Roller Boy

by Strykowski, Marcia; Strykowski, Marcia;

  gotten into this mess of a contest. His left leg began to twitch. Great.

  There were two other guys listed in the boys’ freestyle with him. First up was the cocky kid in the crimson-colored suit whom Mateo had noticed earlier. He was way taller than Mateo, could’ve even been a high school senior. Mateo moved up to the handrail to get a better view.

  He felt Hayley fall in beside him. Again, he thought about how she had kissed him. Of course it was just a quick thank-you kind of kiss, the kind she probably gave her parents all the time. But, still. He slid his eyes over and sneaked a glance at her. She looked the same as always, gorgeous. Maybe she was used to giving guys kisses. Maybe she had a boyfriend. Did she even have time to date? He blinked twice to clear his mind and attempted to focus on skating.

  “I like this,” Hayley said, leaning over the rail beside him. “Really old music can be a good choice, too.”

  The crimson-suited kid skated to a fast classical piece, part of one of those big Beethoven symphonies. His spins were so brilliant that he appeared blurred, like a revolving red top. Mateo could feel his mouth hanging open.

  Hayley nudged him with her elbow. “Don’t worry. He’s done this before. You’re good, too.”

  Mateo stayed mute, although in truth he wished he could just back out. I mean really, he thought, what was the point?

  Toward the end the guy messed up a little, and had to catch himself once. But if anyone had blinked, they’d have missed it. Already Mateo knew the red spinner would win first place.

  The next contestant seemed more down to earth. He was taller than Mateo, too—who wasn’t?—but he was dressed more like him and skated to a cool Metallica song. He wasn’t as smooth as the first guy, although he looked like he enjoyed skating whether he was great or not. Mateo didn’t see him make any major mistakes and pegged him for second place. Even before the skater took his bow he was grinning, ready to high-five his teammates.

  “Okay, kiddo, you’re up,” said Ted, from behind him. “Show them what you’ve got.”

  Chapter 16

  Mateo forced his skates to roll out to the center of the floor. His legs suddenly felt like they weighed two hundred pounds each. And the floor did feel more slippery than at Roller City. Stupid traffic jam. If only they could have arrived earlier to get a practice run in. He made sure not to make eye contact with anyone, but just stared at the clock on the far wall. He had to be ready.

  Unlike Hayley’s routine—where she stands like a cat for about three seconds, and then slinks away, slowly building up speed—he had to shoot off like a cannon the second the music came on. Ha!—shoot off—he’d be lucky to move at all. A drip of sweat crawled down the back of his neck.

  The opening note of “Mission Impossible” sounded and off he went. After a few stiff pushes, his routine felt smoother, but his nervousness made him skate a beat faster than he should have. Not wanting to get ahead of the music, he pulled back a little. He skated in large circles, crossovers, and then cruised into some backward moves, just like he’d been practicing all those weeks.

  Mateo tried to keep his mind blank, but it was hard not to think about how he looked and whether he was doing everything right. At the start of his big jump, something—maybe a camera flash—caught his eye.

  He focused where the flicker had been, for just a millisecond, but it was enough time to see the huge mob of people staring back at him. That was all it took to lose his footing and crash.

  Yep, right there in front of everyone. From his seat on the floor, he inwardly rolled his eyes, then he heard Ted’s voice.

  “Get up, keep going!”

  Mateo leapt up as best he could, caught the beat, and plunged right back into skating from where he’d left off. He figured the worst had happened; the heck with trophies. He kept his eyes on the rink and showed off his skating speed.

  Finally the music stopped. Mateo rolled off the floor and went back to stand next to Alex and Hayley. He could feel his chest heaving up and down. What a stupid mistake that fall had been. His whole body was still shaking and he couldn’t even look his teammates in the eyes.

  “Good job,” said Hayley. There were only two more events until she skated, and she was acting pretty calm, so far.

  Alex didn’t say anything, but he had his usual smirk in place.

