The shouting kept going for everyone. We all reached the top at least once. I even cheered for Jayden. Then there were flips onto the mat as a reward.
It reminded me of home. Every summer, we’d swim to a small island in the lake and jump from a cliff not much higher than the wall. We’d start by just jumping into the water. Then it became a contest to see who could flip or make the biggest splash. We’d spend all afternoon swimming and jumping. Then we’d just lie on the beach in the sun. That was one of the last times I felt like I belonged. At least, before joining parkour.
By the third try, though, my arms were starting to shake. My muscles felt tight. The skin on my hands was red and rough. I could see my fingers trembling.
“Last time. And then class is over,” Coach yelled.
Knowing I’d have to wait a day or two to try the move again, I gritted my teeth. One more climb. My heart pounded a little harder. It was my own personal loudspeaker urging me up the wall.
My jump was good. I grabbed on to the ledge, but my arms weren’t ready. I had to hang there for a couple of seconds, shaking, before I found strength to get myself higher. I had to roll on my belly to get onto the platform. Everyone else had the same problem. We looked more like chubby seals flopping around than dolphins leaping from the water.
The edge was starting to get slick with everyone’s sweat. Gross, I thought as I did my final tumble into the mat below.
That’s all I was thinking when Jayden started his final sprint. He was in good shape, so he reached the top of the wall easier than most of us. But as he went for his flip off the wall, he slipped.
His right leg spilled off the edge. His left leg bent at a bad angle, caught on the top of the wall. To make it worse, his momentum carried him sideways, and he fell onto the floor instead of the mat.
Everyone went running, he was yelling so loudly. I kind of felt bad. But the floors were so soft I don’t think anyone could have really hurt themselves.
Coach put two hands on Jayden’s knee and gently squeezed, looking for damage. Jayden swung his arms at the crowd around him.
“I’m fine!” Jayden said. He stood and took a couple of steps. He looked down at his knee. And then he came running at me.
“You’re a sweaty freak,” he yelled. “You should’ve cleaned up after yourself. Why don’t you carry a towel?”
I felt his hands on my chest. I banged into someone behind me. I knocked the back of my head into someone’s teeth, or forehead, or something.
It probably hurt more than Jayden’s fall.
I didn’t have time to think about what happened next. I went right back at him. With three or four good steps behind me, I flew at him and pushed him back. He collapsed into the wall, hitting with a thud. For the second time in a couple of minutes, Jayden was yelling on the ground. He didn’t get up as quickly this time.
I knew exactly what I had to do. I turned for the door, found my jacket and shoes and left. I heard Coach yelling something at me. But I didn’t stick around to answer him. Jayden didn’t want me there. I wasn’t about to argue anymore.
I didn’t need this mess, anyway.
7
Second Strike
My key turned in the door and I pushed it open. I hadn’t headed straight home after school for a while. It was nice not having to worry about going to parkour. Slumped in the recliner in the living room, I grabbed the remote control and clicked on the TV.
My stomach started grumbling right away. I slammed the footrest back down and headed for the kitchen. The two bedrooms, one bathroom, and living room in our apartment were all connected.
I swung the kitchen cupboard doors open and scanned the shelves. I finally found some tortilla chips and an unopened jar of salsa. I cracked a can of cola. It was warm.
My mom kept snacks like that in the cupboard for special occasions. But this was special to me. I was officially dropping parkour. Any second, I expected a knock at the door and Constable Jack to be standing there. He would haul me in front of a judge and that would be it. No more pop or junk food for a long time.
The salsa spilled into a bowl with a satisfying plop. The cola fizzed as it filled an extra-large glass crammed with all twelve ice cubes from a tray in the freezer.
This was better than rushing around after school. And I was always starving at parkour. I slumped back into the chair and found a movie channel. The speakers crackled with heroic-sounding music from some ancient time.
There were sword fights and races across a desert. The hero sneaked into a palace to steal a jewelled dagger from under the pillow of an evil king. He was just about to get away when a bird landed on the windowsill and let out a shriek. The evil king woke up and sounded an alarm.
Clang, clang, clang! He beat on a gong.
Guards burst in through every door. They appeared from behind every curtain. The hero ran. First, he did two speed vaults and a wall climb. Then he latched onto a flag pole and climbed it. And finally, he performed a perfect dive roll through a window into a room filled with beautiful women.
It was all parkour. All the stunts in the movie were parkour moves.
“Oh, come on!” I shouted. “Is somebody trying to tell me something?”
The movie wasn’t very good. But I couldn’t stop watching. It was amazing to watch the actors (and their stunt doubles) do so much with parkour. They balanced on ledges and hung from ropes. They jumped from rooftop to rooftop, rolling and gliding to safety.
My legs were twitching. My chips and salsa were gone. I tried eating a bowl of cereal. After the cereal and the movie were done, I went to the kitchen to dump the bowl in the dishwasher. There, on the fridge, was my letter from Coach Jack. I read again how I was expected to do parkour for twelve weeks.
My signature was at the bottom.
I turned off the TV, threw the remote onto the couch and grabbed my shoes. I zipped up my jacket in the elevator. When the doors opened on the ground floor, I glanced to my left and saw the bus coming from a block away.
