Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by Catherine M. Christopher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
First eBook Edition: December 2009
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similiarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Matt Christopher™ is a trademark of Catherine M. Christopher.
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
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ISBN: 978-0-316-09421-4
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Roller Hockey Associations
Matt Christopher®
The #1 Sports Series for Kids: MATT CHRISTOPHER
1
Kirby Childs wiped the sweat off his brow, sweeping his straw-blond hair off his forehead. He pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and stared up and down his new block at the green lawns and tall trees.
The lawns, the trees… even the houses were big here in Valemont. Not like in Minford, where he and his family had lived until the day before yesterday. There, the houses scrunched up next to each other on narrow lots. Some were even attached on one side.
Back in Minford, you could sit on your front stoop and watch tons of cars and people and taxis and buses go by. There were store windows to look at right on Kirby’s own block, and lots of kids who lived close enough to visit on foot.
Here, if he ever found a friend, the kid would probably live a mile away, and he’d have to beg his mom to drive him over for a “play date.” Kirby hated that expression: play date.
“Mom!” Kirby shouted, knowing she could hear him through the screen door. She was unpacking boxes in the dining room.
“What is it, honey?” his mother’s tired but cheerful voice rang out.
“Could you bring me a lemonade or a soda or something?”
There was a distinct moment of silence, then, “Kirby, I’m working very hard. You can get up and get your own drink. And if you’re bored, I could use some muscle power.”
Kirby got up and went inside, dragging his feet with every step. Why did it have to be so hot? Why weren’t there any kids around here? It was the end of June, and school had just gotten out. They couldn’t all have gone off to summer camp, could they?
That’s where his mom had said they’d gone. She’d been to Valemont a lot over the past couple of weeks, and she’d met the neighbors and everything. She said they were very nice, but all their kids were in camp or visiting relatives. Stuff like that.
Kirby’s mom had her head buried in a box and was fishing things out onto the dining room floor. He went past her and into the kitchen. He knew he shouldn’t have asked her to get him a drink. He knew he should be helping her. But why did they have to come here to Valemont, anyway? What was so wrong with Minford?
He poured himself a lemonade and started wandering back toward the dining room. Catching sight of himself in the hallway mirror, Kirby paused to fix his hair and his glasses — which were hanging crooked, as usual.
Kirby wished he were taller. He was thirteen, but everyone said he looked eleven. He was too skinny, and his dad was always telling him to stand up straight. Kirby tried it in the mirror. He still looked short, no matter what. His parents kept telling him he was going to start his “growth spurt” anytime now. Kirby sure wished that time would come soon. He was tired of being made fun of.
An idea hit him, and Kirby went back and got his mom a lemonade, too. “Here, Mom,” he said, handing it to her.
His mom took it and gave him a big smile. Kirby thought his mother was one of the prettiest ladies he’d ever seen. She kind of hid it, the way she dressed and didn’t use makeup. But she couldn’t hide her huge blue eyes and her blond hair. Kirby had the same hair, but he didn’t like it on him. It was girl’s hair, all the way.
“Thanks,” his mom said. “Now, that’s what I call help!”
“When is Dad getting home?” Kirby sat down on the floor next to her and took a gulp of lemonade.
“Not for another couple of hours. Daddy’s an executive now. They have to work long hours sometimes.”
“I know. You already told me. Does that mean he’s going to be home late for dinner every night?”
“Of course not, Kirby. But sometimes, yes.”
Kirby’s mom had worked as a therapist in Minford. She was going to work here in Valemont, too, eventually. But first she had to get a bunch of new clients. In the meantime, she’d be around a lot. But Kirby knew she’d be too busy fixing up the house to pay much attention to him.
“Whatcha thinking?” she asked him, giving him that penetrating look of hers. Sometimes Kirby wished his mom wasn’t a therapist. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so interested in what he was thinking and feeling all the time.
“How come all the kids here go to camp?” he asked.
“Oh, so that’s it. I kinda figured.” His mom put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze. “You’ll get to know people sooner or later. It’s just going to be tough for a little while until you do.”
“I guess…”
“You know, it might do you good to get some physical activity, honey.”
Kirby rolled his eyes. “It’s too hot, Mom,” he said.
“Well, it’s going to be hot all summer, so if that’s your excuse, you might as well go to bed now and stay there till school starts,” his mom joked.
“What am I supposed to do?” Kirby complained.
“You’re a good athlete,” his mom replied. “Maybe there’s a ball game going on somewhere.”
“Baseball takes eighteen kids, Mom,” Kirby reminded her.
“How about basketball?”
“Not my sport,” Kirby shot back. “Maybe after my growth spurt.”
His mom had to laugh at that one. “A natural-born comedian,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay, how about tennis? They have some good courts down by the park.”
Kirby sighed. “Tennis is okay, but I feel stupid going over there and waiting around to find someone to play with. It’s kind of pathetic, you know?”
