The ground rushed up to meet him. Dennis yelled for other kids to get out of the way. His old fear rose inside him like a big lump, choking him until his yell died out in a strangled gurgle. He froze, and his board caught an edge. Dennis went flying forward, hurtling through the air. He shut his eyes tight, then landed flat on his back in the soft snow.
He pushed himself up, dusted himself off, and heard the roars of laughter from the top of the hill. “Wow, O’Malley!” Rick shouted down at him. “Great trick! You gotta show me how you do that!”
Rick and Pat would never let him live this down. Never.
And yet … something had happened to Dennis during that brief run down the hill. The fear had nearly overcome him, true. But there was something else. Something … exhilarating.
Dennis unstrapped himself from the board and began walking up the steps to the starting point. By the time he reached Tasha and Robbie, his excitement had all but replaced his terror. Not even the taunts from Rick and Pat could quell it.
“Don’t listen to them, Dennis,” Robbie told him, casting an angry look at Rick and Pat as they walked off.
“He’s right,” Tasha said. “That was really good for your first time. Want to try again?”
“Definitely!” Dennis told them. He meant it, too. “But not now. I wasn’t kidding about having to go shopping. I’m really late, guys. I’ll see you in school Monday, okay?”
Waving good-bye, Dennis trotted back to the bench. Then he picked up Flash and skateboarded back toward his house.
Even though he’d had the courage to try snow-boarding in spite of his fear, he knew Rick and Pat were going to tell everyone what a jerk he’d made of himself. By Monday morning, he’d be the laughingstock of the entire school.
Dennis bit his lip. He had to learn to snowboard. He had to show everyone — himself included — that he could do it, no matter what Rick and Pat said!
Besides, something deep inside told him that, once he got the hang of it, he was going to love snowboarding.
3
Dennis pulled the kitchen door open and stepped inside. “Mom? Dad?” he called out. There was no answer. On one corner of the kitchen table was a note, scribbled in his mother’s handwriting:
Hi, Dennis. We left already to finish our Christmas shopping. Back later. Help yourself to lunchfrom fridge. Love, Mom
Dennis sighed. He didn’t feel the least bit hungry, even though he’d only had that little roll for breakfast. He put Flash away in the hall closet, then headed upstairs to his room. He closed the door behind him and flopped down, belly first, onto the bed. Cupping his chin in his hands, he heaved a mighty sigh.
In his mind’s eye, he imagined himself scooting down a steep, snow-covered hillside on a snowboard, dashing past slower boarders and skiers, doing loop-de-loops around them, getting airborne and doing somersaults in midair… .
Aw, what was the use? He’d never be like that. With his fear of steep slopes, he’d probably break his neck going down the bunny slope on his very next try!
Still, it really had felt great, having that board strapped to his feet. Dennis was sure that, if he could ever get over his fear, he could learn to be good at snowboarding.
He thought back to the scene on the hill behind the schoolhouse. There must have been at least thirty kids there. And even though lots of them were falling, none of them seemed to be the least bit afraid. After all, that hill wasn’t very high or steep. There were no trees or obstacles on it, except for the other snowboarders. Nothing to be afraid of. And yet…
Tasha had been really nice about everything — lending him her board, encouraging him to try snowboarding. She was a good boarder, too — maybe the best one out there on School-house Hill. Robbie wasn’t nearly as good. Of course, he’d gotten his snowboard more recently, and anyway, he wasn’t as good an athlete as Tasha. But what he lacked in ability or experience, he certainly made up for in. enthusiasm. Dennis had to smile, remembering the way Robbie had yelled his way down the hill.
Both his friends were so into snowboarding! Dennis frowned. If he didn’t take up the sport, too, would Tasha and Robbie abandon him over the long winter? He remembered how alone he’d felt, skateboarding back home by himself. Would it be that way all winter long?
Dennis swallowed hard. He wasn’t one of those kids who liked being by himself all the time. In fact, one of the things he liked most about skateboarding was that there was a whole gang of kids who were into it. Of course, that was in the warm weather. He’d noticed a lot of those same kids on Schoolhouse Hill that morning, learning how to snowboard.
