Powerslide

  Powerslide

  Jeff Ross

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2011 Jeff Ross

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Ross, Jeff, 1973-

  Powerslide [electronic resource] / Jeff Ross.

  (Orca sports)

  Type of computer file: Electronic monograph in PDF format.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-915-5

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca sports (Online)

  PS8635.O6928P69 2011A JC813’.6 C2011-903344-5

  First published in the United States, 2011

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011929397

  Summary: Complications arise when Casey gets hired as a skateboarding double and a competitor challenges him to a series of dangerous tricks.

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council ®.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover photography by dreamstime.com

  Author photo by Simon Bell

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  14 13 12 11 • 4 3 2 1

  For Megan and future skaters,

  Luca and Alex.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

  chapter one

  You need two things to be a good skateboarder: amazing balance and a complete lack of fear. Which was why I was surprised when Goat landed a 360° heel flip during our game of S.K.A.T.E. Goat had a lack of fear. He had proven that many times, but his balance was always slightly off. When it came to riding half-pipes, he usually landed badly. Yet he managed to land this particular 360° heel flip without a wobble.

  I’ll be the first to admit he nailed it. Not that I would tell him that. Goat and I had been competing against one another since we were ten years old and first started rolling around on skateboards. But this game of S.K.A.T.E. meant more than any of the others had. S.K.A.T.E. is a simple game. The first skater does a trick of their choice. The second skater then has to do the trick too. If the second skater lands the first skater’s trick, the game moves forward and it becomes the second skater’s turn to choose the next trick. If either of the contestants cannot land a trick, they get a letter. The first one to spell skate loses.

  The question wasn’t whether I could land the 360° heel, but whether I could pull off the 720° melon I planned to do on the other side. Goat was able to keep up with me on most tricks, but he had consistently been unable to land a 720° melon. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, but today Jack Coagen was sitting beside me on the ramp. Jack is one of those big-name teen actors. If he stars in a movie, parents feel safe sending their rug rats off to the theater. He’s at my neighborhood half-pipe because he landed the lead role in a feature film that happened to have some skateboarding in it. His agent wanted him to learn some basic skateboarding skills, so after he saw a video of me on YouTube, he contacted me to see if I could train Jack.

  It’s hard to teach someone to skateboard. Hard enough that, at first, I was just going to say no. But Jack’s agent sweetened the deal. First I would train Jack to keep his balance on a board and maybe drop into a half-pipe. Then, once the movie started shooting, I would be his stunt double. There was no way I could say no to that. It was the kind of gig that could launch my career.

  I have a handshake contract with Jack’s agent, which is, apparently, as good as gold. But I would have taken the job for next to nothing. I’m seventeen, and most of my friends are leaving for college in a few weeks. I’m not sure what I want to do with my life, so I’m taking a year off to think about it. A career in skateboarding would be awesome, and being a stunt double in a feature film would be an incredible start.

  But back to Goat. Apparently he’d been looking to challenge me to a S.K.A.T.E. competition since he had found out I was going to work with Jack. I guess he felt he had something to prove. Goat is a good skater, one of the best in the area, but he had never been picked up by a skate crew or offered a sponsorship.

  He had also never been a stunt double in a movie.

  “Come on, Head Case,” Goat yelled. My name is Casey Finnegan, though Goat has never once called me Casey. It’s always Head Case. “Or do you want to bow out now? I mean, that’s cool with me. I got plenty of stuff to do with my day.”

  There was a bit of a breeze coming in off the ocean, bringing the sea smell with it. It was just after three in the afternoon, and the sky was so blue, I could imagine it wrapping right around the Earth.

  “Hold on, Goat,” I said. I decided to forget about the 720° for the time being and do the 360° heel flip, then throw something down Goat might embarrass himself with.

  I dropped in and got as much speed on the down slope as possible. I pumped once across the bottom of the ramp and dug in to launch myself on the other side. I didn’t need much air to do the 360° heel flip, but I wanted to show Goat up a little, so I launched as high as I could.

  When you’re in the air, the board spinning beneath you, it is both awesome and terrifying. You feel as if anything is possible. You also fear you’re about to fall and break something. But that’s part of the thrill. Tricks happen in an instant, so there’s not much time to think about what you’re doing. In fact, thinking usually only gets you into trouble.

  I landed on the vertical part of the ramp, leaning far enough forward to get the speed I would need for my next trick. I was tightly coiled, ready to explode, when I hit the other side. As my front wheels came up to the coping, I pushed on my back foot, brought the board up, then launched. I grabbed the nose of my board, took my feet off and managed to get three full swipes in the air to perform an airwalk. After the airwalk, I put the board back under my feet and landed fakie on the vert. As I came up the other side, I did a fakie backside grab, before finally shooting up and hopping off onto the deck.