“Mmmm,” his mom said, nodding. “I guess I can understand the feeling. It must be hard, being the only kid around and not knowing anybody. But you know, if you get on your bike and take a ride around, you never know who or what you might find.”
“My bike’s at the store back in Minford, getting fixed, remember?” Kirby said.
“Oh, no — that’s right!” his mother recalled. “I’m sorry, honey. I forgot to pick it up. I’ll have to go back over the weekend and get it. But hey — what about your skates? You could explore that way.”
Kirby thought about it for a minute. He didn’t really feel like putting out all that energy for nothing. But he guessed it was better than hanging around and risking being put to work. “Okay,” he said. “Where are they?”
“In the big box in the garage,” she told him. “Have fun, okay? Stick to the sidewalks and be back by suppertime.”
“I will,” Kirby assured her on his way out the door. “I’ll probably just go around the block a few times.”
But as he headed up the driveway, he spied a Valemont street map on the front seat of the car. Might as well take that along, he thought. Maybe I’ll find some kids in one of these other neighborhoods. Reaching through the open car window, he grabbed the map and tucked it into his pocket.
He went into the garage and found his skates, then sat there in the cool stillness lacing them up and putting on all his protective gear: helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, wrist guards. Then he opened the garage door with the neat electronic opener (there were some things that were better here) and skated off down the block.
It was true what his mom had said, he reflected as he pumped his legs to gain speed. He was a good all-around athlete. He figured that if Valemont was like Minford, where the people you played sports with were the ones you hung out with, too, he’d wind up having enough friends eventually.
The problem was this summer. It was going to feel like forever unless he found somebody to do things with.
After checking the map, he headed in the direction of downtown, which was about two miles away. Avoiding the main road, he went past block after block of big, stately homes. Many of them had swing sets in the backyards, but he didn’t see a kid over five on any of them. Nobody was biking in the street, or skating, or playing basketball in their driveway, or taking their dog for a walk.
Maybe my folks will let me have a dog now that we live here, he thought. Then he remembered his dad’s allergy to animal fur. Kirby might be able to talk him into getting a fish or a parakeet, but that wasn’t the same as having a dog, now, was it?
About halfway downtown, Kirby passed a row of small stores. In front of one, a grocery, two boys were sitting on the curb, drinking sodas. One was wearing mirrored sunglasses and had headphones on, connected to a CD player strapped to his belt. He was nodding to the music. The other was bareheaded, with a buzz cut. He was looking up and down the street, squinting in the bright sunlight. They seemed to be a year or two older than Kirby, but he figured he’d try introducing himself anyway. After all, it looked like they were the only three kids in town. Kirby skated over and said “Hey” to the buzz cut.
Bad idea. The kid just looked Kirby up and down, chewing like he had gum in his mouth, then turned his head and spat on the curb. “Geek,” he muttered, and jabbed his pal in the arm.
The kid in shades looked up at Kirby and kept looking at him, not moving, not smiling.
Kirby backed off. “Never mind,” he said. “Forget it.”
“Forget what, geek?” Buzz Cut called after him. Kirby ignored him, and went on skating toward downtown.
Great, he thought. If everyone in Valemont is as friendly as those two, I’m going to be Mr. Popularity.
He thought about turning around and going back home, but he wanted to be able to say to his mom, “I looked everywhere, and there was nobody.” Besides, if he turned back now, he’d have to pass by those two again.
Thanks, but no thanks, he said to himself.
As he passed the corner of E Street, he was thinking it was only ten more blocks to the town square. There was an air-conditioned sandwich shop there. He remembered it from the day they’d come looking at houses. He could go there and cool off, maybe get an ice cream soda or something.
He was fishing in his pockets to see if he’d brought any money with him when he heard a boy’s voice to his right shouting, “He shoots… he scores!”
Kirby turned and felt his heart leap — there, in the middle of E Street, about half a block away, was a bunch of kids playing hockey on skates!
Like a wanderer in the desert who sees an oasis of cool water, Kirby raced toward them, hoping they weren’t a mirage.
2
Shoot the puck! Shoot the puck!”
Kirby skated to a halt, a couple of houses short of where the kids were playing, and leaned up against a big old tree.
“Ow!” cried the goalie as the shot struck his mask and ricocheted away.
“Aw, come on — that’s what masks are for,” the shooter called out.
“You try it,” the goalie replied. He whipped off his mask and offered it to the shooter. Billowing brown hair tumbled down the goalie’s shoulders. “He” was a girl!
“Come on, Lainie,” said one of the other players. “Just stay in goal for a few more minutes.”
“Why can’t I do some shooting and one of you guys play goalie?” Lainie complained.
“Because,” a third boy explained, “you’re our goalie for the games. If you don’t practice, how are you gonna get better?”
