Hey, New Kid!, page 3
They practiced until bedtime. “Remember, Cody,” his father said as he tucked Cody into bed, “to be or not to be—that is the question.”
Cody lay in bed and tried to fall asleep. He couldn’t. He could only think about school.
He tried to count sheep, but he could only imagine teddy bears marching around his room.
He tried to count the teddy bears, and he could only imagine them on roller skates.
Another question lingered in his mind. To skate or not to skate—that was the real question.
Chapter 7
How to Fall
“Nothing!” Cody said in dismay. His soil was still smooth and black. “I don’t think it’s ever going to grow.”
“Come sit down,” said Ms. Harvey. “Give it time.”
Cody checked his seed three more times that morning.
Once after math.
Once after science.
And once right before lunch.
As he had yesterday, he decided not to go to the lunchroom. He followed the line of kids, but when they turned right, he again turned left.
He passed the boys’ restroom, and continued slowly down the hall. At the end of the hall he saw a door marked MEDIA CEN-TER. He pushed open the door and went inside.
He could hide with all these shelves of books around. Maybe he could even find out what an emu was.
He looked along the shelves until he found a dictionary.
Emu: A large flightless bird resembling an ostrich.
Cody stared at the words, then closed his eyes. He opened them. He’d hoped that the words would disappear, but they were still there.
His pet was a large flightless bird resembling an ostrich.
He thought of something else. He had told Chip that it had paws. He felt sick.
Cody closed the dictionary. He wished that he could be sitting in the cafeteria with the other kids. He wished he could go to Holly’s party. Most of all he wished he had never started being Super Cody.
“Can I help you?” A woman with an armful of books walked up to him. “Where are you supposed to be?”
What should he say? What would Super Cody say? He tried being plain old Cody this time.
“I’m a new kid,” he said. “I didn’t want to eat lunch by myself.”
She stared at him for a moment. “I’m Mrs. Kindress, the media specialist,” she said. “You can stay.”
“I can?” Cody’s breath came out in a loud whoosh. He wished that he could start over and be plain old Cody in his class too. But it was too late there.
“But no eating in here.”
“That’s okay,” Cody said. “I’m not hungry.”
“Can I help you find a book?” Mrs. Kindress said.
Cody glanced around at the shelves. He saw a shelf labeled HOW-TO BOOKS. “I need a how-to book,” he said.
“How to do what?” she asked.
“How to be a new kid.”
She shook her head. “I know we don’t have anything like that.”
Then he remembered something. “Do you have a book about how to skate?” he asked.
“I think so,” she said. “We’ll look it up.”
She walked over to a computer terminal and typed in Skating.
A list of books flickered onto the screen.
“How about this one?” She pointed to a title.
Let’s Skate.
Cody nodded.
They quickly found the book. He found a seat and opened up Let’s Skate. It was filled with pictures of skaters.
Some were twirling blurs. Their arms were gracefully curved over their heads.
Some were skating on one foot.
A boy in one picture was leaning forward on one foot with his hand brushing the ground as he skated.
It looked so easy.
There was an entire chapter on the T-position. The T-position was the basic skating stance. You stood with the heel of one foot against the middle of the other foot, forming a T shape.
According to the book, this was the safe way to stand. In T-position your feet could not roll out from under you. That was an important thing to know.
He pushed one foot against the other under the table. That wasn’t so hard.
Next he read a chapter titled “Skating Tips.”
Take your time.
Find someone to hold your hand.
Always look up, never down.
That was easy! Maybe he could go to Holly’s party after all. So what if he’d never skated before? Anything was possible.
He turned the page and frowned.
The chapter was called “How to Fall.”
You should not fall with your arms out in front to brace you. The wrist was the most commonly injured body part for skaters.
Cody closed the book. He decided he would go to the party and he would not fall. Falling could be dangerous.
He thought of the advice that his father had given him once when he had tried out for a baseball team: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Then he thought of his own saying: Nothing ventured, nothing pained.
He rubbed his wrist all the way back to Ms. Harvey’s class.
Tomorrow he would skate.
Chapter 8
How Not to Skate
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOLLY!
A sign was draped over the entrance to Sparky’s Roller Rink.
Cody sat in the car with his present for Holly on his lap. He and his mother had bought the present at the drugstore last night. He had chosen a tablet of drawing paper and a box of markers. He knew that she liked art.
“You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?”
“I’m sure, Mom.”
“I could stay and watch.”
“No thanks.”
He opened the door.