  There were some claps and hoots from the crowd. More people were hanging around today than normal. Word of Jack Coagen’s presence must have spread beyond the skate community. Goat stared at me from the other side of the ramp, his long dreads whipping around in the wind. A hush descended on the crowd, and I could hear a camera shutter clicking. Down beside the ramp a tall older guy was taking pictures with the longest camera lens I had ever seen. At first it seemed as if he was taking pictures of me. But then he leaned to one side, and I looked behind me to see Jack slumped against the railing. Jack didn’t even seem to notice the guy. I guess he was used to the attention.

  “Your go,” I yelled at Goat.

  Goat tapped his board on the coping. “My go,” he said. “All right, Head Case. All right. If you want to play it like that.”

  chapter two

  Goat planted his back foot down hard on the tail of his board and dropped in. He pumped once across the flat and launched himself three feet above the coping. He only did one kick, which, I guess, is enough to call it an airwalk. He landed with a little tap on the coping that sent him wobbling. But he managed to right himself, launch off the other side and kick out a nice fakie pop shove-it.

  “Whoa, Head Case,” he said once he had landed on the deck beside me. “Did you see that? Old Goat’s learned a new trick.”

  “Amazing, Goat. I guess what they say about practice is true.” I figured it was time for the 720° melon because, even if he had been working on it, I knew Goat couldn’t pull it off with ease.

  Somebody switched on the big boom box. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Higher Ground” bounced off the ramp. I dropped in, pumped across the flat and launched off the coping, floating just high enough to pull off a sketchy pop shove-it. I didn’t land quite right and lost all my speed. I had to think fast. The 720° wasn’t going to happen. I no longer had the speed or the correct angle. I hit the coping on the other side and launched into a 360° cannonball. A 360° cannonball is a full rotation in the air while holding the front and back of the board. I was fully around the 180° when I thought of something I shouldn’t have.

  What if I didn’t land this?

  What if I caught my front trucks on the coping, fell and broke something? I would lose the stunt-double job. And I would lose my shot at making it. For w
hat? To show up a local I had skated with dozens of times?

  So I bailed, sliding to the bottom of the ramp with my board spinning and tumbling behind me.

  A collective oooohhhhh sprang from the deck and the area around the ramp.

  Goat didn’t even wait until I was off the ramp before he dropped in and threw down a perfect pop shove-it. “T!” he yelled. “Give the man a T!”

  The small crew that had come across town with him banged their boards against the coping. The Chili Peppers’ “Knock Me Down” belted out as I ran up the ramp. We had decided earlier that whenever someone got a letter, it was the other guy’s opportunity to start again with whatever trick he wanted.

  Goat was standing on the deck, rubbing his chin as though he was about to come up with a solution to tackle global warming or cure cancer. He raised a finger to the sky and shook it a few times. “Watch this, Jack Coagen,” he said, and dropped in.

  He skated slowly, did a quick blunt to fakie on the coping, rolled across the flat and back up the other side. There was a collective moan. He had already pulled this move earlier, and it was obvious why he was doing it again. A blunt to fakie, which is when you hit the coping and stop before dropping back into the pipe backward, absolutely kills your speed. You have to pump like hell in order to gain enough speed to hit the coping on the other side, never mind launch. There was no way to do anything other than a simple 180° after a blunt to fakie.

  I had to though. I had to figure out something to do on the other wall. Something big.

  I dropped in, did the blunt to fakie, spun around on the flat, then shot up the other wall. I didn’t have much speed when I hit the coping, so I popped my front foot off, slammed it down and launched into the air. Once I was airborne, I grabbed the front of the board and put my feet on the tail, doing an abrupt but clean rocket air. As I slid my foot back to the front of the board, I turned quickly so I wouldn’t land backward. I came smoothly down on the vert before powersliding to a stop on the flat.

  “A no comply!” Goat yelled. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “It was a no comply to a 180° rocket air, Goat.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He shook his head as though all of this was suddenly beneath him.

  I wasn’t sure if he could do a no comply. I had never seen him do one before. But I spent as little time with Goat as possible.

  He dropped in, shot up the far wall and took his front foot off the board too late. He missed the coping and was suspended in the air for a moment before his board kicked out from beneath him. For some reason, he leaned forward. Unfortunately, the board landed tail down on the deck and stuck straight up. When gravity got ahold of Goat, his face was the first thing to come in contact with the tip of the board. There was a flash of blood, and he crumpled to one side before sliding down the ramp.

  I was the first to reach him. He looked groggy, but I didn’t think he had lost consciousness. His nose was bleeding heavily, leaving a big red puddle on the ramp.

