by Karen Rivers
I stared at her blankly. I was dumbfounded. (Yes, that is a word.) FB was terrible at snowboarding. Not even good enough to be terrible. She was abysmal, appalling, catastrophic, cataclysmic!
And she hated it!
But!
I was actually good at it. Really good at it. As soon as I strapped the board onto my feet, it felt right. I didn’t want to stop, not to eat or anything. By the end of the day, I could swish like a pro. The snow swooped up with a definite fwoooom sound and showered down on my board in a crystal wave. Don’t laugh, but I felt like I could fly.
I still have dreams about it sometimes. They are the best kind of dreams, a billion times better than the dreams I have of being forced to perform Swan Lake with broken glass strapped to my feet.
But to be honest, I sort of pretended I wasn’t as good at snowboarding as I was because of Freddie Blue. She couldn’t even stand up! And when she did, she just teetered wildly in place until she finally tipped over and sank into the snow. She said it was hilair,25 but I could tell she hated it, even though she giggled giddily through her blue, shivering lips. (There were a lot of boys around. Supercute boys. Obvi.)
Poor Freddie Blue, I thought now. Her beauty and smartness make it all the more mysterious why she sometimes steals my scenarios and makes them her own. I looked at her, worried. She might steal this encyclopedia too. Then what?
“Um,” I said. “Never mind.”
“Are you still writing that book?” she said. “It’s so boring. Are you writing about boarding? You don’t know anything about boarding! That’s so ridic, Tink.”
“I’m not writing about skateboarding,” I lied. “I mean ‘boarding.’”
I flopped back on the Itchy Couch and scratched my bare legs while picturing myself swooping gracefully up a ramp and then flying off the other side. Bam! I was sure the wheel-sounds-on-pavement would be just as good, if not better, than the crunching-snow-sounds of the snowboard.
I sighed. If only I wasn’t grounded.
Mom and Dad were both at work, putting me in charge of meting out my own punishment, which made me feel kind of like I was raising myself, much like an orphan but not nearly as glam.
“Do you think a movie star would adopt me if both my parents were gone?” I asked Freddie.
“No,” said Freddie Blue. “You are too old. They only adopt really adorable big-eyed babies from exotic nations.”
“Oh,” I said. “Not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” she said wisely.
“Right,” I said.
“Oh, sigh,” she said. “I’m so bored. We’ve got to do something.”
“I know,” I said. “I wish I could.” I closed my eyes and imagined a skateboard under my feet.
“Hey!” she said, reading my mind. “I’ve got it! We’re going to go boarding! I am so psyched. This could be our way of being super ultraglam this year at school. We’ll be the only girls who board. I bet by Christmas, everyone will be doing it. Then we’ll stop and do something else that’s less . . . malg.”26
I squinted at her. “Ruth Quayle boards,” I said. I felt stupid saying “boards,” like I was pretending to speak a language I didn’t know.
“Ruth!” FB barked with laughter. “So?”
“So,” I said. “I mean, maybe it won’t make us popular. Ruth isn’t.”
“She would be if she wasn’t so . . . Ruth,” said FB. “It’s not the boarding that’s the trouble. It’s just her general Ruthiness.”
“I like Ruth,” I said. I actually think of her as Ruth! with an exclamation point. (This is because Ruth is always exclaiming! About everything! All the time!) Not that I would tell Freddie Blue that, because Freddie Blue is not the most tactful person in the world and she might let it slip and hurt Ruth!’s feelings. The way Ruth skateboarded was cool because she was the only girl who was ever out there, jumping around and whatnot in baggy pants and amusing T-shirts.
“Whatever,” Freddie Blue said. “Ruth is a dork. Her whole thing with Jedgar Johnston is weird.”
Sometimes FB’s scorn is so sharp, it’s like a glittery paring knife peeling the skin off an apple in one smooth, long curl. You do not want to be the apple.
“What’s weird about it?” I said. “They’re best friends. So what?”
“SO she doesn’t have any girls who are friends,” said FB. “That’s weird.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s just what it is.”