There was a courtyard with plants and playground equipment in the middle of our apartment complex. Instead of heading around it, I went straight through it. I grabbed the monkey bars and swung through them. I did a speed vault over a park bench. I ran along the edge of a cement planter, jumped off and did a parkour roll along the grass.
It was the first time I’d used my moves outside the gym. It got me to the bus stop with time to spare. I couldn’t wait to tell Parker. But only after telling Coach I was sorry and asking for a second chance.
* * *
Coach Jack was in his office. He was writing in a notebook.
He waved me inside without looking up from his work. The door closed behind me with a soft click. I stood, waiting for instructions.
There was no ticking clock to tell me how long I was standing there. I had no phone to tell me what time it was, either. It didn’t seem like Coach was going to tell me to sit down. Was he giving me the silent treatment?
The scratching of his pen was loud in the silence. All I wanted was for him to start chewing me out for what had happened the night before. He was almost always smiling and happy, but I expected him to at least yell at me. The silence was worse.
“Sorry,” he said, finally.
I shifted from side to side. I waited for the fallout.
“You missed class,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to stay for drop-in tonight?”
Now, I really didn’t know what to say. I had been expecting him to kick me out of class and tell me to report for fingerprinting.
“Uh, yeah. If I’m allowed.”
“I don’t really like baseball. But let’s call this strike two. You know what that means, right?”
I didn’t think he really wanted me to answer, so I just nodded.
“I only have a couple of things to say,
” Coach added. “First, you need to apologize for pushing Jayden and ask him if he’s okay. Second, he accused you of leaving unsafe equipment behind you. That’s not good, if it’s true.”
“But —” I tried to interrupt.
“That’s all I’m going to say. Jayden is here. You two talk. Then report back to me after class.”
My head hanging low, I turned and walked out of the office. I suppose I should have said “thanks.” He didn’t punish me (at least not yet).
I shut the door behind me as quietly as I had opened it. I could see Jayden and his friends practising their vaults. As I walked over to them, I rehearsed in my head what I was going to say.
“Hope you brought your towel,” Jayden said.
“Whatever,” I said. “It was wet when I got there. It wasn’t me.”
“Then you have to clean it up. Everyone here knows that.”
“Fine, I’m sorry I didn’t clean it up. Coach wants to see us after.”
“Yeah, I know. He told me. I’m sorry for accusing you and calling you a ‘freak.’”
We just stood there for a second. I don’t think he believed I was sorry. I know I didn’t believe him.
8
Third Strike
Parker arrived late for the drop-in session. When she got there, she and I said hello to each other. But that was about all I said to her that night. She mostly sat on a stack of mats, laughing and talking with the gymnastics girls. I was pretty sure she was mad at me for pushing Jayden and storming out of the building.
A constant stream of people came and went in front of Parker. She looked like a queen greeting her royal subjects. Boys and girls would bounce up to her as they took water breaks. They’d pop up onto the mats. She’d hug them and they’d laugh. Then they’d scurry off back to class with big grins on their faces. No, she wasn’t a queen, she was a rock star.
I kept watching her all class. I was sure Jayden was watching her too. But I doubt she looked at either of us. It made me like her even more. It seemed she had other, more important things to worry about. I wanted to know what those things were. Plus, she was really cute.
Eventually, I just gave up thinking about Parker and worried about parkour. A row of three vaults sat in front of me. Sweat dripped into my eyes. My T-shirt was soaked through. I had my hands on my knees most of the time, searching for a way to get more air into my lungs.
Vaults were as much fun as climbing walls. We had focused on them even more than walls in our classes.
“A good vault is as good as gold,” Coach had said. “If you crack a good vault, you get the gold.”
Coach wandered past a few times, answering questions and offering advice. He would walk up and down the lines as if he was inspecting his troops. Then he’d duck into his office and stuff his head back into more paperwork.
I glanced up at the clock. There were only about fifteen minutes left in the drop-in session. The place was nearly empty. A few of the older teens in advanced parkour classes wandered around. They were in charge. But they weren’t paying much attention to anyone else. This was the time to try new moves.
We had strict rules about vaults. We could try lazy vaults or safety vaults by ourselves. If we wanted to practise our dash or Kong vaults, we had to get a coach to act as a spotter. But the coaches weren’t around. And everyone else was doing whatever they wanted anyway.
“Kong vaults are simple,” I heard Jayden saying. “Most people can’t do a dash vault properly.”
I let out a huge groan. Jayden was always saying things he couldn’t prove. He talked really loudly. And he talked a lot too. I turned my head to avoid listening to him. But it didn’t work. Even from across the floor, I couldn’t help but hear him.
I was in a spot where I could watch Jayden without being obvious. He was set up across the gym with his two best friends, Brody and Brock. They had two vaults out and were trying dash and Kong back-to-back. They were doing okay, I guess. I was worried about my safety vaults and doing them quickly. Without a coach, I wasn’t going to try Kong vaults. Jayden and his friends had been doing parkour for a couple of years. I had being doing this for only a few weeks.
