna give me a lethon, too?”

  “You'll get a turn,” he promised her.

  “Thankth, Thack,” she said, showing him her grin with the big dimples. “You're nithe.”

  Zach nodded and smiled, then picked up his board. “Now, this is the board,” he began, showing it to them both.

  “I know that already,” Zoey said impatiently. “Lemme ride it!”

  “Uh-uh-uh!” Zach cautioned, holding the board out of her reach. “First learn, then ride.” He showed them both the different parts of the board—the deck, the trucks, the wheels, the skid plate, the kick tail, and the rail bar. “The rail bar is for doing grinds.”

  “What are grindth?” Lorena wanted to know.

  “Sliding, kind of,” Zach explained. “Like on a curb or a rail or the top of a ramp or half pipe.”

  “Oh.”

  “Here, I'll show you.”

  “No, I wanna do it!” Zoey said, holding firmly onto the board.

  “You're not ready to do tricks yet. First, you —”

  “First, I ride!” Zoey said.

  “No—first you learn to fall,” Zach said. “Then you ride.”

  “I know how to fall,” Zoey insisted.

  “Oh, yeah? How?” he asked.


  “Like this!” Zoey flopped down on the pavement, and Lorena burst out laughing.

  “Thoey, you are tho funny!” she sputtered hysterically. “Ithn't thee funny, Thack?”

  “A riot,” Zach said dryly. “Look, here's the two ways to fall. First, there's the forward roll.” He demonstrated, tucking his head under as he fell forward, extending his arms out to guide his somersault.

  “And here's the knee slide,” he said. He took the knee pads from Zoey, snugged them into place, then ran three steps forward and slid onto his knees, gliding to a stop on his pads.

  “Let me try, let me try!” Zoey begged.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, and put the pads on her knees. “There. Now you're all decked out. Helmet, elbow pads, wrist protectors, knee pads, sneakers. The works. Go!”

  Zoey practiced falling, then let Lorena put on the equipment and have a turn.

  “Now can I ride?” Zoey asked again.

  “Next time,” Zach put her off. “I've gotta go meet the guys at Moorehead Park.”

  “Oh, no you don't!” Zoey ordered. “Not till I've had my lesson!”

  “You've had your lesson!”

  “You call that a lesson? I haven't even ridden yet!”

  “Me, neither!” Lorena echoed.

  “Okay, okay,” Zach grumbled, beaten. She had him over a barrel. He owed her, and she knew it.

  So he stayed, even though he knew it was making him late. He stayed and taught them how to stand on the board, where to put their feet, and how to keep their weight low and forward. He taught them how to push off, how to maneuver their feet into riding position, and how to turn the board by leaning left and right. Finally, he showed them how to stop the board by dragging their back foot alongside it.

  “Okay, that's all for today,” he finally said. “Practice some more tomorrow and next time, I'll show you how to do wheelies and stuff.”

  “That was fun!” Zoey said happily. “I like falling the best.”

  “You sure did a lot of it,” Zach quipped. “Hey, you'll like riding, too, once you get a little practice.” He gave Zoey a smile. He'd actually enjoyed giving them a lesson. This wasn't going to be so bad after all.

  “I like falling, too. Thankth, Thack!” Lorena said.

  “Don't mention it,” Zach said. “Okay, I'd better get going. It's already getting close to dinnertime.”

  Just then, he heard his mom ringing the dinner bell inside. “Already?” he cried. “What time is it?”

  “Six-thirty,” Zoey said, consulting her watch.

  “That's impossible!” Zach cried. “Dang! I've already missed them!” Flinging down his helmet, he stormed into the house, on the verge of tears. That stupid Zoey! She'd made him miss seeing his friends!

  “So where were you today, dude?”

  “Huh? What? I can't hear you, Kareem. Hold on a second.” Zach was on the telephone in the kitchen, taking a break from cleaning up after dinner. Behind him, his dad was loading the dishwasher, making a lot of noise. “Dad, could you cut it out a second? I'm on the phone.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” his dad said with a sheepish smile, then mouthed the words Who is it?

  Zach rolled his eyes and turned his back to his father. Like it was his parents' business whom he talked to! “There,” he told Kareem. “Now what did you say?”

  “I said, Where were you today after school?”

  “Oh. I was …” Zach hesitated. He didn't want the guys to know he hadn't shown up because he was giving his little sister skateboarding lessons!

  “I had to baby-sit,” he fudged.

  “Oh. Man, that bites. I hope you made good money.”

  “Yeah. I really needed to, after Saturday.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Saturday?”

  “Yeah, you know, at the mall. I missed you guys there.”

  Another mysterious pause. “Uh, yeah. Well, anyway, are you coming to the park tomorrow?”

  “Definitely. I've got to check out how you guys all look!”

  “Uh, yeah. Well, see you then.” Kareem hung up, and so did Zach, puzzled by the tone in his friend's voice. It was more than a little weird.

  “I didn't know you were baby-sitting this afternoon,” his dad said, surprised.

  “That's because I wasn't,” Zach said. “It's complicated.”

  “Oh. I see. Well, then,” his dad said, rinsing another dish. “Come on, let's go back to work.”

