Kenzie Kickstarts a Team

by Kit Rosewater

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-4079-4

  eISBN 978-1-68335-802-2

  Text copyright © 2020 Christyl Rosewater

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 Sophie Escabasse

  Book design by Siobhán Gallagher and John Passineau

  Published in 2020 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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  For Brooke,

  who brings out the daredevil in me . . .

  and then watches while I run smack into walls

  with my eyes closed.

  —K.R.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Roller derby players, to your positions!”

  Kenzie Ellington snapped on her helmet and glided on one foot across the rink. Hundreds of KENZILLA banners rippled and waved in the crowd.

  “Blockers at the ready!”

  Shelly, Kenzie’s best friend, cartwheeled onto the track and took her place next to Kenzie. The girls high-fived and crouched low. They balled their hands into tight fists.

  “And—go!”

  The referee blew a whistle, and the girls took off. They ducked and threaded past the other derby players in the pack. Their shoulders tapped as they skated side by side. The audience chanted their names.

  Zil-la! Zil-la! Bomb Shell! Bomb Shell!

  The jammer from the other team whipped around and came up on the girls fast. They nodded at each other. It was time for their special blocking move: the Crying Banshee.

  “Ay yiiii!!!” they howled.

  “Hold it!” someone called. The whistle blew again.

  Kenzie blinked. The crowds and KENZILLA banners faded in her head. Suddenly she was back on the top row of bleachers, huddled next to Shelly.

  “Uh-oh,” Shelly whispered. “I think we were too loud again.”

  She pointed at the cluster of people staring up at them. A derby player on the track took out her mouth guard.

  “Honey, are you OK?” the player asked.

  Kenzie’s cheeks reddened.

  “I’m fine, Mom!” she called out.

  The referee on the sidelines shook his head. “All right, ladies, another lap. Positions!”

  Kenzie grumbled as she and Shelly stomped along the bleachers and took their seats next to Kenzie’s dad and little sister, Verona.

  “When do we get to skate?” Kenzie moaned.

  “After your mom’s practice ends,” her dad said. “During Free Skate.”

  Kenzie shared a look with Shelly. They were not interested in free skating. They were interested in derby skating.

  The skating rink, along with the whole warehouse, belonged to Austin’s roller derby league. Kenzie’s mom had joined the league more than three years ago, when Kenzie and Shelly were still baby second graders. Kenzie wasn’t allowed to participate in Free Skate back then, but now that she and Shelly were in fifth grade, they strapped on their skates every chance they got. Kenzie couldn’t wait to turn fifteen so she could play in the derby “wreck” league, where teens got to train like real derby players until they joined the official teams. For now, she had to sit back and watch her mom and the other players knock each other around the track.

  Verona poked Kenzie’s side. “Why are you wearing a helmet?”

  “For protection,” Kenzie said.

  “On the bleachers?” Verona asked.

  Kenzie glared at her sister as she unbuckled the strap beneath her chin. Verona was only in kindergarten, but she sure loved to ask questions that made Kenzie feel like the younger sibling.

  After three more rounds of the referee blowing the whistle and the derby players weaving past each other, Kenzie’s mom skated toward the girls. She plunked herself on the bleachers and reached for her water bottle.

  “Nice blocking, Ms. E.,” Shelly said.

  “Thanks.” Kenzie’s mom wiped her face with a towel and took a long swig of water. “That new jammer on the Glitter Gals is amazing. Hey, Mambo!” She called a woman from the opposite team over. “Come meet my kids. Here’s my oldest, Kenzie.”

  Kenzie waved at the tall, red-haired derby player standing in front of them.

  “That’s Verona by her dad,” Kenzie’s mom continued. “And this is Kenzie’s friend Shelly.”

  Shelly smiled and nodded.

  “Girls, this is Mambo Rambo.”

  Shelly’s eyes went wide. “Is that your real name?”

  “I wish,” Mambo said, laughing. “It’s my derby name.”

  “Mine is Kenzilla,” Kenzie said.

  “And I’m Bomb Shell,” Shelly added.

  “Ooh, I love both. So, when are you joining the Glitter Gals?”

  “In a little less than two thousand days,” Kenzie said. Not that she had been counting since third grade.

  “Oh no you don’t.” Kenzie’s mom wagged her finger at Mambo. “They’ll be on the Hazel Nuts with me.”

  Mambo laughed again. “Well, I hope we see y’all on the track sooner rather than later,” she said, her eyes glinting.

  Kenzie grinned and reached inside the duffel bag for her skates. One day, derby teams really would be fighting over who would get her and Shelly. There had to be two spots, though. Shelly and Kenzie were a package deal. They had been the Dynamic Duo ever since their moms put them in the same Austin Tots daycare.

  Kenzie stuffed her feet into her skates while Shelly went to the rental counter for her usual pair.

  “Got the right ones?” Kenzie asked when Shelly came back.

  “Yep,” Shelly said. She tapped the spot of yellow paint on the back left wheel.

