Lay-ups and Long Shots Read online

  the one before it

  Bounce---bounce--bounce-bounce-bounce-bounce

  until it lies,

  motionless, on the

  dark ground.

  “You win”

  Brad says,

  trying to sound

  relaxed and cool.

  Now, quickly

  “Wanna play again?”

  I almost say,

  sure,

  but the word catches in my throat

  “Nah, I gotta get home.”

  “Really?” Brad asks

  I’m almost certain

  I can hear

  pain,

  pain,

  P-A-I-N

  in his voice.

  “Yeah,” I say,

  staring right at him

  “We’ll play again

  tomorrow.”

  “Okay” Brad says

  feigning

  calm,

  faking

  indifference,

  “See you tomorrow then,”

  he says,

  his tone

  anguished.

  I say

  “Okay.”

  I hold my

  smile

  until I’m out of his sight.

  then the breeze

  blows in my hair;

  my feet dance

  as I walk

  six inches above the earth.

  My heart beats

  with the strangest rhythm,

  one I’ve never

  felt before:

  pride,

  joy,

  victory—

  I am twelve

  years old

  and I don’t

  realize

  that

  nothing,

  nothing,

  n-o-t-h-i-n-g—nothing

  will ever

  taste

  this sweet

  again.

  CS Perryess

  When CS Perryess is writing, he can never predict who’s going to walk onto the page. The day Amanda Jackson showed up, he recognized her as an alternate version of a much-appreciated BMX-riding former student. He was pleased to discover that as the story moved along, Amanda grew into someone with the potential to be as strong and wonderful as the student he remembers so fondly.

  CS Perryess has a great life in a foggy little California town with his wonderful wife, Ellen, a stream ecologist and volunteer at the local animal shelter. He rides his bike to work, to the local farmers’ market, and every so often to the hardware store where people laugh at him when he’s lashing ten-foot lengths of pipe to the bike frame.

  Amazing Dirt Girl

  Rides Again

  by

  CS Perryess

  “Fine! I hate you!” Kinsey screams.

  At me, her used-to-be-best-friend—Amanda Jackson: third row, second seat, the only seventh-grade girl with the Nukeproof hubset on her desk.

  Everybody knows now. Even Jeremy.

  Mrs. Angelo bursts in, yelling, “Kinsey Wilkinson!”

  I almost hear her send Kinsey to the office. I almost hear Kinsey slam the door, but I’m pushing my face hard into the desktop. I’m covering both ears. How could I say something that mean to my best friend in the whole world, forever?

  I know Jeremy’s looking straight at me and that perfect, new Nukeproof hubset. Every piece of my skin is about two hundred degrees. That fake wood stuff on the desk feels cold.

  Yesterday Kinsey and me hung at the mall. Yesterday she was the only one who knew my secret— I still ride. She told me she liked Ben Ranzini. We laughed about Jeremy’s hairy legs. We tiptoed into Sport-o-Rama to check out the BMX stuff. I told her about last week’s County Dirt Comps and that tweaked landing—how my bike needs a new hubset. Yesterday, Kinsey and me were best friends.

  “There will be no more outbursts.” It’s the first thing I really hear. Mrs. Angelo’s big flat hand pats my steaming back. She starts in where she left off yesterday—the Crusades—all these people getting killed for God and nutmeg. I hate pumpkin pie.

  I know, right now Jeremy is looking at the hubset. He knows I still ride. He’ll drop me.

  How come I went and unwrapped it here in class? I can’t believe it. She got me a Nukeproof X-06. It must’ve cost her a chunk.

  Something pokes my arm—must be Derek in front of me with that stupid mechanical pencil. I pull my arms in.

  Ow! I will not look up.

  Ow. How’s he doing that?

  Ow again! This glowy flitty thing worms its way between my wrist and the desk.

  Whamo!

  Everything changes: The classroom noises are history. I don’t even know what’s going on.

  “Yo,” says this ticked-off twinky voice.

  My eyes are so shut I see those blood-spark things in my eyelids.

