We both pushed a few times and crouched, skating in opposite directions of the deep end. Neither of us hit the lip of the pool the first time. We cruised and dropped back in. The surface was so clean and smooth, we barely made any noise.
I cut around Goat as we both reached the bottom of the pool and shot up the other side. I had gained enough speed to do a quick front side grab near the lip. It felt amazing. So amazing, I almost forgot I was competing.
There was a lot of room in the pool, but every time we reached the bottom, Goat and I had to cross paths. I wouldn't say he was trying to hit me, but he wasn't working very hard to get out of the way either.
“Watch yourself, Head Case,” Goat said. “You look wobbly.” He did a little tail tap on the edge of the pool, dropped back in and cruised around the side. I cut beneath him and launched off the other side to do a simple backside 180°.
We had been in the pool for a minute or so, which doesn't sound long, but when you're pumping and bending and straining to stay on a board, it feels like an eternity.
“Maybe we should liven this up a little,” Goat said as he shot past me.
“How so?”
“True old-school death match.”
“What?” I said as we passed each other again.
“Anything goes. Cut the other guy off. Slam into him. Shove him. Whatever.”
“No, forget it,” I yelled back. I cut up to the shallow end of the pool and rolled around for a second to catch my breath.
“Why not? What are you afraid of?”
I rolled over to the edge of the deep end and dropped in. “Nothing,” I shouted. “But it's not what we agreed to.”
“So,” Goat said, cutting very close. “Rules can change.”
Goat had a good fifteen pounds on me. Plus he was taller, which gave him a much longer reach. We both knew if it came to a death match, he would win. The only chance I had of winning was if we kept skating. He was getting tired, and I had seen him catch the edge of the pool a couple of times.
“We can't stay in here forever,” Goat said as he swept into the shallow end and made the same half circle I had.
“I got all night,” I said. He dropped back into the deep end and tucked straight toward me. I swerved at the last second and wobbled slightly going up the wall. “Goat, forget it. We agreed toâ”
Goat did a quick turn on the far wall and was coming straight at me again. “Forget whatever we agreed to,” he said. “I'm tired of this.”
I managed to cut around him and back into the pool. I was going way too fast, and suddenly, I was high along the edge. Goat came in beneath me, making it impossible to drop back in. I did a power-slide, and Goat shot around to the other side of the pool. I dropped back in, tucked up the ramp to the shallow end, making sure I didn't put a foot down. Goat came up behind me. As I turned to go back into the deep end, he reached out and tried to shove me. I ducked and rolled into the deep end.
I was about to shoot up the wall, figuring I didn't have any other option but to gun it straight for him, when a bright spotlight lit up the lawn and someone yelled, “What the hell is going on out here?”
I skidded to a stop and drifted down to the bottom of the pool. A man stood near the edge of the shallow end with something in his hand. “What do you think you're doing in there?” he said.
Goat tucked down the incline toward the deep end, rocketed up the opposite wall, clambered out of the pool and beelined for the fence.
“There's two of them in my pool,” I heard the man say. He had a cordless phone in his hand. “Hey, get back here, you!”
Goat had made it over the fence and was on the other side.
“Come on out of there,” the man said. “I've called the police. They'll be here in a minute. You can tell them who your friend is that just took off.”
I had to think fast. I couldn't climb out of the deep end of the pool. There wasn't a ladder, and the sides were slick and smooth. I started walking toward the shallow end, my head down and my hoodie pulled low over my face.
“This is private property,” he said. “Why would you do this?”
I wanted to tell him I was sorry. That it wasn't my idea. But what would he care? And it didn't matter anyway. My idea or not, I had agreed to go along with this.
I walked about three-quarters of the way up the incline. Then I dropped my board and pushed as hard as I could back into the deep end.
“Hey!” he yelled. Somehow I had enough speed to reach the lip of the pool. I rolled over the top and onto the concrete that circled the pool.
