Snowboard Champ

by Matt Christopher

“Huh?”

  “’Cause if you’re going out with him or something, I don’t want to get in the way.”

  “Going out with him? Puh-leez.” Melissa rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. “He was my so-called boyfriend for two weeks at summer camp, and then I broke up with him. He won’t stop bothering me, though.”

  “You mean he still likes you?”

  “I guess,” she said with a shrug. “Who knows, who cares? I don’t like him that much. He’s too mean.”

  “He is, huh?” Matt said, cringing. Great. Just great. “Don’t worry about Riley,” she said, patting him on the arm. “I mean, we’re just going snowboarding together, for goodness’ sake. It’s not like we’re going out or anything.”

  “Right,” Matt said, half relieved and half disappointed.

  “And even if we were, what business is it of his? Anyway, I’ll bet you could beat him in a fight. You’re from the hood, right? Everybody there knows how to fight.” She winked, gave his arm a squeeze, and returned to her seat.

  Right. Everyone from the hood knows how to fight, he thought. Everybody but me.

  Dragon Valley Middle being such a small school, news traveled fast. In this case, it traveled like lightning. Everywhere Matt went that day, he could feel kids’ eyes on him. He could hear the whispering behind him that stopped whenever he turned around to see who it was.

  In the cafeteria, he felt like every eye was on him, but whenever he tried to catch people staring at him, they looked away just in time to avoid being caught at it. Except for Riley. Riley stared right back at him with what could only be described as the evil eye.

  Matt thought he knew why, and in gym, Riley confirmed it. “What did I tell you yesterday?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t act stupid with me. You know.”

  “Oh. About Melissa?”

  “Yeah. Your new snowboarding buddy.”

  “You heard, huh?”

  “I couldn’t help hearing,” Riley said. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

  “Everyone should keep their mouths shut,” Matt said, looking around the gym in annoyance at the other kids, who were watching this little spat develop. Spengler was right, he thought. Baaa . . . baaa . . .

  “I’m gonna have to teach you the way things work around here,” Riley said. He put an arm around Matt’s shoulders, then clamped down tight like an iron claw.

  “What do you mean?” Matt asked him, wincing in pain. Riley was at least four inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than he was.

  Riley leaned close and whispered into Matt’s ear, “You show up at the slopes with Melissa, and you’ll find out what I mean.”

  Matt’s shoulder hurt for the rest of the day. When he got out of bed the next morning, he noticed two bruises where Riley’s fingers had dug in. Riley had meant to intimidate him. But instead, Matt found he was getting angry. Any thought of canceling the snow-boarding date with Melissa vanished as he stared at the black-and-blue marks.

  Still, Matt was glad Melissa had suggested Sunday instead of Saturday. It gave him a day to practice his moves on his snowboard. Lots of kids from school were there, and many of them said hello to him. He returned their greetings and introduced Clay to them but didn’t want to hang out with them. He was here with his uncle.

  Then he caught sight of Riley, surrounded as usual by his group of friends. Riley returned his glance, then looked beyond him as if to see who else Matt was with. He must have realized Melissa wasn’t there, because he gave Matt a slow smile and nod. It was as if he were saying, “I see that you did what I told you to.”

  That made Matt even madder, but it also made him a little nervous. How would Riley react tomorrow, when Matt showed up here with Melissa instead of Uncle Clayton?

  He pushed the thought away quickly. He’d asked Clay to work on his jumps with him, and his uncle was only too happy to oblige.

  “We’ll start with some ollies first,” Clay said.

  They rode the lift to the top of one of the intermediate slopes, one with a lot of small moguls on the way down. “Okay, here’s the deal,” Clay said. “You get some speed, then move your weight to the back of the board, so the tip is coming up off the snow.” He demonstrated on the flat ground, and Matt tried to imitate him. “Then push off your back foot, jump up, and lift the board off the snow. Here, watch me, then you try it.”

  It was fun for Matt to watch Clay make his way down the hill. Clay was tall and thin, almost like a beanpole, and when he did airborne tricks and jumps, he flew sky-high. He did an ollie first, then pulled up on one side of the slope and shouted back up, “Okay, now you!”