Dennis made up his mind. He just had to learn to snowboard, and fast!
But how? He couldn’t just go on borrowing Tasha’s board every day until he’d finally managed to get over his fears. Her board was mounted the wrong way for him, anyway. Dennis knew there was no way around it — he was going to have to get a board of his own.
Hoisting himself up off the bed, he walked over to his dresser and picked up his piggy bank. Well, it wasn’t a piggy bank, actually. It was one of those contraptions where you stick the coin or bill on the hippo’s tongue, press the button, and the hippo swallows it, making gross sounds.
Dennis upended the hippo and pulled out the little plastic plug on the bottom. Then he dumped all the money he had in the world — except for his untouchable “college account” — onto his bedspread.
Dennis’s eyes widened in excitement. Wow! He must have mowed the lawn and swept the driveway a few more times than he’d realized! There had to be almost a hundred dollars here.
Slowly, carefully, he counted it, smoothing out the bills and putting them in order as he went. He even counted twice, just to make sure. There was no mistaking it — he had amassed a grand total of $76.18.
Pretty good, Dennis thought proudly, deciding that all the hard work he’d put in on his chores had been worth it after all. Seventy-six dollars was enough to buy a really good skateboard.— he knew that much. He certainly ought to be able to buy himself at least a decent snowboard for the same money, he reasoned.
But he wasn’t content just to guess. He supposed he could skateboard down to Murph’s, the local sporting goods store, and see for himself. But it was a long way there and back, and suddenly he was hungry. He decided it could wait until after lunch.
He did his usual banister slide down the stairs, with more than his usual flair. Dennis was excited, forgetting for the moment how petrified he’d felt at the top of Schoolhouse Hill, strapped onto Tasha’s snowboard.
He strode into the kitchen and threw open the fridge door. He pulled out peanut butter, jelly, bread, milk, and everything else that caught his eye. All of a sudden, he felt like he could eat everything in the house!
After making himself a sandwich, he settled down at the table to eat — if you could call stuffing half a peanut butter sandwich into your mouth at one time eating. And that was when he saw his dad’s Saturday newspaper, folded neatly on the table.
Dennis reached for it and started rifling through the pages. He bet there would be ads for sporting goods in there somewhere… .
Aha! Sure enough, the paper was full of ads for the Christmas shopping season. In fact, Sports Universe, the gigantic store out at the Willows Mall, had a full page ad on the back page of the sports section.
“Here we go … ,” Dennis said, spreading the ad out on the table. He scanned the page until he found what he was looking for.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. The cheapest snowboard advertised — the cheapest — was more than one hundred dollars, on sale!
How could that be? he wondered, closing the paper in frustration. Snowboards weren’t that different from skateboards, were they? How could there be such a big difference in the price?
This was a disaster, Dennis told himself. Even figuring the prices would come down a little after Christmas, there was no way he could afford a snowboard on his own. Not without a full winter’s worth of chores to earn the rest of the cash he woul
d need. And by that time, it would be too late. The snow would be melted, and he’d have long since lost his chance to join his friends on the slope — and show Rick and Pat that he wasn’t chicken.
It suddenly hit Dennis how badly he wanted a snowboard of his own. Funny, a few hours ago, before he’d run into Tasha on the street, he couldn’t have cared less. Now the need for a snowboard had taken over his life. How was he ever going to get one?
And then it hit him. “Hey, it’s almost Christmas!” he said aloud, feeling instantly more hopeful. Maybe he could talk his mom and dad into buying him a snowboard.
Dennis hoped it wasn’t too late. Christmas wasn’t till next Friday. There were still five shopping days left. Maybe, just maybe, they hadn’t made all their purchases for him yet.
Dennis had long since grown past the age where he would write annual letters to Santa, telling him what he wanted for Christmas. These days, he usually just dropped hints to his parents and hoped for the best.
