Shelly Struggles to Shine

by Kit Rosewater

  Shelly blinked. Tomoko was wrestling one of Shelly’s skates in her lap, trying to tear off the bubble boots. “You taped it too tight,” Tomoko said.

  Jules reached for the scissors. “I got it!”

  POP!

  The tip of the scissors went into the plastic, bursting the bubble boots and Shelly’s awesome plan.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Shelly sat on the bench for a long time after practice was over.

  The other Daredevils sat beside her. They took off their helmets and shook the sweat from their hair.

  “Those new game plays are sweet,” Bree said to Kenzie. “Even better in skates.”

  “Thanks,” Kenzie said. “Tomoko really pulled off that leap-frog one.”

  Shelly’s shoulders sagged even lower. Everything was back to the way it was before. Kenzie had the plans, Bree had the speed, Tomoko could block, Jules dished out the bruises . . . but what did Shelly have without her sketchbook? She felt like a total faker on the team.

  Tomoko nudged Shelly’s arm. “I’m sorry your stuff didn’t work out,” she said. “But the drawings are still cool. Can you make a Tomonater picture for my room?”

  “Oh,” Jules said. “And maybe I can have a Crown Jules one for my locker!”

  “The Bree-Zee helmet is cooler in your pictures than in real life,” Bree said. “You could add some clouds to it and show me skating through the sky.”

  Kenzie leaned forward so she could see Shelly on the other end of the bench.

  “Your drawings are really cool,” Kenzie said. “We love them.”

  Shelly sighed and looked at her sketchbook sitting next to the bag.

  “Great,” Shelly muttered. Her teammates were more excited about some pictures than the gear she had worked so hard to bring to life.

  Jules popped up from the bench. “Why’d they even put a basketball hoop out here?” she asked. “No one uses the court for basketball.”

  “They probably did,” Bree said, “before the derby league moved into the warehouse.”

  Tomoko finished tying her sneakers. She unzipped her bag and pulled out a basketball.

  Jules’s eyes went wide. “You carry that around?”

  “Why not?” Tomoko said. She spun the ball on one finger. “I love basketball and derby, so I keep them both close to me!”

  Tomoko flung the basketball to Jules. “One-on-one?”

  Shelly, Kenzie, and Bree watched as Jules and Tomoko ran and dodged past one another on the court. Even outside of derby, Tomoko was a great blocker. Jules threw her hip into Tomoko and dribbled.

  “Nice hip check!” Bree called.

  Maybe Shelly didn’t belong on the team. Maybe she would be better as their mascot. Or the person who brought them water. Shelly buried her face in her hands.

  “You OK?” Kenzie’s hand was on Shelly’s back.

  Shelly nodded. “Just tired.” She mopped her face and watched Tomoko sink another basket.

  “All right,” Tomoko said. “Five to nothing. I think I’m done.”

  “Six out of ten!”

  Bree and Kenzie laughed. Shelly mustered a small smile. She wanted to be able to laugh along with her friends. It would be so much easier if she could just forget the plan and go back to being her regular self. But the disappointment on her shoulders was so heavy—she couldn’t shrug it off.

  Tomoko sighed and passed the ball to Jules. “Let’s play HORSE or something.”

  “We can play DAREDEVIL!” Jules said. She looked over at the others. “You want to play on teams?”

  “You go ahead,” Shelly said. “I’ll just mess it up.”

  “How would you mess it up?” Kenzie asked. Her brows were furrowed.

  Shelly shrugged. She reached for her laces.

  “I’m out too,” Kenzie said after a moment. “In fact, I think maybe I’ll stay back with Shelly for a little bit.”

  Bree jumped up and put her backpack on. “Let’s go shoot hoops at the park.” She handed Tomoko her bag.

  “Come on,” Bree said. She led both Tomoko and Jules off the court and into the warehouse.

  Shelly turned. She was surprised to see Kenzie still had her skates laced up.

  “You’re not going with them?” Shelly asked.

  Kenzie shook her head. “Nah.”

  They sat together in silence. Over the rooftops, the sky was turning a soft pink. Shelly thought about sitting with her dad on the porch, imagining what it would be like to be a star. That felt forever ago now.