  “Yo!” the twinky voice says again.

  I know that voice.

  “Yo. Mandyface.”

  Zoe. That’s what Zoe calls me—or used to call me way back when I invented her. She disappeared when I learned about hormones in fifth grade. Somehow imaginary friends and feminine hygiene products just didn’t work together.

  That same year I won the Under-twelve Regional BMX Dirt Comps. The paper called me “Amazing Dirt Girl”—major social drag.

  I sneak one eye open.

  “Made ya look!” Zoe pulls a tailwhip in the air.

  I open both eyes. She pedals off—out toward Derek. But Derek and his greasy neck aren’t there, and Jeremy isn’t there, and Mrs. Angelo isn’t drawing trade routes on the board. In fact, there is no board. I sit up.

  Everything’s hot and dry and sandy. The hubset floats nearby, and there’s Zoe, zooming around in front of me like always—or like I imagined back when I was little.

  What’s the deal?

  I mean, where am I? How come I can see Zoe? She cranks a wicked infinity roll and lands on my thumb.

  “You look ticked,” she says, pulling off her helmet.

  Zoe looks me right in the eye. It’s weird seeing her. I mean, I always imagined she had little wings and a killer bike and she looked just like me, only she had more guts, more chutzpa like Uncle Morris says. Only now she’s got more me, too. I mean in fifth grade there wasn’t much me, and now there’s more, if you get what I’m saying. So now there’s more of her, too. Only how could there be more of somebody who’s not real?

  The glitter sparkles on her tricked-out bike.

  “I said the worst thing in the world to Kinsey, and now she hates me,” I say.

  “Hold up,” she says, “I’ve been incognito a while. Isn’t Kinsey the dweeby one with the braids?”

  “She’s my best friend in the whole world, forever,” I say, remembering those stupid braids she used to wear, and how skinny she was—not model-skinny, more like geeky-skinny. “She’s different now,” I say. Yeah, different enough so three high school guys were sneaking through the perfume aisle at Mervyn’s to get a look at her.

  Zoe straps on her helmet and pulls an air-180 over the sand. “So what part’s real?” she says, “The best friend part or the hate part?”

  Zoe is asking me what’s real? This whole thing is getting too zoney for me. I turn and look around. Now Zoe’s busting a superman seat-grab over the dusty desert. She speeds past these camels and a bunch of guys dressed in bathrobes, then circles back to my thumb.

  “So?” She taps her foot.

  “The Nukeproof hubset,” I say. It floats next to us over the dunes, gleaming black and silver. “Kinsey gave it to me.”

  “Cool.”

  “Well,” I say, “Yeah.”

  “So?”

  “In front of everybody—even Jeremy. I mean he’s really going to like a dirty BMX punk-girl. Jeremy hates it when girls do guy stuff.”

  Zoe manhandles a 360 tailwhip up by my face and knocks on my head. “Hello.” She says. Her Nukeproof X-06s gleam.

  “Mandyface,” she says. “Your old set’s busted. Your best
friend gets you a new one. Best friend in the world, forever. This Jeremy chump can’t even ride.” She pulls a squeaker across the Nukeproof logo, then flies off into a sandstorm.

  Whamo!

  I’m back in class.

  “…travelers in a foreign land, exploring new social rules for which they were unprepared,” says Mrs. Angelo. “Every turn involved difficult choices. Nonetheless, they persevered.”

  Everybody’s taking notes, even Derek. My new hubset feels solid and heavy in my hand.

  I stand.

  “Amanda?”

  “May I please go to the office?”

  She nods.

  I walk right past Jeremy, who doesn’t look so good. I flash my new hubset and smile. The gel in his hair is clumped by his left ear. There’s a zit I never saw before on his forehead.

  I absolutely have to tell Kinsey I didn’t mean it.

  Maybe I can get to the office before Kinsey gets detention for life.

  Maybe I can make things right.

  Maybe I could let people know I’m one of the best riders in three counties.

  Maybe that’s okay.

  Maybe Jeremy’s wrong.