  Mateo sighed, his insides still churning. “Yeah, right.”

  “No, really. You did great,” said Hayley. “Gosh, I fell three times during my first meet.”

  “Yeah?”

  Hayley nodded. “I was a real klutz.”

  He felt a little better until he remembered that Hayley had probably been only five years old at the time. He laughed. Who cared? He’d done it. He’d actually competed in his first and last roller-skating event. Now maybe he could relax and watch the rest of the show.

  Ted came over from where he’d been watching. “You did good, Mateo. Nice showing for your first event.” Mateo knew Ted was probably disappointed, though. He’d been wanting Roller City to win a boy’s title for a long time. “Let’s go read the board,” said Ted.

  “Why bother? I mean I fell on my butt.”

  “You never know how these events will turn out.”

  They went over to where the scores were being put up. “Third place,” said Ted. “Not bad.”

  “But that’s last place!”

  Ted grinned and shrugged.

  Mateo laughed. It was true, third place wouldn’t sound too horrible to anyone who didn’t know only three kids had skated.

  They turned away from the board and then moved up close to watch the girls’ freestyle event. Hayley was the fourth one to skate. She looked amazing out there—all in pink, skating to The Pink Panther theme song they had picked out together a month before. Mateo was excited for her and prouder than anything. During practice, he’d watched her skate to this music a zillion times, so now he pulled his eyes away to see how other spectators reacted. He could tell they thought she was awesome. Trouble was, however, there were nine competitors in the girls’ event.

  “You were amazing,” he said to Hayley as she returned to their area.

  “Thanks. This girl looks good, too, though.” Hayley chewed her lip and watched as the next competitor did her routine.

  When all nine had finished, Mick included, they swarmed over to the boards. It reminded Mateo of the other time he had made his way to the front of another group of kids to check the baseball team results. He hadn’t thought about not making the team in a long time. It didn’t matter anymore. If he had gotten on the baseball team, he never would have known how it felt to roller-skate. He grinned to himself.

  Ted was just ahead of them, and being tall, he peered over heads to read the results. When he turned around, he was smiling. “Take a look,” he said to Hayley. He let her in front of him and Mateo watched her eyes go up the list until she reached the top.

  “Congratulations,” said a woman next to her. “You were fantastic.”

  “Thank you,” said Hayley, beaming.

  By then Mateo had read the results, too. “Yay, numero uno, first place!”

  Mick’s name was two names underneath Hayley’s. She stood to one side, scowling. The woman beside her looked like an older version of Mick. She was telling Mick why she hadn’t won, pointing out her mistakes—it made Mateo feel bad that Mick was under so much pressure. Maybe that’s why she’d hidden the skates. If she’d hidden them. They’d probably never know for sure what had actually happened.

  Hayley got a real trophy and got to stand on a little makeshift stage for photographs. Mateo got a medal, too—bronze for third place. It hung on a long blue ribbon.

  “Put it around your neck,” said Hayley. “Aw, come on, at least for pictures.” She turned around to see the others. “You too, Alex,” she said.

  Alex put on a bronze medal, identical to Mateo’s. “I
had a much bigger group to beat out,” he said as Mateo flipped his own medallion over once or twice between his palms.

  Hayley handed her phone to Ted. “Can you take our picture?”

  Mateo dropped the reward over his head and gave a cheesy grin for the camera. “This better not get posted all over the internet,” he said out the side of his mouth so only Hayley could hear. Then he yanked the medal off and stuffed it as far as he could into the bottom of his backpack.

  On the ride home Mateo had a splitting headache. No way would he be able to handle meets on a larger scale. This level was as high as he’d go. But he didn’t want to stop skating. He had a feeling this was the sport for him, for the long run.

  Mateo glanced across the backseat at Hayley. She looked zonked, too, and as sweet as an angel. He dozed off staring at her to the chatter of Alex and Ted discussing baseball cards.