“You aren’t going to help us be pops27 if you like people like Ruth,” said FB. “Sorry, but you know I’m right. I’m just trying to help you, Tink. To help us. We’re in this together, right? Cause you’re totally my BFF.”
“FB,” I said. “Go back to your magazine. I am trying to write.”
“Don’t be snappish,” she said. “I love your crazy idea! About being boarders! It’s the best idea you’ve ever had! Let’s go right now. Don’t look at me like that. I know you’re grounded. But you can sneak out! Besides, you’ve been good, you get time off for good behavior. And this is important. AND a sport! You know how your parents love sports! They would actually WANT you to do this.”
Hortense leaped onto my chest, whumping the air out of my lungs. It was so hot in the room, I felt like I was drowning. I gulped a big breath of air and tried to pry her off me. Going outside actually did sound sort of good, but only if I could guarantee I would not be caught. Being caught would mean . . . well, I had no idea what, but I knew it would be capital-B Bad. Hortense struggled and scratched my arm. “OUCH,” I yelled. She scratched me again in a frenzy of claws and skin. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” I said. “Dumb cat.”
FB laughed. “That cat is so ugly,” she said. “You’re maimed! You’re maimed!”
“It isn’t funny!” I said, pushing Hortense off. My arms stung. I looked out the window. The leaves of the Tree of Unknown Species were rising and falling in the breeze, like they were whispering, “Come outside, come outside . . .”
“You are such a goody-goody, it gives me a pain in my heart.” FB rolled around dramatically, clutching her chest.
I tried to think of the right Tink Aaron-Martin Patented Stare to give her,28 but I couldn’t come up with one. Besides, outside sounded good. And it was a sport! My parents DID like sports! So . . . maybe . . . I . . .
“OK,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
The minute we stepped outside, the heat hit us like the kind of massive tidal wave that will one day crush all of humanity and even New York City if you believe what you watch on movies. It felt tolerable until we got to the end of the driveway, by which time we were sweating like pigs, although I’ve never seen a pig sweat as much as we were.
Freddie Blue kept staring at my maimed left arm and wrinkling her nose. “That’s going to leave a scar,” she said.
I shrugged. I was about to say something witty about how the scars would look like dot-to-dot drawings on the freckles when she suddenly shouted, “OK, cover me. I’m going in.”
“What?” I said.
Before I could stop her or even figure out what she was doing, she scampered up the long, steep driveway of the house next door. A house where I have never been. A house that I purposely avoided! Because whether they knew it or not, the people who owned that house ALSO owned the Tree of Unknown Species. My tree. (Which was technically theirs, even though it was closer to my house than theirs.)
Ringing their doorbell was tantamount to saying, “HELLO, WE WOULD LIKE TO DRAW ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT WE EXIST! AND WE LIKE TO TRESPASS IN YOUR TREE!” I would never do that!
“Don’t ring the bell!” I shouted.
She didn’t answer. But in about thirty seconds, she ran back to me with two skateboards under her arms, like a bad guy making a getaway, except she was laughing her head off.29
“Let’s go!” she said. “It’s an adventure. Adventure Number 308 in the Famous Adventures of Freddie Blue and You!”
“Um,” I said. “Whose boards are those?”
“Some
blue-haired kid’s,” she said. “Borrowed them. Don’t worry about it.”
“Freddie Blue,” I said. “I am worried about it. Did you ask? You didn’t have time! Did you even ring the bell? You don’t just borrow someone’s skateboard. That’s like borrowing their . . . socks. And really is it ‘borrowing’ if you don’t ask?”
“How is it like borrowing their socks?” she said. “It’s totally different. You don’t wear a skateboard on your feet. Borrowing socks would be like borrowing underwear. Hey, socks are the underwear of your feet! You can put that in your encyclopedia if you want, but give me cred, OK?”
“It’s not that kind of book,” I said. “It’s . . . deep.”
She snorted. “Oh, sorry. Anyway,” she said, “don’t worry about it, OK? Just do it. You steal their tree all the time, this is the same thing.”
“You can’t steal a TREE,” I said. “It’s attached to the ground. I just . . . borrow it.”
“So we are just BORROWING these!” she said triumphantly. “Now let’s do it!”