My routine was safety–lazy–shoulder roll over the three boxes. I ran at the first box. I placed my right hand on top of it, followed by my left foot. Then my right leg swung through the middle and I was over to the other side. Then I took two giant steps and placed my left hand on the top of the second box. My right leg drove up over the box to get me to the other side.
The last box I rolled over on my shoulder and back. I did this a bunch of times in a row, just to make sure I was totally confident. Then I walked back to the beginning and reset the boxes. They weren’t heavy, and you had to secure them with Velcro straps on the bottom.
“You’re looking good,” Parker said from behind me. “Pretty soon you’ll be teaching those moves.”
I grabbed a towel from beside one of the boxes. “Thanks. I’m just trying to get the basics right.”
“You can’t do the fancy stuff without the simple stuff first,” Parker said, nodding.
“You’re not doing parkour today?”
“Nah, I needed a break. But my mom drove me here, so I had to come. I was going to stay home, but she wanted me out of the house.”
Brock and Brody suddenly ran between us. If we were any closer, they would have knocked us down. Brock did a dash vault and Brody did a Kong vault over my boxes. Then they came running back.
Parker and I stepped aside. They were howling with laughter. I couldn’t tell what was supposed to be so funny.
Brock took the first vault without any trouble. Brody ran around the first box and bailed on the second. He tried a dash vault. But he couldn’t get his feet over the barrier and landed hard on his back.
Parker and I ran over to him. He was just lying there on the ground.
“You okay, Brody?” Parker asked him.
“Oh, my back,” he said. “Did it look awesome? Was anybody recording me? Did you have your phones out?”
We helped him to his feet.
“No, sorry,” I said. “I don’t have one.”
“I don’t carry mine when I’m doing parkour,” Parker said.
Brody stood suddenly. His head was down, like he was hiding from us. He turned and ran away.
“Anyway,” Parker said. “I was just about to leave. I thought I’d say goodbye.”
“Sure. I’m just going to do a couple more and then leave too.”
“You want a ride home?”
“Nah, I’m only a short bus ride away.”
“Okay, see you later.”
“See ya.”
I moved back to my starting spot. My arms and legs were cooled off. But talking to Parker always gave me lots of extra energy. I was ready to try my Kong vault. I ran full speed and planted both hands on top of the box. Then I slammed hard to the ground.
Something was wrong. I was too confused to know what exactly. All I knew was my vault was somehow messed up and I bailed just like Brody had. I looked around. Parker was running toward me.
“You okay?” she shouted.
Jayden and his buddies were all laughing in a group. They were holding their phones. They had been recording me fall. They had set me up.
I stood up and ran full speed into the centre of them. I started shoving and swinging. I didn’t care who I hit. I didn’t care about parkour or what would happen to me.
9
Last Chance
Phones went flying when I crashed into Jayden and his buddies. The whole group of us spilled into some mats stacked to the side of the training area. Through the chaos, I kept thinking I was glad Parker hadn’t been sitting on the mats. I would have knocked her off backwards. She probably would have hurt herself.
Instead, Parker was yelling at us to stop. I heard her. But I couldn’t stop.
I grabbed Jayden by the collar of his shirt. I pinned him on his back and pushed his shoulders down against the mat. I was forcing breath from between my clenched teeth. I sounded like a bull running at a bullfighter.
Just as fast, though, Jayden flipped me onto my back. He didn’t look like he was much of a fighter. But he was sure able to push me around. I was suddenly worried. I wrenched and writhed under him. I arched my back and managed to get my feet under me. I stood and we faced each other.
On the spongy, soft floors, it was hard to gain any advantage. We kept each other close. Then I spotted Parker. She wasn’t yelling anymore. She looked angry. And sad too. I realized what we must have looked like. I just kind of gave up after that.
Jayden dropped me again. He pulled back his fist. I prepared for a punch to the nose. I was tired of him pushing me around. But I was also tired of fighting him. This wasn’t what parkour was about, anyway.
The punch never came. Jayden just held me to the ground. He must have been able to see I wasn’t going to fight back.
Besides, I was exhausted. After what was probably only ninety seconds of “fighting,” I was done. Coach sprinted up to us and grabbed Jayden. He yanked him to one side. He pulled me off the mat like a ragdoll. Before I knew it, I was standing again.
“Both of you, in my office!”
It was the first time I’d ever seen Coach Jack angry. His eyes were big, black holes under furious, lowered eyebrows.
Everyone stopped shouting. Jayden led the way. I marched behind him. Jayden sat beside the desk. I sat in the chair near the door. Outside, Coach was talking to Brody, the kid who fell. Brody turned on his phone and gave it to Coach. It was obvious they were watching the video.
He shooed Brock and Brody away with a wave of his arm. They scurried to grab their gear and ran for the door. Then it was Parker’s turn. Parker didn’t talk for very long. It ended with Coach slapping his forehead with a meaty forehand. I could hear the slap through the glass.
Jayden and I were probably a metre apart. I could have reached out and mussed his perfect hair — which was still perfect, even after rolling around on the mat. Coach let us sit there for ten minutes. When he finally came into his office, he didn’t even ask us what happened.
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