“Well, it’s hot under here.” Lainie put the mask back on. “I hope you all appreciate that.”
They went back to their practice, and Kirby sat down on the curb to watch. There were five of them in all. Two were playing forward, shooting the puck at Lainie after passing it back and forth between them. Two were on defense, trying to prevent the first two from getting off a shot.
Lainie stood in front of the net, guarding it with her goalie stick. She was in full getup, with big, flat-fronted leg pads and arm pads. There was plastic armor under her white uniform, which had a red number 1 on it. And of course, there was the big monster mask that protected her head and face, and hid the fact that she was a girl. No wonder she was too hot.
Lainie was tall — kind of cute, Kirby thought, but also kind of tough. He thought she was pretty cool, too — stopping all those shots the guys were firing at her. Back in Minford, none of the girls played any sports with the boys. Not once they were ten or eleven, anyway. But Lainie, taller than any of the boys, was stopping most of their shots without much of a problem. She was definitely an athlete, Kirby decided.
The boys, all four of them, were also wearing white uniforms with numbers on them. He couldn’t tell what they looked like, really, not with their helmets on. Theirs had clear Plexiglas face guards, while Lainie’s goalie mask was much bulkier and had red metal bars across the face for protection.
The two boys on offense seemed like real athletes, too. They were well built and fast on their skates. The defenders, though, were not as good. One was overweight. That was obvious to Kirby, even through the kid’s loose-fitting jersey. The other would trip over his own skates every once in a while, and his stick would go flailing out as he tried to keep from falling. Kirby felt sorry for him. It must be awful to be klutzy, he thought ruefully. Almost as bad as being short.
Kirby noticed, however, that nobody seemed to make fun of the clumsy boy. These kids all seemed to like each other.
“Oh, nice feed, Trevor!” one forward told the other after his pass flew way wide and into the bushes. “Wanna go get that?”
Kirby giggled softly. That was how he and his friends all used to talk to each other back in Minford.
“Comin’ at you!”
Trevor grabbed a second puck, then reared his stick back and sent a slap shot screaming toward the goal mouth. Lainie flinched as the puck hit the goalpost and ricocheted away. On its side, the puck rolled and rolled, as the other forward gave chase. It rolled until it came to a stop at the curb, right between Kirby’s skates.
Kirby looked down at it. Then he looked up at the forward, who wore number 14 on his jersey, with the letter C by his left shoulder. Kirby guessed that this boy was the team captain.
The kid was standing over Kirby, reaching out his hand. For a second, Kirby stared at it — was he offering his hand to shake?
“Puck, please?” the boy prodded. Kirby turned red in the face, then grabbed the puck and handed it to the kid, who skated away with it.
Kirby shook his head, feeling stupid. That kid must have thought he was a total geek! Good thing Kirby hadn’t actually tried to shake his hand — that would have been a total disaster.
“Forget it,” he heard Lainie say. “I’m taking a break. Shoot at an empty net for a while.”
The others groaned and complained, but seeing that Lainie meant what she’d said, they dropped the puck and started trying to steal it from each other.
Lain
ie skated toward Kirby. Then she veered toward the curb, where she’d left her gray equipment bag. She fished a bottle of blue sports drink out of it, then sat down on the curb to drink it, placing her mask, blocking pad, gloves, and goalie stick on the grass next to her.
Kirby watched her. Well, he thought, if I’m going to make friends, now is as good a time as any. He got up and skated over to her. “Hi,” he said.
Lainie looked him over and gave him a quick smile. “Hi,” she replied. “Who’re you?”
“Kirby Childs,” he said.
“I’m Lainie Gifford,” she told him. “So you’re on skates, huh?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, not sure what to say next.
“So sit down,” she told him. He did, moving some of Lainie’s equipment aside.
“I just moved here day before yesterday,” Kirby said, trying to explain what he was doing there.
“Where do you live?”
“Over on Oliver Street.”
“Way the other end of town?” That got her attention. “Why’d you skate all the way over here?”
“There aren’t any kids where I live. They’re all at camp and stuff — or else they’re inside, watching TV or playing video games or something — I don’t know.” Kirby sighed.
“I know what you mean. My parents wanted me to go to camp, too, but they didn’t get the paperwork done in time and there wasn’t any space left. So here I am.”
“What’s so great about camp, anyway?” Kirby volunteered. “I like to be home.”
“Yeah? Where’d you live before this?” Lainie asked.
“Minford.”
“How do you like Valemont so far?”
“It’s okay, I guess. Minford was better, though.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Well, there were lots of kids around during the summer, and they had an ice hockey rink.”
“Sounds cool. I’ve never been to Minford.” Lainie took a swig of her sports drink and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“What grade are you going into? Ninth?” Kirby asked.
Lainie smiled. “No, eighth. I’m thirteen.”
Roller Hockey Radicals Page 1