  Matt leaned into the hill and started his descent. As he approached the mogul, he crouched slightly at the knees, then pushed off just as he hit the top. He kept his balance in the air but landed a little hard.

  “Keep your knees bent until you’re back on the ground,” Clay advised him, demonstrating on the next mogul as they made their way to the bottom of the hill.

  They worked on landings some more, then on getting more and more air in their jumps. “Make sure you do a nice turn after you land,” Clay told him. “It’ll help control your speed so you don’t go flying into someone.”

  Been there, done that, Matt said to himself. But he kept his mouth shut.

  They did half-cabs — 180-degree turns while riding fakie. “Don’t worry, these take a lot of practice,” Clay counseled when Matt had trouble nailing the jumps. “Keep your body centered and straight. Remember to land flat.”

  Finally, at the end of the day, Clay taught him to do 360s. “Use your upper body to start the spin,” Clay said, demonstrating with a gorgeous jump.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Matt shouted down to him.

  “Come on, try it!” Clay called back.

  Matt did. To his surprise, he nearly landed it. In fact, his surprise was probably the reason he got distracted and wound up falling.

  “Never mind, that was a good one till the very end,” Clay told him as he picked him up out of the snow. “You keep practicing those. And remember how I told you to fall.”

  By the time they got home, Matt was sore all over. He ate a quick dinner, then collapsed into bed, wondering how he was going to go boarding again tomorrow. But he knew that he would drag himself to the slopes somehow, for two reasons. One, he wanted to get to know Melissa better. And two, he wanted to show Riley that he wasn’t afraid of him.

  6

  The next day, Melissa’s mom drove them both to Dragon Mountain. “Nice to meet you, Matt,” she said, looking him over as he got into the car. Everyone was looking him over these days, and it was starting to make Matt feel really uncomfortable.

  They said goodbye to Mrs. McCarthney at the resort’s gate and walked together to the main lodge to buy their lift tickets. “I’m not that good at boarding,” Melissa confessed. “So don’t make fun of me, okay?”

  “I don’t make fun of my friends,” Matt told her. “Anyway, I haven’t been boarding that many times myself. I only learned last year at Christmas break.”

  “So you’ve only gone like, what, seven times?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe nine or ten. I don’t know. Anyway, I’m not exactly the master. That would be my Uncle Clayton. He’s awesome. You should see him do jumps!”

  Matt was enjoying himself, happy just to be in the company of someone so nice. But his good time was cut short almost before it got started. No sooner had they gotten their lift tickets than Riley’s voice rang out behind them.

  “Well, look who’s here!” he said with an air of false cheer. “The two lovebirds. Tweet-tweet-tweet!” All the kids around Riley laughed, and Matt could feel his face get hot with the rush of blood.

  Melissa stood her ground. “Riley, you’re such a jerk,” she said. “Come on, Matt. Let’s go.”

  “Hey, Harper!” Riley said, stopping Matt in his tracks. “Not so fast. We’ve got a score to settle.”

  “I’m not gonna fight yo
u, Riley,” Matt said firmly. “There’s nothing to fight about.”

  “Fight?” Nelson repeated, clueless. “There’s gonna be a fight? Cool! What about?”

  Matt guessed that it wasn’t generally known that Riley still liked Melissa.

  “Shut up, Nelson,” Riley said, waving him off like an annoying fly. “Nobody’s gonna fight anybody. We’re just talking about a gentlemanly contest.”

  “Contest?” Now it was Matt’s turn to play echo.

  “A snowboarding contest. I hear you’re world-class.”

  Matt snorted and shook his head. “Where’d you hear that?” he asked.

  Riley ignored the question. “Jumps and tricks, me against you.”