  “I’m sorry,” Shelly said. “I really should have gone to practice yesterday. I thought my project was going to be this awesome thing for the team. But it turned out to be a total waste.”

  Shelly wriggled her nose to keep the tears from climbing up.

  Kenzie stared at the court. “We didn’t try the gloves,” she said after a moment.

  Shelly turned. “Huh?”

  “My Kenzilla gloves.” Kenzie slipped one on her hand. “You wanted them to be sticky, right? Maybe we could try a blocking hold or something. For the tournament.”

  Shelly hopped up so fast that her skates nearly slipped out from under her.

  “That would be so, so great,” she said. Even just one thing making it to the track could hold Shelly’s plan together. If the gloves worked, and the coaches saw how great Kenzie and Shelly teamed up on the court, and then realized that Shelly designed the gloves herself . . .

  “Come on!” Kenzie said.

  Shelly put on the other glove. Now if they held hands during a game play, they wouldn’t slip!

  Both girls crouched by the blocker line.

  “Hey,” Kenzie said. She looked at Shelly. “This is like old times.”

  “Yeah.” Shelly smiled. “Ready?”

  “Go!”

  The Dynamic Duo took off around the court.

  “We can try the Labyrinth play again!” Kenzie yelled. “Pretend the other jammer’s coming up after us. Make a wall!”

  Shelly reached out and grasped Kenzie’s hand.

  “This is awesome!” Shelly said. “They really stick!”

  They pressed their palms tight.

  “Stage two,” Kenzie said. “Now we have to get ahead and form the next wall.”

  Shelly skated forward. Her arm jerked her back.

  Kenzie wiggled her hand. “That means you have to let go.”

  “I’m trying!” Shelly said. She tugged her arm, but it was like she was glued to Kenzie.

  “If the jammer runs into us it’s a penalty!” Kenzie said. “No arm strikes, remember? We have to let go!”

  Shelly grunted as she shimmied her hand. “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “Ow!” Kenzie said. “You’re elbowing me!”

  Shelly yanked her arm toward her with one quick motion.

  Rip!

  “Ahh!!”

  Shelly and Kenzie flew apart. Shelly tottered. She tucked her legs down and fell onto the pavement.

  “Oof,” Shelly said. She shook her wrist out. At least without the bubble boots she fell the right way.

  Shelly sat up and looked across the court. Kenzie was on her side. She cradled one arm in front of her.

  “Kenzie!” Shelly crawled on her knee pads to her friend. “Is your arm OK?”

  Kenzie groaned and sat up. She peeled her Kenzilla sticky glove off and threw it down. “I think so,” she said.

  Shelly picked up the glove and matched it with the one she had been wearing. “I wonder if I can make a way for them to release better before tomorrow.”

  “What?” Kenzie unclipped her helmet. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Well, if we want to have new gear for the tournament—”

  Kenzie held up a hand. “Shelly,” she said. “I stayed behind to be nice. And because you looked so sad.” She pointed to Shelly’s bag. “But all that stuff is junk! And worse, it’s super dangerous. There’s no way we can use it tomorrow.”

  Shelly’s face got hot. “We can too!” she said.
“I’m trying to help!”

  Kenzie shook her head. “You sure about that?” She pulled off her skates and stood up.

  Shelly watched as Kenzie grabbed her things. Kenzie didn’t know what it was like to not feel special in the group. She was already the leader and planner. But new derby gear was all Shelly had. It was her only chance at Star Skater.

  “Maybe I’ll just stand out without you! Maybe I’ll show off all by myself!” Shelly called.

  Kenzie paused at the warehouse door. “Maybe you will,” she said.

  The side door rattled as it banged shut, leaving Shelly on the court all alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Shelly usually only spent Sunday and Monday nights with her dad, but that evening her mom was guest-teaching a painting class downtown. Shelly’s dad showed up in the warehouse parking lot. His eyes got big as Shelly dragged the giant paper bag behind her, but he lifted it right up and carried it the rest of the way to his workshop. Shelly tipped the bag over in front of her dad’s tool bench, digging all of her broken designs out.

