Epic

by Connor Kostick

  “Yeah.” I didn’t say anything about the throbbing ache in my ankle. Thinking about it brought tears to my eyes but I wasn’t going to show any weakness in front of Jay. He was the oldest of our gang and our leader. Between Jay and me was a friendship, but also a rivalry. I’m sure he disliked the fact that I was a better boarder than he was, and, punk though he was, he just could not bring himself to match my self-confidence by boarding without a helmet.

  “Good.” He glanced across at me. “I thought you were going down that time.”

  “Yeah, it was close. But I caught it. No worries.”

  Turning into Turner Square was a pleasure, lots of easy riding along the tops of the tidy bushes and plenty of room for the walkers to get out of our way. Then a number of climbs: the Castleford Hotel’s convenient awning; a series of window ledges; a grind along a power cable; an ollie to get that extra bit of height you needed to take you up to the stone ornaments of an ancient government building; finally we rode along the lamps that beamed light up onto a huge advertisement hoarding, currently selling a popular brand of toothpaste. As we came between the beams of light and the board, we were casting fleeting dark shadows like cavities on a whiter-than-white smile, so gigantic were the teeth. A quick glance and, having checked the sky was clear of surveillance choppers, a sharp cutback. We were gone.

  Behind the advertising board was a disused office, and this was our den.