  Matt disliked the idea intensely. Either he lost the contest and looked like a jerk in front of everyone, or he won and made a jerk out of Riley — which, much as he would enjoy it, he knew would only make things worse. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  He started to protest that he wasn’t good enough to engage in contests yet, but he could see there was no point in arguing. Riley was intent upon humiliating him in front of Melissa and all the other kids. He decided that the worst thing of all would be for everyone to think he was a coward. “All right,” he finally agreed.

  Riley led the way to the jump area. The way the other kids followed him reminded Matt once again of what Spengler had said about sheep and a sheepdog. Watching them made him more determined than ever not to be one of Riley’s flock.

  “I still don’t get what this is all about,” Nelson said, as they pushed their boards along the flat area that led to the lifts.

  “Harper here is supposed to be a world-class snow-boarder,” Riley explained.

  Matt frowned. “I still don’t get where you heard that.”

  Riley gave him a sly glance. “Rumor has it” was all he would say.

  “Well, who started that rumor?” Matt asked.

  Riley shrugged. “I don’t know, man. Maybe you.” He looked Matt right in the eye.

  “Yeah, and maybe not,” Matt said with a scowl. This would get him nowhere. The only way to deal with Riley’s challenge was to beat him at his own game and deal with the consequences later.

  When they got to the top of the hill and hopped off the lift, Riley laid down the terms of his challenge: “How ’bout five jumps each, everybody scores it one to ten, and we just add up the totals?”

  “Fine,” Matt said. “Whatever you say.”

  “And no points if you fall.” He stared hard at Matt. Matt stared right back at him. “I won’t fall,” he said. When he said it, he believed it. But when he lined up for his first jump, doubts started to creep into his brain. He’d really gone and done it now. He’d left himself totally out on a limb by guaranteeing he wouldn’t fall. Only yesterday, practicing with Uncle Clayton, he’d fallen a dozen times! And now, on the day after, he was sore and stiff all over. Why had he opened his mouth like that? What an idiot!

  All of a sudden, Matt realized how much smarter it would have been just to walk away from the challenge. But now it was too late, so he tried to get himself ready. He would keep it simple on the first jump, then go from there, building his confidence one step at a time.

  “You first,” he told Riley.

  “What’s the matter? You chicken?”

  “No. It was your challenge. So you should go first.”

  “He’s right, Riley,” Melissa said, crossing her arms in front of her.

  Riley gave her a long look. “All right,” he finally said. “Who cares? It’s all the same to me. This contest is only ending one way, anyhow.”

  He lined up in front of Matt, waited until the field was clear between him and the ramp, then headed down it, crouching low as he gained speed. Right at the end of the ramp, he lifted off, high into the air, his arms spread out to either side. He landed smoothly, then arced in a half-circle and came to a stop. He looked up and waved, acknowledging the applause from the other kids, who were whooping it up.

  “Ten!” Nelson crowed. “It’s a ten!”

  “I give it a nine,” said Abby.

  “Nine and a half,” Courtney ventured.

  The other kids gave Riley similar marks. Even Melissa gave Riley a nine.

  Now it was Matt’s turn. He tried to do just as Riley had done, keeping his first jump simple and smooth. His nerves, however, were fighting him all the way. He wound up going into his takeoff a second early, costing him height and making him wobble a little on the landing. He got sixes and sevens, and a single eight from Melissa.

  On his second jump, Riley decided to get fancy. He did a wiggle-waggle with his legs in the air, back and forth twice, before making another perfect landing.

  “Am I supposed to match whatever you do?” Matt shouted down to him.

  “Do whatever you want!” Riley shouted back, as he collected another round of nines and tens.

  Matt would have liked to do something incredible — a full somersault, or even a double full somersault —but of course he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do anything like that! All he could do, or at least had done once, was a 360 turn, and the chances of him pulling it off now were slim to none. He decided to go with another regular jump, just pulling up his knees to his chest in midflight before landing.

  This he was able to do almost perfectly, and to his surprise, he got a nice round of applause from the spectators back at the top of the ramp. His marks were almost as good as Riley’s — which seemed to really tick Riley off. He shoved two kids on his way to the starting line. “Watch this!” he muttered under his breath, then shoved off, pointing his body as far forward as he could.