  They finished rinsing the dishes and cleaning off the table and putting the leftovers in the fridge. “You haven't said much about your first day at school,” his dad suddenly said.

  “Oh. It was fine,” Zach said, rinsing his hands in the sink.

  “How were the facilities?”

  “Great. Those were fantastic.”

  “Good!”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Zach heaved a sigh.

  His dad regarded him for a long moment. “You don't seem very happy about it. Is there something I should know?”

  “No, Dad,” Zach said. He dried his hands on a dishtowel. “Like I said, it's complicated. You wouldn't understand.”

  He left the room, not wanting to see the hurt look in his father's eyes.

  8

  He endured the next day at Amherst, but it wasn't easy. Like the day before, most kids just stared at him, as if they couldn't get over how weird he looked. It was enough to drive Zach crazy. He was about ready to start staring back at them, with his mouth open like an idiot.

  Luckily, lunchtime rolled around. He sat with the gang from Computer Club. But even among them, he was quiet and thoughtful. Something was bothering him … something about how Kareem had sounded on the phone the night before.

  He couldn't wait to see the guys and get back among true friends. These nerdy kids were nice enough, but other than computers, what did he really have in common with them? He barely knew them.

  He felt torn away from everything familiar, alone in a strange new world. He paid no attention during his afternoon classes, and barely escaped ridicule when a teacher asked him a question he hadn't heard because he was daydreaming.

  After school he went home and put on his gear. He checked himself out in the mirror. Somehow, he just couldn't get used to his new look. He didn't blame the kids at Amherst for giving him weird glances. He'd have done the same thing in their place.

  Well, the hair was the hair. Nothing he could do about it. But the iron bar in his ear? It looked totally stupid.

  The guy had said to wear it for forty-eight hours, to keep the hole open until it healed and stayed that way by itself. Well, it had to be forty-eight hours by now, Zach figured. Carefully, he twisted the bar open, and pulled it out of his ear.

  There was no pain, to Zach's surprise. He could see the hole now, for the first time. It didn't look too bad. But without something in his ear, all there was to look at was his stupid hairstyle. The blond spikes would look okay on some of the other guys. But he didn't care what the hairstylist had said. They didn't look good on him.

  He needed a really good earring for when the guys saw him. Brian already had that fake diamond stud. Zach wondered what the other guys would be wearing. Iron bars? He doubted it.

  Now where could he get an earring in a hurry? Zach wondered. He perked up his ears and listened for the presence of someone in the house. Nothing. Mom and Dad were still at work, and Zoey was probably over at Lorena's.

  Zach tiptoed into his parents' room and opened up his mom's vanity table. He examined the half dozen pairs of earrings lying in the top drawer, but none of them suited his purpose. They were all much too ladylike.

  And then he remembered the small cubic zirconium studs he'd seen in Zoey's ears. They weren't for pierced ears, and they weren't really diamonds, though they did look like them. Zach decided one of the little clip-on studs would do nicely.

  He'd have it back by dinnertime, and she'd never miss it. True, she'd discovered the missing money in a hurry, but that was different. Even if she missed the dia
mond, he could just give it to her and tell her he'd found it on the floor.

  Confident that he was pulling off a harmless, easy little operation, he stole into Zoey's bedroom and quickly made off with one of her studs. He took a moment in front of the mirror to fasten it to his ear. Then he went outside, put on his gear, and pushed off for Moorehead Park.

  He could see the guys at the far end of the playground as he skated toward the park entrance. They were in full gear, helmets glinting in the late-afternoon sun. They were practicing going down a flight of four steps one by one. It was a pretty hard trick to learn, and falls could be particularly painful if you happened to hit the sharp edge of a step with an unprotected part of your body.

  As he passed through the park gate, Zach caught sight of a sign that read: MOOREHEAD PARK CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS STARTING MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. WILL REOPEN NEXT SPRING. A PROJECT OF YOUR MUNICIPAL COUNCIL, JAMES T. TAYLOR, MAYOR.

  “Next spring!” Zach gasped. “Why does it have to take so long to repave a stupid playground?”

  He let out an exasperated groan. Where were they going to go now to practice? Today was Wednesday. September 12 was next Monday. That left them only four more days after today!

  He slalomed across the playground to join his friends. “Hey, you guys. Did you see the sign?” he called out to them.

  “Yeah,” Farrell said. “Can you believe it?”

  “I'm gonna make my dad talk to the mayor,” Sam said, his face hot with anger.

  “What's your dad gonna do? Beat the mayor up?” Brian challenged him. All the kids laughed, except Sam and Zach. Zach knew he ought to laugh along, just to show he was one of the guys. But he couldn't manage it. He just didn't think making fun of poor little Sam was funny.

  “Where are we gonna go?” Zach asked, looking at Brian, because he was always the one who decided things among them. “The sign said, 'closed till spring.'”

  “We'll find someplace,” Brian assured him.

  “Okay, you guys,” Zach said. “Let's see what everybody looks like.” He removed his helmet, and let them see his new 'do.

  Instead of the whoops and cheers and jokes he expected, he got stone-cold silence. “What?” he asked, his smile faltering as he saw his friends stealing guilty glances at one another. “What's going on?”