It was quite obvious who the winner of the Beginners Division would be, he thought, mentally picking the girl he and W.E. had talked about. And they were right. When the winner was announced, Cathy Foster claimed her prize, a gift certificate worth ten dollars.
Isaac Walsh was the first competitor in the Advanced Division, starting off like a house afire. His first move was a 360-degree spin in the air.
“A three-sixty Ollie Kick Flip,” the announcer explained. “A tough trick, but Isaac did it perfectly.”
The small crowd applauded.
He performed half a dozen other tricks, each time drawing cheers from the crowd.
One after another the contestants were announced, and with each one Brett grew more nervous. What if he made a mistake and ended up on the ground? What if he wasn’t better than Kyle?
Brett shook his head firmly. This was no time for doubts. He had The Lizard, after all, and together they were unbeatable.
He pulled the photocopy of Lance Hawker’s picture out of his T-shirt pocket. He had decided to bring it along for luck. Brett visualized himself sailing through the air, just like Crackerjack, with the number six emblazoned on his chest …
Only Brett’s number was seven. Johnee had six, and Kyle was five. Suddenly Brett got an idea.
He tapped Johnee on the shoulder. “Hey, Johnee.”
“Hey, man,” Johnee greeted him. “Good show so far, eh?”
“Yeah,” Brett agreed. “Listen, I was wondering something — wanna trade places?”
“Whaddaya mean?” Johnee started to get up. “You want to sit here?”
“No, no. I mean, do you want to switch numbers, so I can go right after Kyle?” Brett removed the paper that was taped to his back and handed it to Johnee.
Johnee frowned. “Why can’t you wait your turn, like everybody else?”
“Oh, come on, man. What’s it to you?” Brett said. “You know this means a lot to me.”
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a contestant, too. Maybe I’d like to keep my spot,” Johnee replied.
Brett kept looking over his shoulder so he wouldn’t miss Kyle’s performance. He knew Kyle would be called any second now.
“I’d really appreciate it, Johnee,” he said, trying to be patient.
“Why does it matter so much? It’s just a number,” Johnee said.
“It’s more than just a number to me,” Brett admitted, though he felt foolish doing so. “It’s my lucky number. It was the number Lance Hawker wore.”
“And you think that’s a
lucky
number?” Johnee scoffed.
Brett didn’t have time to explain. “Just give it to me, okay?” And with that he grabbed Johnee’s number off his back and started taping it on his own shirt.
“Hey!” cried Johnee. He tried to grab the paper back, but Brett had already moved out of reach. “You’re weird, Thyson, you know that?” Johnee called after him.
Brett asked W.E. to inform the announcer of the change, and then he turned to watch the next performer: Kyle Robinson. His attention was riveted on Kyle’s feet as he started off with a Kick Turn, skating swiftly up a ramp. At the last moment, just as the
nose of the board was ready to leave the ramp, Kyle put his weight on his rear foot, twisted around, and skated back down.
The crowd applauded.
Kyle did a Tail Wheelie, putting both feet on the rear of the board and skating on just the rear wheels. Then he did a Nose Wheelie, which was just the opposite of the Tail Wheelie, followed by a Judo Air, in which one foot stayed on the board and the other did a karate kick forward.
He did this trick several times, alternating the kicks from one foot to the other, and never losing his balance. The crowd cheered. Brett didn’t clap. He just watched, wondering if he could copy those moves. He felt sure he could.
Kyle performed other tricks, including a handstand with both hands, and finally — just as the whistle blew — a fantastic jump off the top of a ramp, over a three-foot-high horizontal pole with his feet free of the board, and then landing on the board as it skimmed underneath the pole.
The crowd applauded like crazy, and Brett wondered if he could outdo that. Those last two tricks, no doubt, were Kyle’s best.
Then, “Our next contestant, Brett Thy- son!” came the announcement over the PA system.
Brett caught his breath and held it. The moment had come. He could hardly believe it. For the first time in his life, he was going to compete in a skateboarding contest.
He stood up as a round of applause greeted him. He put on his helmet, put his foot on the skateboard, and was ready to go.