  Maybe it was because he’d leaned forward too far, or maybe it was just from trying too hard, but from the moment he went airborne, Riley was off balance. He tried to right himself, but it was too late. He fell on his landing, head over heels, and was lucky to avoid getting hurt.

  According to Riley’s own rules, that jump got him zero points. Matt started crunching numbers in his head, heart thumping when he realized that he had a chance of winning now — if only he didn’t fall himself.

  And so he kept it simple, doing a straight but very high and smooth jump. By not taking any chances, he was daring Riley to catch up by taking more and more risks of falling.

  “Gutless,” Riley commented after Matt’s third jump. “What a wimp.”

  Matt laughed off his comment. “Whatever,” he said. “Your turn.”

  “Oh, no,” Riley said, wagging his finger. “You go first the rest of the way.”

  Matt shrugged. “Sure,” he said, pushing off and heading for the starting line.

  “And let’s see a little something!” Riley said. “No wimping out!”

  Part of Matt wanted to respond by doing a 360 turn, just to show Riley he was no wimp. But he’d been sucked in once that morning when he accepted Riley’s challenge in the first place. He knew Riley was just trying to goad him into failing, that it was a trap designed to make him mess up. So he stayed simple, doing a little zigzag in midair with his board and taking no major chances.

  Maybe it was Riley’s taunting, but Nelson, Abby, Courtney, and the three other kids acting as judges gave Matt sevens and eights. Melissa voted last, and as she hesitated, he could tell she wanted to give him a higher number — maybe a nine — but she didn’t want to stand out too much, so she said “seven” instead.

  “Okay,” Riley said, energized by Matt’s low tally. “Here we go.” He launched into his fourth jump, did a 360 turn, and made a perfect landing. Then he thrust both fists high in the air. “Yes! I rule! Give it up, you guys! That was a ten!”

  The judges agreed. Not one kid gave him anything less than a ten.

  Matt couldn’t figure out where he and Riley stood with one jump left to go, but Courtney had been keeping score on a candy box with a little pencil she had in her pocket. “Matt’s ahead, 254 to 248,” she said. “Close!”

  “Ooo-ooo!” some of the kids said, getting a kick out of
the tense match.

  It was time for Matt’s last jump, and he knew that he had to do something special or risk losing. He wanted to beat Riley Hammett at his own game — just to teach him a lesson, just to show him that he wasn’t as big a cheese as he thought he was.

  It was time for his own 360, he decided. He would risk it all on this one big jump. Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, he closed his eyes for a moment and tried to visualize what he was about to do.

  Then he began his jump, holding back till the last minute before springing into a full extension just as his board left the ground. He twisted hard left with his upper torso, forcing the rest of him to follow around in a complete circle. As he came around front again, he tried to hold the fall line of the hill in his sights and point the front of his board straight down it. He spread his arms to his sides and landed softly, with only a little wobble.

  He didn’t even hear the whoop that went up from the kids at the top of the ramp, but he knew it from the way they were jumping up and down and clapping. He knew he had put Riley Hammett on the spot — big-time.

  Riley was silent, concentrated, still as a statue for a long, long moment. Then he made his jump — a 360, like Matt’s. It was higher than Matt’s and longer to the landing. But Riley’s landing was anything but smooth. He nearly fell down and had to touch the ground with his left hand in order to not go over.

  The applause from the top of the ramp was polite but nervous. Matt got on the lift along with Riley, and they rode back up to find out what the final tally was.

  “Nine,” Nelson was saying as they approached the group.

  “Ten,” Abby said.

  “Ten,” Courtney echoed. Riley went over to her and Abby and threw an arm around each of their shoulders.

  “What are you talking about?” Melissa said hotly. “Didn’t you even see it? I give it a four, and that’s being generous!”

  The three other judges, two boys and a girl, looked at each other furtively. “Ten,” said one.

  “Nine,” said the second.

  “Nine,” said the third.

  Courtney was hard at work with her pencil and paper. “Riley wins by three points!” she squealed. “Yay!”