  Of course Kinsey bought me a new hubset. Of course she’ll understand. Kinsey is my best friend in the world, forever.

  Dorian Cirrone

  Although the story “Riding the Wave” isn’t entirely autobiographical, Dorian Cirrone still remembers Sammy the surfer vividly, many years after she first watched him surfing on Sunny Isles Beach in south Florida. She also remembers trying to surf and falling off the board most of the time, even with her brother Chris’s help.

  Cirrone has written many other works for children and adults. Her story, “Finding High Jump Fame: A Shorts Story,” was featured in the Darby Creek anthology Sports Shorts. In addition, she is the author of two teen novels, Dancing in Red Shoes Will Kill You and Prom Kings and Drama Queens; as well as the Lindy Blues mysteries, The Missing Silver Dollar and The Big Scoop. You can visit her website at www.doriancirrone.com.

  Riding the Wave

  by

  Dorian Cirrone

  “C’mon, get off your butt!” my brother, Chris, said. “I’ll teach you how to surf.”

  I held my hand above my eyes and squinted up at him from my beach towel. “I’m working on my tan,” I said.

  He frowned. “Don’t be so lazy.”

  It was summer vacation and we’d both been spending a lot of time at Sunny Isles Beach, along with everyone else who hadn’t gone to camp or summer school. “I’m not lazy,” I said. “Just comfortable right now.” I loved the feel of the hot sun on my face and the rushing sound of the waves as they rolled onto the shore. I was happy not moving a muscle. I even liked the rotting fish smell of the seaweed strewn along the shore.

  Chris threw his surfboard in the sand next to me and plopped himself down in the middle of it. “It’ll be fun,” he said, picking up my suntan lotion and squirting it on my leg.

  I sat up and scowled at him. “What’s wrong? No surfing buddies to hang out with?” Although he was thirteen and I was fourteen, we had little in common and rarely spent time together. Even when we were at the beach, we hardly crossed each other’s paths. He was usually out in the water paddling around, while I was on the beach reading or sunbathing. I figured he must have been really bored.

  He picked up a handful of sand and let it sift slowly through his fingers. “Everyone must be out of town or something.”

  I rubbed the suntan lotion onto my leg and squirted some on the other one, savoring the coconut scent. “They’ve probably all been carted off to the home for annoying adolescent boys—I can’t believe they missed you.”

  “Very funny,” Chris said, “you should do stand-up comedy, except that you’d probably be too lazy to stand up.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I told you; I’m not lazy. I just don’t see the fun in spending your time battling against the waves to paddle out, and then sitting there for who-knows-how-long until a good enough wave comes by. Then for about one second you get to ride on the stupid board before you fall into the ocean, possibly inhaling enough saltwater to boil a pot of spaghetti.”

  My brother ignored my rant. He had apparently forgotten the previous time he tried to teach me to surf. I’d hoisted my bottom-heavy body onto the board and struggled to paddle out. I was one of those girls with a pear-shaped figure and no arm strength at all.

  In PE when we had to hang with our chin above the bar for the fitness test, I usually lasted about half a second. When I tried to surf, I couldn’t even paddle hard enough with the waves in order to catch one and ride it to the shore. I was about to decline my brother’s invitation one more time when something caught my eye behind him.

  It was a guy who looked a little older than we were, someone I’d never seen before. He carried his surfboard under his arm like every other surfer, but in between the board and his body was a metal crutch. He had a second crutch on the other side. The muscles in his arms rippled as he struggled against the sand that threatened to swallow the bottoms of the crutches. Between the metal, one good leg hopped toward the water while the other dangled in the air, withered and gnarled into a permanently twisted position.

  My brother turned to see what I was looking at.

  “Dude,” the guy said, “how are the waves?”

  “Goin’ off,” Chris answered, as the guy passed us.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “His name’s Sammy,” Chris said. “He usually surfs on the other side of the pier.”

  “How can he surf?”

  Chris smiled. “You’d be surprised.”