“Freddie,” I said. “Do what? What are we doing?”
“We’re going there,” she said, pointing down the hill.
I stared.
“Don’t think like that,” said Freddie. “You have to believe in, like, the power of positive thinking. You won’t hurt yourself if you don’t THINK you’ll hurt yourself. It’s all up here.” She tapped her head knowingly.
“Freddie,” I said. “You are being obnoxious. And ridiculous. I was thinking ‘I’ve always wanted to try skateboarding, but maybe skateboarding down a steep hill on a stolen board is a dumb place to start.’”
“Borrowed,” she hissed. “Don’t be a coward.”
Freddie Blue tossed her hair and dropped her board. It slid three feet and rolled onto a lawn. She put it back on the sidewalk and stared at it with grave determination. I hoped she didn’t hurt herself too badly, but I really couldn’t help her. I knew I was going to be OK, thanks to my talent at snowboarding, which was virtually the same thing. Probably. Or at least, it looked similar. I put my foot on my board and waited for it to feel right.
Then I lifted my other foot of the ground to push off.
But something was wrong.
And that something was that I was on a hill.
And I was facing the wrong way.
But luckily I have excellent balance!
Unluckily, this meant I stayed on all the way to the bottom of the hill!
Where I shot out into traffic! And was almost killed! By a bus!
And then I hit the railroad track and was catapulted skyward at great speed, landing jarringly on the sidewalk! On my head!
My head!
“OMG,” said Freddie Blue, jogging to a stop beside me. I noticed she was not using her skateboard. Typical. “You’re bleeding! That’s so gross! Call the paramedics! 911! 911! Why didn’t you put on this helmet?” She thrust an olive green helmet on my head. I took it off. “Pretend you were wearing it, OK? It might be illegal not to! You’ll go to jail!”
“Holy cow, are you OK? Did you, like, steal my boards and stuff?” said a boy. I was dizzy. I couldn’t really see his face, but his hair was blue. “Like, you’ve got brutal road rash on your arms.” I hate people who start their sentences with the word “like.”
I said, “I’m perfectly fine, thank you. Those happen to be the scratches of a hairless cat.” I added, “And we just borrowed them.”
Then I stood up and immediately fainted dead away. Fainting is kind of my thing, so I’m pretty good at it.30 But this was a real, big, and different sort of faint: a grayed out, nauseating one. It was the mother of all faints! The Big Kahuna!
It was an embarrassingly awful wet-your-pants one.
It was a seriously catastrophic may-the-world-open-up-right-now-and-swallow-me-whole one.
When I came to, I immediately wished I hadn’t. I felt like one of those vacuum-sealed bags that had just had all the air sucked out of it in a violent rush. I closed my eyes and prayed for instant death, in the form of a sewer alligator suddenly appearing and dragging me under the road for lunch.
“You swooned!” cried Freddie Blue, quickly shielding my wet parts with the helmet that I was still holding. At least it was good for something.
“I fainted,” I said. “It’s different.” My head felt funny and my heart felt like it was tripping on stairs. I tried to breathe slowly.
“Is not,” said FB, hauling me to my feet. She began steering me up the hill, which was whooshing around and bucking under my feet. It was like trying to ride a pony31 by standing on the saddle.
I stumbled. The blue-haired boy grabbed my arm. His hand felt cold and strange, like a dead fish landing on my skin.
“Hey,” I said. “Don’t touch me.” I wasn’t very friendly, I’ll admit, but I wasn’t feeling friendly. I was feeling angry. With him. With FB. With everyone. Especially with the alligator, for not showing up on cue.
The walk home took about seven hours or twenty minutes, I have no idea. FB half dragged, half carried me all the way up the gravelly driveway to my house, still holding on to the helmet over my crotch.
In that moment, I truly loved her.
I did not invite the blue-haired boy to come inside. He must have waited outside on the porch, because when FB left, I could hear them talking. At first I thought, Oh, that was sort of sweet of that boy to make sure I was OK. But then I heard FB doing that fake laugh again and then the lower, more rumbly sound of his voice. He had a very low voice. And then enough fake laughing to make me feel like crawling out of my own skin and into the nearest swamp.