“Get back here,” the man yelled. He was making his way toward the deep end. He had a fuzzy housecoat and slippers on. One of his slippers fell off, and he turned to retrieve it.
I ran for the fence, my shin aching, and tossed my board over. I was halfway up before he reached me. He grabbed my foot and tried to pull me down. I held on tight and kicked him with my other foot. He yelped and grabbed his hand, freeing me to pull myself over the fence. I landed on the other side with a smack, picked my board up and hobbled toward the forest, my leg feeling worse than ever.
“You think this is funny?” he said. “Ruining people's property? You think it's a game? You kids have no respect. None at all.”
I cut through the bushes back toward the road, where I hoped Sara and Jack were waiting.
“You'll get yours,” the man yelled. “The police are on their way. When they ask me if I want to press charges, the answer will be yes. Do you hear me!”
Branches whipped at my face as I ran through the darkness. I heard noises coming from the street. It sounded like a car revving up and down. I headed toward it and slowed down at the edge of the woods.
Jack was standing in the middle of the street beside Goat's old Honda.
McNaughton stuck his head out the driver's-side window. “Get in,” he said. Jack moved to open the door, but McNaughton mashed the gas, lurched forward and then stopped.
“Come on, McNaughton,” Jack yelled. “Let me in.”
McNaughton revved the engine. “All right, come on, hurry up before the cops show.”
Jack walked toward the car. Just as his hand touched the door handle, the car shot forward again.
I heard a “pssst” behind me. I squinted into the darkness and saw Sara waving at me, her back pressed against a tree.
“What's going on?” I asked.
“McNaughton,” Sara said. “The one and only.”
“What a jerk.”
“On the plus side, if the cops do show, we're here and they're out there being idiots.”
McNaughton gunned the car again. I could hear Goat say something to him from the passenger seat. “Forget it, Goat,” McNaughton yelled. “Let him walk.” McNaughton must have nailed the gas, because the car fishtailed away, leaving Jack in the middle of the road.
“Jack,” I yelled. “Over here.” He ran toward my voice. “Hurry up. Henderson called the cops.”
Jack ducked into the brush and knelt beside us. We were only half a block from Henderson's house. But to walk on the road would be advertising our guilt. I wished we hadn't all come in one car.
A police cruiser shot past, its lights and siren off. We watched it pull up in front of Henderson's and waited to hear the doors open and close.
“When they go inside to talk to him, we run,” I said. “Don't get on your boards until we're a long way from here.”
“All right,” Sara said.
“Why don't we stay in the woods?” Jack said. “We could try to find a path to the beach.”
I grabbed his shoulder. “Maybe. But that's a long walk through the woods at night. And I have no idea where we would come out. No, it's safer to stay on the road.”
The officers were still sitting in their cruiser. The interior light was on, and one of them was typing on a laptop. When they got out, they shone their flashlights across Henderson's front lawn and the adjoining woods.
“Wait,” I said. The officers clicked their flashlights off and walked to the front door. “Okay, let's go.” We were about to dart onto the sidewalk when a gray Toyota rolled up in front of our hiding spot. We pulled back into the bushes and crouched as close to the ground as possible. The driver had a digital device of some kind in his hand. He stopped the car and opened his door. When he stepped out, I recognized him as the photographer that kept snapping shots of Jack everywhere.
“How did he find us here?” I whispered.
“I don't know,” Jack said. “Maybe he listens to the police scanners.”
“What's in his hand?” Sara asked.
The photographer kept looking at the device and then up at the darkened forest. He took a couple of steps forward, noticed the police cruiser down the street, got back in his car and drove off.
“Let's get out of here,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let's go.” As we walked quickly down the street, I tried to forget how angry, and sad, Mr. Henderson had looked. I tried to focus on why I was doing all this. But most of all, I wanted to know how that photographer had found us.