  Chapter 17

  When school started back up, Mamá got nervous again about how much time Mateo spent at the rink. “Do not let it get in way of schoolwork. As soon as grades slip…”

  “Mamá, I’ve told you before, my grades aren’t going to fall. I’m doing fine.”

  “If you must skate, it is time to go back to Saturday, only Saturdays,” she said.

  But he didn’t think he could do that. To have to wait a whole week before skating again would be torture. Besides, his Sunday classes had become even more important. He had to keep on Mamá’s good side, though, or she wouldn’t let him skate at all. “Okay,” he said. “Just Saturday and Sunday, no more going after school.”

  Mamá didn’t look convinced.

  “I’ll get all my weekend homework done by Friday night.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “No matter what’s on TV,” he added.

  Mamá nodded. “We will try it.”

  September flew by into autumn. As he’d promised Mamá, Mateo kept on top of his schoolwork and lived for the weekends.

  Mateo thought it was awesome to have the rink all to themselves for practice on Sunday afternoons.

  On the second Sunday in October, Mateo let himself into the building after a soggy bike ride. The inside rink was bright and cheerful, unlike the cold, rainy day outside.

  A light was on in the back office and he knew Coach Ted was getting their music ready.

  “Hey, Mateo,” called out Hayley from a far corner of the rink.

  He waved and quickly put on his skates.

  Ted skated out of his office to the side of the rink. “Okay kids, are you ready to practice your first routine?”

  They took their places in the middle of the rink. Soon the screechy notes of the organ music sounded and they pushed off.

  When Mateo had first heard the song weeks before, he said, “This sounds kind of weird.”

  But Ted said, “That’s traditional tango music from Argentina, Mateo. This is good stuff.”

  And now he was so used to hearing it that Mateo thought it was pretty good, too. He and Hayley glided across the floor and went through their short routine.

  “That’s right, move as one,” called out Ted from the sidelines. “Maybe a little stronger posture would be good, Mateo.” Mateo straightened until he felt he might fall over backwards.

  “Excellent,” said Coach Ted as they practiced a bow. “Nice extension, Hayley. And you, Mateo, you’re almost ready for your next meet.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Not gonna happen. I’m done with meets.”

  Ted laughed. “You’ll come around.” Ted went back into his office to start the music again.

  Then they heard a few dull claps and some laughing. Mateo looked up and saw three kids in black jackets leaving the building. Roller City jackets were black, but they left so quickly he couldn’t see who they were.

  “Who was that?” asked Hayley.

  “I don’t know. Looked like teammates from the back.” Then a sick feeling came over him. It was the first time he’d realized that the skating jackets of the speed skating team and the jackets the Dudd Street kids wore looked similar from a distance.

  Mateo was the last one in; had he left the door unbolted? He skated over to the lobby and locked the entrance.

  When he came back, Hayley stood there grinning at him.

  “What?”

  “Notice anything different?”

  “Ah…”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t notice in all the time we’ve been here today.”

  Mateo checked her feet. Same skates. “Is your hair cut?”

  “You’re hopeless. I got my braces off yesterday! I’ve had them on for almost two years.”

  “Oh, hey yeah. Cool!” Her smile was as bright as ever, but still Mateo was surprised he hadn’t noticed the missing braces.

  They stayed late that day. The rain had stopped, but grayness hung over the sky as they swung through the double doors to the parking lot. Sometimes they waited outside for Hayley’s mom to arrive. Hayley was a few steps ahead of him. Suddenly she stopped.

  Just beyond her was the Dudd Street gang. No doubt about it this time. From the front he’d know them anywhere with the flashing silver stripes on black leather. Big difference between them and Hayley, a suddenly pale ballerina in her skimpy pink skating costume.

  One of the oldest thugs let out a long wolf whistle when he saw her. “Hey, chickie,” he said, “come teach me how to skate.” Mateo wished she had thrown on a jacket or something before going out in public. And even more, he wished Hayley’s mother were already there to pick her up.