Since his parents were sure to be out for a while longer, Dennis decided he would go back outside and do some more skateboarding. The local half-pipe was pretty well snowed under, and most of the curbs were banked high with shoveled drifts, so he was limited to the sidewalks. That wouldn’t stop him from doing lots of his patented tricks, though. He could do some radical aerials and ollies, and even one or two grinds if he could find a clear curb to slide against.
For the rest of the afternoon, he skateboarded on every available surface. Most of the time, though, he spent pretending he was on a snowboard, flying down a powder-covered mountainside at breakneck speed, feeling not even a whisper of fear. He was so lost in his fantasies that, by the time he got tired and headed home, the sun was just about to go down behind Ford’s Mountain. His parents would be back by now. He sure hoped they were in a good mood, because he was about to ask them for the biggest favor of his life.
4
His parents’ station wagon was in the driveway, and when he opened the kitchen door, Dennis could smell apple pie baking in the oven. It was his all-time favorite. He stowed Flash in the closet and yelled “Hi!” before disappearing into the bathroom to wash up.
In the bathroom mirror, he practiced asking for a snowboard for Christmas. “Mom … Dad … I was just wondering if you’d already bought me anything… .” No, that didn’t sound right. Kind of ungrateful, like he didn’t trust them to buy him something.
“Do you think you could return whatever it is you’ve already bought me?” Definitely not. It wouldn’t work, and besides, it might hurt their feelings.
Downstairs, Dennis heard the front door opening and closing and then the crying of his baby sister, Elizabeth.
“Dennis?” His dad’s voice called. “Where are you hiding?”
“Right up here, Dad,” Dennis called back. Not sure if his dad had heard him over the crying of the baby, Dennis decided to quit practicing in front of the mirror and go help out downstairs. He would be as nice and polite and helpful as he could be, and wait for the perfect moment to ask for a snowboard as a Christmas present.
“Dennis, there are some gifts for your cousins and for Grandpa and Grandma out in the trunk,” his dad said, putting his coat in the hall closet as Dennis came bounding down the stairs. “Would you mind?”
“No problem, Dad,” Dennis said, hopping straight to it.
“And don’t worry, there’s plenty of goodies for you, too,” his father assured him with a wink.
“Oh,” Dennis said, stopping at the door to cringe at this news. If they’d already gotten him a bunch of stuff, it wasn’t very likely they’d agree to get him yet another big, expensive present.
“Did I say something wrong?” Mr. O’Malley asked, looking puzzled.
“Oh — no, Dad, that’s great!” Dennis said, recovering his enthusiasm.
“Yes, but I don’t want you to get a look at any of those before we wrap them. They’re in the backseat. I’m trusting you not to peek, okay?”
“Me?” Dennis replied. “Me, peek?”
They shared a laugh, then Dennis said, “Okay, Dad. I won’t spoil the surprise.” He pulled the door open and headed out to the driveway. Popping the trunk, he gathered up the shopping bags to take inside. He was sorely tempted to look in the backseat — not to peek, really. Just to see if there was anything vaguely shaped like, say, a snowboard or something.
But he didn’t. Keeping his promise to his dad, he went straight back inside. There was still plenty of time before Christmas. Tonight. He’d ask them tonight, at supper maybe….
But as it turned out, the right time never came. All evening, baby Elizabeth was cranky and fretful, and at one point during dinner she threw a whole mess of her food onto the floor. Then their dog, Felix, who both looked and ate like a bear, made a rush for the spilled baby food. He knocked over the tray that held the serving dishes, and they went down, too! Mrs. O’Malley got upset at Felix, because one of the serving dishes had been a wedding present from her great-aunt who’d died, and the whole evening went downhill from there. Dennis decided his plea for a snowboard would have to wait till tomorrow.
That night, he couldn’t seem to get to sleep. He lay in the dark, envisioning all those kids snowboarding down Schoolhouse Hill. Then he would see himself up at the top of Ford’s Mountain, launching himself down the Challenger Trail. Then he’d check the numbers on his digital alarm clock, and it would be a half hour later than the last time he’d looked.