  The girls sat shoulder to shoulder. They tugged hard on their laces and knotted them around their ankles, the same way they had seen real derby players do before rolling into practice.

  The main warehouse doors opened, and a large group of families spilled in from the parking lot. Several boys whooped and hollered as they raced to the track. Kenzie sighed as she tightened her knee pads. It was hard to practice for derby during Free Skate. Most kids liked to go very fast in one direction, which was not so great when Kenzie and Shelly wanted to skate backward or turn together in circles for their Crying Banshee move.

  “Come on,” Kenzie said. She skated to the rink and carefully stepped one foot down, then the other.

  “Hey, it’s Bubble Girl!” one boy said, pointing at Kenzie’s elbow pads and wrist guards.

  “Try not to fall!” the boy next to him yelled.

  Kenzie rolled her eyes.

  “She wears them so she can fall and get back up,” Shelly said. She tightened her helmet strap. “Unlike you two. You’d probably break your precious little bones.”

  Kenzilla and Bomb Shell glared until the two boys skulked awa
y. Then they joined hands and slid onto the track. The girls took a few warm-up laps, racing each other around and around the loop.

  “Let’s work on some tricks!” Kenzie said, swiveling and skating backward.

  They tried a few backspins. They tried hopping with both skates. They even tried skating with one leg in the air. But tricks were hard in roller derby, and both Kenzie and Shelly found themselves tumbling onto the ground again and again.

  “You girls are fearless!” Mambo Rambo called. She flung her skates over one shoulder and gave a salute as she walked out the front doors.

  Kenzie and Shelly beamed at each other.

  “All right, ladies,” Kenzie’s dad called from the sidelines a while later. “Time’s up. Kenzie, your mom needs a shower. Shelly, after a double sleepover, your mom probably needs a reminder of what you look like.”

  “Aw, come on, Dad,” Kenzie said.

  “We barely got started,” Shelly added.

  “Two hours ago!” Kenzie’s dad cried. He signaled them over. “Your toes are getting pruney from all that skate sweat. Bleachers! Sneakers! Let’s go!”

  Kenzie and Shelly shuffled their way off the track. Kenzie slid over to the front bleacher next to her mom, but Shelly kept skating toward the lockers.

  “Bathroom,” she said.

  Kenzie nodded and sat down. She had only undone one of her laces when Shelly’s face bobbed inches in front of her.

  “That was a pretty fast bathroom trip,” Kenzie said.

  Shelly was breathless. “Forget about the bathroom. Come and see!”

  She dragged Kenzie up by one arm. Their skates stumbled over the bumpy carpet until Shelly stopped at the giant bulletin board across from the bathrooms.

  “Look!”

  Kenzie squinted at the board. It was plastered with flyers.

  “What is it? Tuba lessons? The free iguana?”

  Shelly huffed and smacked her hand against a flyer in the center.

  INTRODUCING

  AUSTIN’S JUNIOR DERBY LEAGUE

  GIRLS AGES 10–14

  TRYOUTS SATURDAY, MARCH 1*

  “That’s only a week away!” Kenzie squealed.

  She couldn’t believe it. She and Shelly wouldn’t have to wait two thousand days to play on the same team. They’d hardly have to wait seven days!

  “Der-by time! Der-by time!” Shelly sang. She threw up her arms and wiggled like the inflatable tube dancers outside of car dealerships.

  Kenzie laughed and read the poster again. A junior league that they could join. Kenzilla and Bomb Shell: the Dynamic Duo. It was almost too good to be true.

  Then she noticed the tiny star next to the tryout date. A note in smaller letters was printed below.

  *PLAYERS MUST TRY OUT INDIVIDUALLY.

  COACHES WILL DETERMINE TEAMS.

  “Oh no,” Kenzie said.

  Shelly stopped dancing. “What’s wrong?”

  Kenzie showed her the last line.

  “We can’t try out together.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “It’s not fair,” Kenzie said that night over dinner. “They shouldn’t be allowed to separate the Dynamic Duo!”

  “It’s not really separating,” her dad said. “You know how your mom’s league practices. Even if you and Shelly do get put on different teams, you’ll still be training together. Maybe you’ll even scrimmage against each other.”

  Kenzie furrowed her brow.

  She did not want to wave at Shelly across a rink. She didn’t want to trade high fives at the very end of a game. Kenzie wanted to be a derby blocker on the track right next to Shelly, where they could look at each other and fly into their Duo formations at a moment’s notice. They would be the talk of the league. All the other teams would have no idea what moves the girls had up their sleeves.

  That was what playing together on derby meant.

  “It’s not the same,” she said. She jammed her spoon into her mashed potatoes.

  “Thanks, but the walls don’t need to be replastered,” her mom said, wiping up a splatter of potato that had landed behind her. “Maybe you’ll get put on the same team.”

  “Maybe,” Kenzie said. She brightened. “Maybe we’ll both get put on a superstar team!”

  “But don’t you fall a lot?” Verona asked.

  “You’re supposed to fall in derby,” Kenzie said. She stuck her tongue out at her little sister, but maybe, secretly, she was a little bit worried. Verona had a point. What if the other players at tryouts were really good and never fell, not even when doing tricks?