H
e started off with some easy tricks first: a Tail Wheelie, a Hang Ten (hanging the toes of both feet over the nose of the skateboard with the rear of the board off the pavement), a Judo Air, and a few others that Kyle and the other contestants had done. Next he did a handstand, using both hands,
then let- ting go of the board with one hand and standing straight up on the other.
“Hey, look at that, will you? A Gymnast Plant!” the announcer yelled, surprised and obviously enthusiastic. “Young Brett’s the only one who has done that trick so far!”
The crowd showed its surprise and pleasure too, cheering and applauding.
So far, so good,
Brett thought, as he looked forward to other moves he expected to do. He was confident now that he was going to skate the best he had ever skated in his life. Better than anyone else. He was sure he could. That was a promise to himself.
He did a couple of Hippy Twists, 360s, then a 540 — a one-and-a-half twist, landing backwards on the board and not losing his balance one bit.
After taking just a few seconds to catch his breath, he skated down the arena several yards, crouched down on the board, grabbed its ends, and stretched his body out horizontally while the board rolled down the pavement. He had worked on this move dozens of times, but never on a skateboard. It had been on his bedroom floor. It was his first time on a skateboard, and it worked.
He raced up another ramp, and, as he reached the top, grabbed an edge of the skateboard with one hand and the edge of the ramp with the other, and
somersaulted back onto the pavement.
The announcer whistled his surprise and awe as the crowd again cheered and applauded. “A Radical Invert,” he explained.
Brett did a few wheelies to recover his breath again, a Fast Flowage (skating as fast as he could down the arena, then lifting the board off the pavement for a moment with one foot), then another Hand Plant just as the whistle blew.
Applause filled the air as he wheelied to a dead stop, nodded to the applauding crowd, and headed silently back to the bench.
Two other skaters performed before the contest was over, including Johnee, who did very well but didn’t try anything too fancy. After the last skater, the crowd waited in breathless silence for the winner to be announced. Brett, sweat glistening on his face, was gazing at the skateboard between his sneakered feet.
“Think we won it, Lizard?” he said quietly.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have a winner,” the announcer said. “It’s …Brett Thyson! Congratulations, Brett! Come up here and claim your gift certificate!”
Once more the crowd cheered and applauded as Brett jumped up, punched the air with his fist, and strode over to the announcer’s stand to receive his award. He didn’t really care about the prize — this moment of victory was enough.
“Thank you,” he said, shaking hands with the presenter.
“I never doubted it one bit,” W.E. said, reaching forward to shake his hand, too. “Congratulations, Brett.”
“Thanks, W.E.,” Brett said. He realized that, except for one shaky moment, he hadn’t doubted himself either. He knew he was the best, and now everyone else would know it too.
He expected Johnee to come over and congratulate him, too, but Johnee was nowhere to be seen. Brett noticed that Kyle also had disappeared.
Sore loser,
Brett thought, disappointed that he had missed seeing Kyle’s reaction to his win.
There were others who did come over: his mother, father, Shannon, and a couple of other people he didn’t even know.
“I can’t believe it, Brett,” his mother said, looking at him as if he had won an Olympic medal. “You were …incredible! I never knew you could do tricks like that!”
“Really surprised you, didn’t I, Mom?” he said, amused.
“You sure did!” she declared.
“And me, too,” his father said, his face wreathed in a smile. “You must have been practicing all those tricks behind our backs.”
“Not all of them,” he said honestly. “Here, take my prize home with you.” He handed the certificate to his father.
Could there really be another reason, other than pure guts and ability, that I had been able to perform all those tricks?
he wondered. It certainly wasn’t because he had practiced them. Heck, he didn’t even know half of the tricks he had done, or their names! They had just come to him while he was riding the skateboard!
So …what was truly behind his prizewinning performance? His
natural
ability? Or was it The Lizard?
The Lizard, heck,
he told himself.
It’s my natural ability. It is!
Brett waited for the crowd to disperse, then went up to Mrs. Weatherspoon, who’d been congratulating all of the contestants and their parents.
“That was great, Mrs. Weatherspoon,” he said. “We all appreciate what you did.”