Giggle rumble giggle rumble.
Was FB getting a boyfriend? Without telling me? What was she doing?
Now I probably had a brain injury AND she was going to beat me in the Boyfriend Race she didn’t even know she was running.
“Unfair,” I moaned.
“It isn’t unfair,” said Mom. She was still in her hospital scrubs, having rushed home to be with me. I was confused about how that went down, really. Did FB call her? I wish she hadn’t. It would be more peaceful to be alone. “It was a silly thing to do and now you’re injured because you made a dumb mistake. ‘Fair’ has nothing to do with it.”
“That’s not what I was talking about,” I mumbled.
“You could have been seriously hurt!” she said. “I’m so . . .”She stopped. “Disappointed.”
“Fine,” I said. “I know. OK?”
She frowned.
“Maybe you could yell at me some more when my head stops hurting,” I said helpfully.
“Tink,” she said. “Don’t be rude.” But she went out of the room and closed the door gently behind her.
I spent the rest of the day alternating between lying on my bed and lying on the Itchy Couch with ice packs on my head while my mom shone beams of Angry and Disappointed out of her eyes and in my direction. I hoped Freddie Blue and the blue-haired boy had a nice afternoon! If by “nice afternoon,” I mean “I hope a wild orca leaped out of the ocean and dragged them both to a watery grave.”
Books
You know what a book is, right? Pages? With writing on them? Between covers? So why is this entry here?
Because B is for “Book.” That is why. You know, like A is for “Apple.”
I like books. If I was going to make a top-ten list of everything good in my life, I’m almost sure that “Books” would feature, but if not, I’ll give them an honorable mention32 because books are mostly awesome, except the ones that are stupid and don’t bear mentioning or even reading for that matter, and why yes, I am talking about The Hobbit.
One day, I will write a book that will be as brilliant and amazing as my favorite book of all time, which is called I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. If you have not read it, drop this book right now and go find a copy. Your mom probably has one. It’s an old book.
Boy, Blue-Haired, Who Just Moved in Next Door
I do not know anything about the Blue-Hai
red Boy Who Just Moved in Next Door, except that he is a boy. And he lives next door. And he owns MY tree. And his hair is blue. And he has skateboards that he leaves on his front porch, completely unsecured.
His hair is bigger than mine, the biggest hair I have ever seen. It has big fat curls, like you’d see on a kid competing in a beauty pageant whose mother has labored over that hair for six hours with a curling iron. It is long and thick, like a shiny, loose, soft, white-kid Afro. It is mostly dark brown but then has blobs of blue in it, such that it looks like a flock of angry birds who have been dining exclusively on blueberries have recently flown over his head.
If you guessed that this boy is the boy from the entry Boarding, Skate, you would be 100 percent correct, and you have won a beach towel and a year’s supply of charcoal briquettes! Congratulations!
Freddie Blue told me that his name is Kai. When I say “Kai” out loud, it sounds like the barking sound that harbor seals make while they beg for fish down at the wharf. “Kai, Kai, Kai,” she said. “Kai this and Kai that and Kai this and blah blah blah.”
She said Kai is as “cute as a cracker” and will also be going to Cortez next year, even though he does not look very “gifted”33 from a distance or even up close. Not that I have seen him up close, except that one time when I was only half-conscious on the road.
I do not know if Kai is cute or not cute. He may be as cute as toast or even a Pop-Tart, for all I know.
I thought skateboarding kids were supposed to be cool and aloof and inaccessible to the likes of me, but whenever this “Kai” sees me, he waves in a way that reminds me of a small dog who wants to climb up your leg while slobbering on your shoes. I do the only thing that I can do when this happens, which is to hide, usually in his tree. This is probably ironic.
Freddie Blue says that Kai is probably going to be my first real boyfriend because in after-school TV shows, boys who live next door are always sweet and kind and give people their first kisses. They are never bad boys at all, and while she herself prefers “bad boys,” she thinks that I should have a “sweet and kind” boyfriend because I am not “streetwise.” Freddie Blue apparently equates “streetwisery” with “talking to her BFF like she is idio.”34