by Marty Chan
I only hoped Trina would be so quick to forgive me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her.
She looked at me, her eyes welling up. Then she wound up and punched me in the gut. “Not as sorry as you’re going to be,” she said as she walked over to the porch to check on her bike.
Over the next week, Mr. E told everyone what really happened, clearing my name with Principal Henday and making sure that the kids didn’t treat me like a criminal. He even tried to talk to my parents, but Dad was still mad at me for skipping out on my chores. Mr. E had suggested a good punishment. Even though our teacher knew that Ida was responsible for stealing the bike, he still said we were responsible for destroying his robot and his yard. Trina, Remi and I had to help Ida every weekend to rebuild his porch, clean up the yard and fix the Ida robot. Dad agreed to let me do this, but only after I finished the chores at the store.
While we worked in the yard, I tried to patch things up with Trina. She hadn’t talked to me for three weeks, even though I started every conversation with “I’m really, really, really sorry.” I hoped the more “really’s” I added before sorry would soften her heart. I was trying so hard to win her over I started to feel like The Lint with the Hoppers.
Finally one Sunday, after we’d finished patching up the last of the lattice and cleared most of the junk from the yard, Trina walked over.
“Did I say I was sorry?” I said.
“About a million times,” she said.
“Well, I am really, really, really, really sorry.”
She bit her lip for a second, making me wait. Then she playfully punched my arm.
“Ow,” I said.
“Serves you right, Chan,” Remi said, grinning.
Ida rolled her eyes at us.
“We could all start over as friends,” Trina said, looking at Ida and me. I wasn’t sure which one of us she was talking to, until she held out her hand for me to shake it.
Ida rolled her eyes again as I shook Trina’s hand.
Remi clapped his arms around the two of us. “I think there’s a street hockey game calling us. Ida, you want to play?”
She shrugged. “Whatever.” The way she said “whatever” made me think she wasn’t too miffed about the invitation.
“I’ll play forward,” Trina said.
“That leaves you in goal,” he said, pointing at me.
I groaned, but I only half meant it. I could put up with a few stinging pucks as long as it meant I was keeping a promise to a friend.
MARTY CHAN is a nationally-known dramatist, screenwriter, and author. His juvenile novel, The Mystery of the Frozen Brains, won the Edmonton Book Prize, and was also listed as one of the Best Books of 2004 for grades three to six by Resource Links magazine. The second book in the Chan Mystery Series, The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul, won the 2008 SYRCA Young Readers’ Choice Diamond Willow Award, and was shortlisted for the 2007 Golden Eagle Children’s Choice Book Award, and the 2007 Arthur Ellis Crime Writers of Canada Award in the Best Juvenile category., and the 2008 R. Ross Annett Alberta Literary Award for Children’s Literature. The fourth book in the series, The Mystery of the Cyber Bully was a finalist for the 2011 John Spray Mystery Award. Marty Chan lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