The next day, when Sara and I arrived at the half-pipe, my leg was still hurting. I sat on the ramp and watched Sara pull off some beautiful airs. We had plans to meet Jack here, but, as always, he was late. It was a warm, late-August Sunday, and it seemed as if everyone in town who skated was at the ramp or messing around on a few street obstacles set up on the basketball court.
Sara rolled to the top of the ramp and hopped off. Someone else dropped in, and the steady drone of wheels on plywood started up again.
“That was really good,” I said.
“Could be better,” she said. “I'm tired today. Out too late, you know?” She leaned against the back railing and slid down beside me. She didn't say anything for a minute. Then she said, “Casey, why are you doing this?” Which was exactly what I had been thinking,
“Doing what?” I said.
“The stupid competition with Goat that Jack is making you do.”
“Because I don't have a choice, Sara. I told you that before.”
“You always have a choice. You can say no.”
“And then Goat gets the trainer and stunt-double work? Did you see how he's already cut his hair so he looks more like Jack?”
“So what, Casey. I mean, what do you need to be a stunt double for?”
“To make money. To have a career. To do what I love.”
“You can skate whenever you want. You don't have to be a stunt double to do that. You're seventeen! Why are you even thinking about a career?”
I shook my head. “Sure, I can skate all I want, but the days will tick away. I have to find something to do,” I said.
She crossed her arms in front of her. “You're good in school when you work at it. You're smart. You can go to college.” Sara was going to college, and one of her few deficiencies was that she could not understand why anyone else
wouldn't.
“It seems stupid. Jack's playing games with you guys, and he's loving it. He has all this power.”
“No, he doesn't,” I said quickly.
Sara shrugged and stood up. “Whatever you say, Casey.” She put the tail of her board on the coping and dropped back in.
Jack arrived an hour late. He got out of his car with his cell phone to his ear. He was in a real skater outfit today. Someone had probably shipped the clothes to him, and he had put them on without a thought, in anticipation of the paparazzi. Sara was right. Jack was playing a game. He was playing a game with Goat and me, and he was playing a game with himself. It was a game called Pretend. After all, that's where movie stars live, in a pretend world. He needed this new skater image to help him move beyond his kid-actor status. And he was doing everything he could to get there.
Jack dropped his phone in a pocket, grabbed his skateboard out of the trunk and ran up the ramp. “How's it going, Casey?” he said.
“All right,” I said. I had a flashback of Jack trying to get in Goat's car, McNaughton driving away and Jack's humiliation.
“Where's Goat?” asked Jack.
“I haven't seen him since last night, when he tried to knock me off my board, ran away and left us stuck on the side of the road.”
Jack shrugged. “It's all part of it, isn't it?” he asked.
I frowned. “Getting ditched and left for the police? What is that part of?”
“The culture, man,” Jack said. “I mean, that really got my heart pumping.” He put his board down and spun it in little circles with his foot. He wasn't going to try and drop in or anything. Being here was all show.
The same gray Toyota from the night before pulled into the parking lot, and the same photographer guy stepped out.
“How does that guy know where you are all the time?” I asked. “Do you tell him or something?”
Jack looked over at the photographer. “Why would I do that?”
“Publicity?”
Jack shook his head. “Man, I'm trying to lay low these days, get ready for my next role, that's all.”
“But how does he know where you are all the time?” I asked.
Jack shrugged. “I don't know. He must be lucky.”
It didn't sound like a believable explanation to me, but what did I care? It wasn't my face being splashed all over the tabloids.
Goat's crappy Honda pulled into the lot, and as he approached, I noticed something in his hand. He came up to the ramp and waved it at us. “Yo, what's up?” he yelled.
Jack let go of his board. It rolled down the ramp, and he dropped to his knees and slid down after it.
I dropped in, pulled a single excruciating backside air and skated over to see what Goat had planned.
“What was that all about last night, Goat?” I asked.
“What?” he said.
“Taking off on us.”
“That was McNaughton. He was being a jerk. No hard feelings, right?” Goat said.