  “Hoo boy. Looks like you got your work cut out for you, kiddo,” her dad said. He and Shelly folded their arms and surveyed the pile of stuff. “Is this for a school project?”

  Shelly shook her head. “It’s for derby,” she said. “I have to fix it or else I won’t have a shot at being Star Skater in the tournament.”

  Shelly took out the Tomonater glasses. “Like, I wanted these to be red,” she said, scraping the paint away. “But the paint just made everything go dark.”

  “Here.” Shelly’s dad fished through a drawer in his tool bench, then handed Shelly a thin sheet of plastic. “It has a red tint. And you can cut it to fit the frames.”

  Shelly held the plastic in front of her. “Oh yeah, this is much better.”

  She picked up the blanket. It was still sticky from where Jules had glued the confetti on.

  “This was supposed to be a cloak,” Shelly said dejectedly.

  Her dad held up a roll of thick cord. “You need a better way to tie that together.”

  “And make it shorter,” Shelly said. “Hey! Maybe we can cut a piece to go around the hips. And it can be a hip-bumper for protecting against bruises.”

  “Now you’re thinking,” her dad said. He nudged Shelly’s shoulder.

  One by one, Shelly went through her list. She painted the Kenzilla gloves green and took off one set of sticky pads so they would come apart easier. She found two tiny propellers in the workshop and decided to make them into skate boosters for Bree-Zee instead of the helmet attachment. She made the pouch for her exploding wrist guards again and again, adding in more air and less confetti. She practiced with them until finally, she clapped and the confetti went everywhere! Shelly remade the pouch one last time and attached it to her left wrist guard. The explosion could only happen once, but it would still impress everyone.

  Shelly’s dad checked his watch.

  “Getting late,” he said. “What do you say we head upstairs?”

  Shelly pressed her lips together. There was still something missing. She leaned over the bag, staring at something glinting from the bottom.

  “Can we stay down here a little longer? I want to make a couple more things.”

  Her dad smiled. “Just tell me what to do.”

  Shelly didn’t play the lava game on her way to the warehouse the next day. Her feet were too tired to pick up and hop around. She shuffled down the sidewalk and across parking lots. The empty squares of pavement stretched on like blank pages. Maybe if Shelly weren’t so sleepy, she would draw imaginary squiggles in the squares, and then turn those imaginary squiggles into imaginary full pictures that danced and swirled. But Shelly only yawned and heaved her bag onward.

  She shoved herself through the warehouse doors. Inside, junior league teams were already zooming in loops around the track. Shelly scanned the bleachers. The rest of the Daredevils were already here too. They even had their gear on. Shelly scrunched up her face. Were they meeting without her?

  She went to the row where the other Daredevils were sitting.

  “Um, hi.”

  Bree looked up. “Whoa. You look kind of awful.”

  “Thanks,” Shelly said.

  “You just look tired,” Tomoko said. “Did you stay up late?”

  Shelly stood in front of the bag. One handle was barely hanging on.

  “And got up early,” she said. A yawn escaped before she could stop it.

  “My mom calls that burning the candle at both ends,” Jules said. “It’s like setting both your feet and your hair on fire.”

  Shelly rolled her eyes. She noticed Kenzie was bent over one skate, tying and untying the laces.

  “Did you all meet here without me?” Shelly asked.

  Kenzie sat up. “We figured you might be busy with your own stuff.”

  Shelly winced. She didn’t like feeling left out. But soon everyone would see what she was working on.

  “Actually,” she said, “I spent all night fixing everything.” She reached into the bag and pulled out the skate propellers, then set them in front of Bree. Bree hardly glanced at the propellers before she looked away.

  “No thanks,” Bree said. She finished wrapping her wrist guard.

  Shelly sat on the bench. “It’s to give your skates a boost. You know, Bree-Zee, fast like a breeze?”

  “She said she doesn’t want to wear them,” Kenzie said. Her voice was low and quiet.

  Shelly looked around. Everyone seemed to inch farther away from her.

  She slumped her shoulders and turned to get her skates from the rental counter. They had the yellow spot on the wheel, like always. By the time she got back to the bench, the other Daredevils were sliding onto the rink for practice laps. The propellers sat alone.