  “You all right, Goat?” I asked. He looked up at me. I swear his eyes were spinning in his head.

  “Just do it,” he said, spitting out some blood.

  “Do what?”

  “The trick. Give me the E.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but his brain had been banged around.

  “No worries, Goat. We can call it even.”

  One of Goat’s friends pulled him to his feet. “Do it, man. Finish the stupid game,” Goat said. He looked as if he was going to swing his skateboard at me.

  I clambered up the wall, dropped in, shot past the crowd that had formed on the flat, did as unimpressive a no comply to 180° rocket air as possible, landed and steered off the ramp.

  Goat’s friends had circled him and were giving me evil glares as they helped him off the ramp. When they walked past me, Goat stopped. He gingerly touched his nose and said, “Next time we play S.K.A.T.E. in a street park.” He spit more blood on the ground and turned to walk back to his car. He got about two steps before he was engulfed by a crowd of girls. They all had pieces of paper and Sharpies in their hands, as well as a look in their eyes as if someone was handing out free puppies. Goat looked confused as he pushed through them. I turned around to find Jack behind me, and it suddenly made sense.

  Jack’s floppy hair blew in the breeze. His eyes were hidden behind huge aviator glasses, but their deep blueness was legendary. He took a piece of paper from one of the girls and quickly scribbled his signature on it. “Not bad,” he said to me.

  I shrugged. “Thanks.”

  “Do you think you can teach me how to do all that in two weeks?”

  “I could probably get you to the point where you can drop in without breaking anything,” I said.

  He laughed. “Cool. I’ll have you to do the stunt-double work for the rest, right?”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  He took another piece of paper from a girl, scribbled on it and handed it back. “Listen,” Jack said, looking over at me as a girl handed him her backpack to sign. “I have to go meet some people.” He nodded to the girl when she thanked him and said how much she loved his movies. He scribbled across another piece of paper before holding his hand up. “Sorry, everyone. I have to get going.” There was a collective moan. He stepped in front of me and pushed his sunglasses up on his head. “But I want to have a chat,” he said. “Can we meet up later?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Just give me a call.” He shook my hand and pushed through the crowd to his car. Everyone watched him go. Once he pulled away, the park filled with sighs and “Oh my gods” and “He’s soooo cute.”

  I wasn’t sure what to think of Jack Coagen. I had seen him act in one film and had not been impressed. But I wasn’t a thirteen-year-old girl. He seemed nice enough, but you never know. His job, after all, was to pretend to be someone he wasn’t. I reminded myself that working with Jack Coagen was an opportunity to make money skateboarding. I couldn’t think of anything better, or anything I wanted more.

  chapter three

  I didn’t hear from Jack until ten o’clock that night. I had given up on him and was heading out the door when he finally called. I decided to keep him waiting and went to pick up my friend, Sara Finlay, first. Sara is the best female skater in town. Actually, she’s one of the best skaters in town, period. We had been hanging out together for the past year, mostly at the half-pipe. Tonight, though, she had asked if she could come to the beach bonfire with me. Most of my other friends were out of town, looking at apartments or moving into college residences. This was likely to be one of the final beach parties of the year.

  “Sorry about leaving today,” Jack said, when we picked him up at his hotel.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “It was kind of hectic anyway.”

  Jack was staying at the new Sheridan. I could remember a time when there was only one hotel in town, a mom-and-pop place off the highway called The Dolphin. But over the years, as people inland and farther up the coast moved toward the sunshine and sea, my little town became a mid-sized city. Which, in a lot of ways, was all right. At least we now have a big movie theater complex, more than one mall and, most importantly, a full-sized skate park.

  During the summer, the cottages and oceanfront hotels are packed with people who come to spend their holidays on sunny beaches. But while the summers are hot, the winters are cool. It gets cold enough to clear the town of summer vacationers.

  Jack settled into the backseat of my bright red VW Jetta. He looked around at the messy interior as if he had somehow landed on the moon. “Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate my fans,” he said. “I just get tired of signing my name all the time. I can only take so much of it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I bet.”

  Sara spun around in her seat and introduced herself. “I won’t ask for your autograph,” she said.

  “You don’t like my movies?” Jack said with a smirk.

  Sara glanced at me, then back at Jack. “I’ve never actually seen one,” she said. “Don’t be offended or anything. I don’t watch many movies.”

  Jack shrugged. “No offense taken.”

  I looked in the rearview mirror. Jack was stretched out on the backseat as though he owned it. He flipped his hand in front of him in a dismissive manner. “I’m done with kid movies anyway,” he said. “It’s time to move to the big time. Can’t be a kid forever, right?”