  “Maybe you’ll both get put on the easy team,” Verona said. “For people who fall.”

  Kenzie growled and stuck her spoon back into the potatoes.

  Her mom sighed and started collecting plates.

  Kenzie’s dad clasped his hands on the table. “Did I ever tell you about my bike-racing days?”

  “Before or after?” Kenzie asked.

  Kenzie liked to ask this question whenever her dad told stories about himself so she could imagine him more clearly. Since her dad was transgender, in some of his stories he looked more like a girl, and in other stories, he looked more like a boy. Actually, he was a boy all along, her dad had explained. But before he told people, they thought he was a girl. In his “before” stories, Kenzie’s dad was like an undercover agent, with a secret only he knew. Kenzie wondered what it would be like to have a secret that big.

  “After,” her dad said, which meant when her dad wasn’t keeping the big secret anymore, and everyone understood he was a boy.

  “I used to race on my bike just before you were born. My first team started out as complete newbies. We had never raced, and hardly knew each other.”

  “Uh-huh,” Kenzie said. She could tell where this was going. Kenzie leaned away from the table. She found an oval in the ceiling plaster that looked like a derby track.

  “But after we practiced together, we came in second at the Austin relay. Second! And you know who one of my teammates was?”

  “Uh-huh.” Kenzie imagined an invisible derby player twirling over the track. “Uncle Jake.”

  “That’s right,” her dad said. “He’s one of our closest friends now. Maybe you’ll make some new friends in derby . . .”

  His voice trailed off as his eyes floated toward the ceiling. “What are you looking for up there?”

  Kenzie blinked and looked across the table.

  “A plan,” she said.

  “A plan for what?” her dad asked.

  “For joining the league with Shelly.”

  Kenzie’s mom turned off the faucet and dried her hands.

  “Planning is better than whining,” she said. “Let’s come up with some ideas. Brainstorm!”

  She fumbled around the junk drawer in the kitchen, then set down a piece of paper and the stub of a purple crayon in front of Kenzie. “Maybe you can think of some ways to keep the Dynamic Duo together.”

  Kenzie stared at the paper. It seemed so big and so blank. How was she supposed to fill it up with ideas?

  “My brain isn’t stormy enough,” she said, slumping over the table. She closed her eyes. “I wish I could be in charge of making the teams.”

  “Hang on,” her mom said. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “What isn’t?” Kenzie asked. She sat up again.

  Her mom tapped her chin. “Let me call the Hazel Nuts coach. Maybe she’ll know more about the junior league.”

  Kenzie’s mom grabbed her phone and went into the living room of their apartment. Kenzie waited a moment, then ducked under the table and snuck in after her. She crawled on her belly until she was behind the couch. Her mom sat with the phone already pressed tight to her ear.

  “Right. Yes. That does make sense. Very fair. OK—thank you, I’ll let her know!”

  The phone clicked. Kenzie popped up behind her mom.

  “Can they put me and Shelly on the same team?”

  “It’s a tryout,” her mom said. “I can’t ask the officials
to put you on a team already.”

  Kenzie frowned. “What did your coach say?”

  “She said she has to double-check with the league head, but she thinks a group can try out together.”

  “Yes!” Kenzie said. She pumped her fist in the air. “The Dynamic Duo will show off all our moves! We’ll take on every jammer there!”

  Her mom shook her head. “Hold up. That’s not how it works in derby, kiddo. Five girls on the track at a time.”

  Kenzie’s arm drifted down by her side.

  “So?”

  “So, when the league states that a group can try out, they mean a team. You’ll need three more players.”

  Three more players?

  Kenzie’s knees suddenly felt like lumps of jelly. She sank facedown into the rug. Her dad leaned against the doorframe.

  “Hey, that’s not so bad,” he said. “This is good news.”

  “But how am I supposed to find three more people?” Kenzie groaned into the floor. “The other kids at Free Skate are always making fun of us.”

  “Then roller derby isn’t for them,” her mom said.

  “You could look outside of Free Skate,” her dad suggested. “I’ll bet a lot of kids at school and around the neighborhood don’t know about derby. You could introduce them to it.”

  Verona walked into the living room and hovered over Kenzie. A piece of paper landed on Kenzie’s back. The crayon bounced and landed next to her.

  “Brainstorm!” Verona said.

  “I agree,” their dad said.

  Kenzie rolled onto her side. She pinned the paper down over the hard part of the floor and wrote down the storm inside her head:

  • Shelly and I can try out for derby as a team.

  • Derby team = FIVE people.

  • The Dynamic Duo = TWO people.

  • We need THREE more players by Saturday.

  Kenzie reread the list. Her thoughts didn’t seem as scary written out in purple crayon.

  Three more players.

  Three was a pretty small number, if Kenzie thought about it. Verona learned how to count to three when she was still a baby. When Kenzie’s dad gave her the good chores, he said they were easy as “one, two, three.” How hard could it be to find three roller derby players?