  Fffttt!

  A loud whistle cut through the warehouse. The skaters on the rink stopped. Shelly finished knotting her laces and stood up. She clomped across the carpet and skated to the jammer line, where Mambo Rambo, Razzle Dazzle, and Look Out were waiting. Shelly took a place behind the rest of the Daredevils.

  “Welcome to your first official tournament,” Mambo said. Her eyes were wide and smiley, like she expected everyone to dance around again.

  Shelly stole glances at the other teams. A few people clapped, but almost everyone looked nervous. Suddenly, a tournament felt like a very big deal.

  Raz gave a particularly loud whoop! She looked down at her clipboard. “We’ve got five Austin teams going against three teams from New Mexico. That means the Taco Bout-its and Shady Birds will be going head to head.”

  The two Austin teams twisted around and looked each other over.

  “Let’s meet our visiting teams,” Lo said. “Introducing the Albuquerque, New Mexico, junior league!”

  Lo threw her arm with a flourish toward the side door. Fifteen girls came streaming inside. Everyone wore normal-looking skates and helmets. Shelly blinked. Where were the unicorn horns from the picture?

  Raz motioned for the Austin league to stand up. Shelly scrambled in line and high-fived the New Mexico teams as they stepped onto the track.

  “We’re going to have a great time today,” Mambo said to everyone. “Go ahead and get changed into your tournament gear in the locker rooms! New Mexico league, your locker room is over this way.”

  Shelly grabbed her things and followed the others. Everything seemed to be happening so fast. Had the Daredevils practiced enough? Did they have game plays for every kind of jam? What if the other teams outsmarted them? Or were faster? Or meaner? Shelly squeezed the propellers. Her derby gear had seemed like a clear path to shine, but now it seemed like her last bit of hope.

  The Daredevils settled in the far corner of the locker room.

  “Everyone have knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards?” Kenzie asked.

  “Yep,” Jules said. She patted her leg. “And a good set of bruises to match!”

  Shelly started to dig around in her bag. “Actually, I
made something for that.”

  “I told you,” Kenzie said. “The team decided. We’re sticking with basic gear only.”

  The fuzzy hip bumper fell from Shelly’s grip. “But—”

  “OK! Game play time!” Kenzie clapped her hands. Bree, Tomoko, and Jules leaned in.

  Shelly’s empty hand balled into a fist at her side. She sat with her back turned to the others.

  As the Daredevils whispered about plays, Shelly crossed her arms and watched the other teams. The Cow Pokes were doing a cheer. The Cherry Pits threw on their signature shirts. The other teams looked so cool, all dressing alike. Shelly glanced at her bag.

  Raz stuck her head in the door. “We’re ready out there! First up, the Daredevils!”

  Shelly’s eyebrows shot up. They were going first?

  The chatter and giggling in the locker room quieted down. Shelly and the others slowly stood up from their corner.

  “Here we go,” Bree whispered.

  As Shelly watched her teammates file through the locker room, she leaned toward her bag and snatched both the propellers and her special wrist guard. Wearing her gear by herself hadn’t been Shelly’s original plan, but it was the last chance she had to prove herself to the team. With skate boosters and a hidden flash of confetti, Shelly was sure to stand out on the track.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  One by one, the Daredevils squeezed out of the locker room. The warehouse barely looked like it did during normal practice. The high spotlights shone down over the rink. Shelly could see heads bobbing everywhere in the stands. Somewhere on those benches, her parents were watching. Her palms were slick with sweat.

  The girls spread out on one of the official team benches along the sidelines.

  A man dressed in a giant flamingo costume waltzed onto the rink. He cleared his throat and leaned into the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, lone wolves and cuttlefish,” he said, “thank you for attending the first ever Austin vs. Albuquerque junior league tournament!”

  Everyone sitting in the bleachers clapped.

  “What does that mean?” Tomoko whispered. “Lone wolves and cuttlefish?”

  “The announcer always adds something with ‘ladies and gentlemen,’” Kenzie explained, “because not everyone fits in just those two categories.”