  At first it was hard to see how many guys were out there in the growing dusk. The youngest of the creeps called out to him. “Hola, muchacho, whatchu doing here? Where’s your tutu?”

  “Give it up, Sash,” he said, tossing him his meanest scowl, while keeping one foot wedged inside the door.

  Hayley lifted her chin to the first guy. “Get away from us.” This defiance brought on comments and laughing. All kinds of horrible endings to this scene raced through Mateo’s mind. Hayley took a step forward, but for once, off skates, he was faster. He threw his backpack down to keep the closing door from locking behind him and then stepped in front of her.

  “No.” He used as stern a tone as he could muster. “Go back into the building.”

  “I need to get home,” said Hayley.

  Mateo kept his voice low. “If you want to get home in one piece, get back in the building. Now.” He hoped no one else could hear the shaking in his voice. More than ever, he wished he were some big guy who could take the gang all down with a few karate chops, instead of being a scrawny kid. The group crowded in closer. There must have been six or seven of them today. Mateo stood his ground. A sour taste filled his mouth. Picturing Hayley trapped by them almost made him puke. And it was probably because of him that they were hanging out at the rink in the first place.

  One of the guys fluttered his thick arms up and down. “No, dear, go back!” he said in a high, quivering voice as he mocked Mateo. Mateo thought Sash might split his gut laughing. The gang leader was occupied with lighting a cigarette while the others waited expectantly for his go-ahead.

  Finally, Hayley backed up a few steps and then flew into the building. Mateo took a quick glance over his shoulder and saw that she had moved his backpack in, but continued to hold the door open. “Come on, Mateo. You, too.”

  No time to be macho now. Mateo spun around, tripped over his own feet, and dove through the door, pulling it shut and sliding the bolts into place behind him. He placed his ear against the wall and tried to hear past his own winded breath. He wondered if they’d try to get in, or start banging on the door, or better yet just leave already.

  “I’m not scared of them,” said Hayley.

  “Well, you should be.” And then, sounding like his mother, he said, “Don’t you watch the news?”

  �
�I thought you two were long gone.” Ted jangled his keys as he headed for the door.

  In the bright lights of the rink, Mateo’s breathing slowed down. He listened to Hayley explain what had happened outside. It didn’t seem as bad the way she told it, but still he didn’t trust those guys for nothing.

  Ted called up his buddy on the police force and asked him to send a cruiser through the area. “I just thought of two more things to do and then I’ll drop you both off at home. From now on, let’s try to get out of here before dark.”

  “That’s okay,” said Hayley. “My mom will be here soon. We can take Mateo home.”

  Ted nodded and went to finish up.

  “Those guys don’t scare me,” Hayley said again, cool as can be. “Hey, why don’t you come over to my house for dinner? My mom holds it late for me on Sundays.” Hayley pulled out her cell.

  “Uh, maybe not, I…” Mateo began responding until he realized Hayley was already speaking into her phone.

  “Hey, Mum, what…” Hayley raised her eyebrows. “Huh? Oh, don’t worry. We’re done now. I guess I forgot to call.”

  Hayley frowned. “Sorry, Mum. It got dark early today.” Hayley nodded and rolled her eyes at Mateo. “I will. Um, Mum, what are we having for dinner? Any gluten in that?” Hayley twirled a piece of hair around one finger while she listened. “Great. Is it okay if Mateo eats with us?”

  He was surprised Hayley remembered and knew enough to ask about gluten. It still made him nervous to try new foods, though. He watched her snap her phone shut.

  “If you skip the rolls, we’re having filet mignon, home-fries, and corn on the cob.”

  Just hearing those words made him realize how hungry he was. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever had filet mignon, but he knew it was supposed to be pretty good.

  “It’s okay,” said Hayley. “She likes me to bring friends home. Here, call your mom.” She passed him her phone without making him explain whether he did or didn’t have his own, and if not, why not.