Finally, at seven o’clock, he couldn’t take it anymore. He got up, dressed, washed, and checked to see if anyone else was up yet. He didn’t hear a sound. Apparently, after crying all evening, baby Elizabeth was sleeping it off, and so were his mom and dad, who had been awake, humoring her, till after midnight.
Dennis decided to do something really nice for them. He knew his dad really liked blueberry muffins, especially the kind they made at the Muffin Man downtown. Every morning, there was a line outside that place, even in a snowstorm. Dennis grabbed Flash, his jacket, and a pocketful of money from his bank, and scooted out the door.
It was a beautiful, cold morning, and Dennis’s breath steamed as he skateboarded down the streets. He started humming under his breath as he went — the tune from the network sports shows, sort of like in a movie, where there’s music as the hero rushes to the rescue. Dennis did a few smooth turns wherever the sidewalk widened out. Somehow, some way, he was going to talk his parents into getting him a snowboard.
By the time he returned home, his bag of fresh, warm blueberry and cranberry muffins tucked securely under his arm, he could smell coffee brewing in the kitchen. “Ta-da!” he sang as he entered, holding up the bag of muffins. “Ho, ho, ho! It’s me, Santa Claus, and I come bearing gifts!”
“Dennis!” his mother said with a laugh. She’d been feeding the baby and held a spoonful of pureed prunes in her hand. “I thought you were still asleep!”
“What have you got there, son?” his dad asked.
“Your favorite — muffins from the Muffin Man!” Dennis replied, enjoying the look of pleased surprise on his dad’s face.
“Wow! I can’t believe this!” Mr. O’Malley said. “That’s so nice of you, Dennis.”
“Isn’t he the sweetest boy?” his mom added, giving him a hug as he put the muffins down. Normally Dennis hated when his mom called him sweet or “sweetie” or stuff like that. Today, though, he didn’t even mind. So long as they were both happy with him and in a good mood.
As they sat down to eat, Dennis’s dad got a puzzled look on his face. “You know,” he said, “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or anything, but I get a funny feeling you had a special reason for getting these muffins for us. Am I wrong?”
That got Dennis’s mom annoyed. “Russell!” she said. “What a thing to say! Dennis doesn’t need to have any special hidden reason for being nice. He’s that way by nature. He doesn’t need any other reason than that it’s almost Christmas. Do you, sweetheart?”
Dennis tried hard to sink i
nto his shoes. He felt his face go red, and he stared down at his muffin like there was a spider on it or something. “Well, actually,” he said, squirming, “to tell you the truth, there was something…”
Rats! This wasn’t the way he’d wanted to tell them. But as far as he could see, there wasn’t any way out now.
“I was kind of hoping … see, everyone’s getting into snowboarding this winter, and I thought, if I could just get a snowboard… .”
He sneaked a peek at his mother, then at his dad. It was his mom who reacted first, and her reaction took Dennis completely by surprise.
“Absolutely not!” she said, slapping the table with her palm. “Too dangerous I was just talking to Muriel Avedon the other day, and her nephew over in Taylorville is in the hospital right now, in traction, from snowboarding smack into a tree! He’s got himself two broken wrists and a fractured tibia.”
Dennis sank his head in his hands, sighing miserably. There it went — all his hopes and dreams for the winter, dashed by some idiot all the way over in Taylorville, for Pete’s sake.
“Now, wait a minute, Diane, honey,” he heard his dad say. “I heard about that, too — and that boy was riding recklessly. I’m sure Muriel told you, he was taking needless chances, and he wasn’t wearing a helmet, or wrist guards, or padding, or anything!”
“So what are you saying, Russell?” his mom shot back. “That snowboarding isn’t dangerous? Don’t tell me — you hear all kinds of things. It’s out of the question. I’m sorry, Dennis, sweetie, but you’ll just have to do without one.”
“Wait a minute, now,” his dad kept on. “Dennis has always been very safety conscious. We had this same argument before we got him his skateboard, remember? I know snowboarding’s different, but I don’t think it’s any more dangerous than skateboarding, or skiing, for that matter — as long as a person doesn’t take foolish chances.”
Snowboard Maverick Page 2