Mrs. Weatherspoon’s face spiderwebbed into a broad smile as she took Brett’s hand and shook it. “Well, it’s nice to be able to help the kids in the neighborhood,” she said. “You did very well, Brett. Amazingly well, as a matter of fact.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Well, see you later, Mrs. Weatherspoon.”
He left the yard, skated out to the street, and headed for home.
He put The Lizard in the garage and went into the house. He had barely closed the kitchen door behind him when he received an unexpected ovation. “Guess who came in first in the Advanced Division of the contest? Our one and only … Brett Thyson!”
He stood, still panting, as Shannon rushed up to him and gave him a big hug. Standing behind her, her face flushed with admiration too, was Kristyne Medler.
When Shannon broke away from him, Kristyne gave him a hug too, though not a bear one like Shannon’s. “You were fantastic, Brett,” she said, stepping back and looking at him. “I never dreamed anybody could do the tricks you did.”
He grinned, and shrugged. “It just takes practice,” he said modestly
But, in his case, was it only practice?
he asked himself. The question didn’t want to go away. Those accidents, and near-accidents …
“When do we eat?” he asked, forcing a laugh as he turned to his mother.
She smiled. “Can you wait fifteen minutes, champ?”
“I can wait,” he said, and gave her a hug.
A couple of mornings later, a little after ten o’clock, Brett got tired of just sitting around the house and went out to ride The Lizard. He’d done a couple of chores — swept off the walks and cleaned out the crawl space underneath the house — and was getting restless. Now that the contest was over he felt let down. He just had to get out and do something, and nothing would make him feel better right now than skateboarding.
He waved to the mail carrier coming up the walk, then was attracted by some familiar noises coming from down the street. Sensing action in the offing, he headed in that direction.
Around the corner, a small, two-story house was being lifted from its foundation to be placed onto a flat-bottomed truck. Skateboarding on the street in front of it were Johnee Kale and a couple of other kids.
“Hi, guys,” Brett called as he wheelied to a stop in front of them.
“Hi, Brett,” the two boys with Johnee answered him. But Johnee just gave him an unpleasant look and skated away. Brett couldn’t believe it. Johnee was mad at him! Brett guessed that it had to do with taking his number at the contest.
Geez,
Brett thought.
Can’t he understand that it was important to me? What difference did it make, anyway?
“Okay, boys, take off,” a man wearing a helmet said to them as he came from behind the moving house. “It’s dangerous here.”
Brett walked out into the street, glancing back and forth to see if cars were coming. He and the other kids waited for two to pass by, then skated to the intersection, where all the kids except Brett turned left. He turned right. Might as well head back for home, he decided.
He skated for a while in front of his house, doing some of the easier tricks — if his mother saw him pulling off some of the fancier freestyle stunts now she might fly off the handle — then left The Lizard on the walk and went into the house.
“That you, Brett?” his mother called him from the living room.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Look on the table,” she said. “There’s a postcard for you.”
He saw it, picked it up, and read it. It was printed in ink.
Lizard Boy,
Put that skateboard back where you got it from, or you’ll be sorrier than ever.
Lance Hawker
I
saw that note,” his mother said. “Who’s Lance Hawker?”
Brett reread the card, feeling an icy chill starting at the base of his spine and working upward.
“Did you hear me?” she repeated. “Who’s Lance Hawker?”
A deep frown appeared on Brett’s forehead. “The guy who used to own The Lizard,” he said, his voice so low it was barely audible.
“How do you know that?”
“W.E. told me.”
“How does he know?”
“W.E. knows a lot of things,” Brett said, and went into the next room, feeling like squashing the postcard into a lump in his hand. But he didn’t. He had to keep it for proof. He was going to show it to W.E., call him a rotten, dirty rat for writing him such a note, and shove it down his throat. Because nobody except W.E. had ever said that The Lizard was hexed. Nobody. It had to be him.
“Maybe you should rebury it, Brett,” Shannon’s voice came from the chair by the window. She was studying one of her music sheets.
He glared at her. “Rebury it? Why? You crazy or something?”
“No. But ever since you’ve had The Lizard you …” She shrugged her shoulders, as if she were having trouble saying what she wanted to say.