  I watched as Sammy threw his crutches onto the shore and hopped a few feet to the water’s edge. He threw the board into the water and gently belly flopped onto it. Slicing the surface of the water, his massive arms propelled him as he battled against the waves. His crutches glinted in the sunlight as he moved farther and farther away from them.

  I continued to study him as he maneuvered the board around and straddled it, facing the shore. He turned his head back, watching and waiting patiently for a wave to catch. After a few minutes, he spun forward and slammed his stomach down onto the board for take-off. He paddled furiously.

  “Watch his moves,” Chris said.

  But I was barely listening, mesmerized by the elegance of the surfboard and Sammy working together as one. Suddenly he was riding the wave, rising on one leg, the other mangled one wafting in the wind. The white foam curled behind him as he stood with his arms outstretched to the sides.

  Deep within me, I could feel what Sammy must have felt, the majesty of those moments as he sailed toward the shore. He was free. Free from his handicap, from his crutches, from all the limitations he endured on land.

  I felt ashamed of my own laziness, of the boundaries I’d carved out for myself just because I couldn’t hang from a bar or because my hips were bigger than those of the other girls.

  I turned to Chris. “Get up.”

  He looked at me puzzled, but obeyed. I grabbed his surfboard and began flopping in the sand, running toward the water with my brother behind me. I knew I’d never look as graceful as Sammy had, but I didn’t care. “Surf’s up!” I yelled as I threw the board into the water and headed toward the horizon.

  Jamie McEwan

  Jamie McEwan lives in Connecticut with his wife, the celebrated Sandra Boynton, and their four children. He is the author of six books for children, including the Scrubs series for Darby Creek (Willy the Scrub, Whitewater Scrubs, Rufus the Scrub Does Not Wear a Tutu, and Scrubs Forever).

  Although Jamie was mediocre at best on the usual school teams—football, soccer, baseball—he was lucky enough to discover a couple of more compatible sports. Captain of his high school and college wrestling teams, Jamie was also a two-time Olympian in whitewater canoe slalom, winning a bronze medal in singles in 1972 and returning twenty years later to place fourth with doubles partner Lecky Haller. He has paddled the rivers of seventeen
different countries around the world. And only once did he lose his shorts.

  Red Shorts, White Water

  by

  Jamie McEwan

  First of all, to help you understand this story better, I want to describe the shorts.

  Not that there was anything terribly special about the shorts. They were my dad’s old soccer shorts, red, with double white stripes down the sides and a white M on one thigh. He had worn them back when he was a college soccer star. The red was pretty faded, and they had lost their string, and the elastic was a little stretched out, and they were big on me. But I liked them. My dad had played varsity games in those shorts. He had scored goals. I thought it was kind of cool to wear those baggy old things around.

  I hadn’t started the day wearing them. I was hanging around the house on this summer Saturday morning in jeans and a T-shirt when the phone rang. It was my friend, Justin Hardy. Justin was a quiet guy, two grades ahead of me, who spent most of his free time playing his Les Paul guitar. But we did have one thing in common.

  “Hey, Ted,” said Justin, “you know that rain yesterday?”

  “Yeah?” I hadn’t been outside yet. I looked out the window at yesterday’s clouds being blown to pieces. Bright blue sky showed through the gaps.

  “It brought the Pagan way up,” said Justin.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “You want to run it?”

  “Maybe.” I had kayaked the Pagan River before, and I knew it would be fun. But I was feeling lazy. And I also knew it was a long walk from the road to get to the good part—a long walk if you were lugging a kayak, that is.

  “Come on, Ted,” said Justin. “Jodie’s in. And my cousin wants to watch us do it. You met her—Melissa. She’s never seen us kayak.”

  I remembered Melissa, all right: my height, brown hair, brown eyes, nice smile.

  “Uh . . . yeah. Sure, why not?”

  Nobody kayaks in jeans. I changed into those shorts I told you about, grabbed my paddle and helmet and life jacket and sprayskirt, and dragged my boat from the garage onto the lawn. I was waiting there when Justin and Melissa and our friend Jodie drove up.