“I’ll be back at three to pick you up. And Cody, have a great time skating.”
Cody swallowed. “Right.” He waited a moment before he went through the doorway.
It was dark in Sparky’s. Red, blue, and green lights blinked above the wooden floor. Kids from his class circled by, graceful on their skates.
He followed a group of kids to the skate window. He told the man his size and got his skates.
They were heavier than he expected. He spun the wheels. They made a whirring noise and spun for a long time.
Cody found a spot on a bench and took off his tennis shoes.
He put the skates on and pulled the laces tight. He tied the tops in a bow, then a double knot. The brown leather felt stiff against his ankles. He stood and placed his feet carefully in the T-position.
“Hey, new kid!” Chip skated by him. “When are you going to skate?”
“Soon,” he answered. Then: “Hey Chip,” he began, but Chip was already gone.
Cody looked out at the oval-shaped rink. A chain of girls skated by, holding hands. They snaked around and between the other skaters. He had seen kids play crack-the-whip on the playground. It wasn’t so bad for the kids at the front of the chain. But the kid on the end went fast. Too fast. Especially on the curves.
He would not want to do that.
Across the floor he could see Holly. He watched her skate along the back stretch. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail tied with a white ribbon.
His heart pounded a little faster when she whizzed by him.
Whir. Whir. Whir.
Her new Rollerblades whirred to the rhythm of the music.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
She clapped in time to the beat.
Here she came again.
Cody stood up straighter as Holly swooped low around the corner. Her eyes met his.
She smiled at him—or at least he thought she smiled at him. Yes, he was sure that she had smiled at him. Hadn’t she?
She had smooth, gliding style that made skating look easy. That was how he would skate.
As he watched the other skaters, he learned quickly how not to skate.
Some of the skaters skated chimp style. Hunched over. Weight forward. Their arms dangling in front like a chimp, and swinging back and forth as they skated.
He would never make that mistake.
Then there was the windmill style. Weight back. Arms rotating in backwards circles, like a windmill.
He would never do that either.
Worst of all was crab style. Scooting along flat on your back. Hands on the floor underneath you like a crab.
He would never skate crab style.
He would skate smoothly, he hoped. Already he had seen five falls. Five spectacular falls.
One girl sat on the side bench with a Baggie full of ice on her knee.
A small boy sat beside her rubbing his wrist.
The song ended. The beat picked up.
Whir. Whir. Whir.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The others whirled around the rink.
“Come on!” Chip said.
Cody shifted his feet back just an inch to try to get a feel for the skates. He couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Come on!”
Cody moved his feet out of T-position.
He bent his knees and arms for balance.
He held his body slightly forward. His heart began to beat faster, in time with the music.
The music changed. Faster now.
“Come on!” said Chip. “I want to see you skate.”
“I don’t like this song.”
“Who cares about the music,” said Chip.
“I care... You see—”
“Ladies and gentlemen!”
Chip cupped his hands and called out to the other kids on the rink like a ringmaster at the circus.
Cody had to stop him.
“Wait...I—”
“Children of all ages!”
“Please...not—”
“We now present...”
Chip flung his arm to point at Cody.
. Cody swallowed hard as every pair of eyes moved in his direction.
“The new kid!”
Chapter 9
Ready, Set, Go!
Ready...
Set...
Go!
Cody pushed off the rail and rolled forward.
For one second everything was perfect. He glided gracefully. He even managed to smile at Holly as she whizzed by him.
This was easy!
Then his feet began to move. They slipped backwards. They danced forward.
“Eeeeeeeeee!” he screamed.
He skated windmill style. Weight back. His arms rotated frantically around and around.
First forward.
Then backwards.
Then forward again.
Cody couldn’t catch his balance.
“Way to go!” Chip called. “Cool move.”
Chip began to skate windmill style too.
“Eeeeeeeeee!” Cody screamed again.
“Eeeeee!” Chip answered.
Three other boys from his class joined in.
“Eeeeee!” they shouted. Their arms rotated like windmills.
“Cool!” one yelled.
“Teach me!” still another boy called out, and joined in.
Cody’s windmill turned into the backstroke and his legs kicked like the frog kick he’d learned on the swim team.
“Ooooooo!” he screamed.
“Ooooooo!” they answered. They all began to frog-kick too.
He started to fall backwards.
He grabbed in front of him. To his horror he imagined himself flat-out on the skating rink.
He yelled to Chip in a moment of pure panic, “Help! I can’t skate!”
“What!”
“Help!”
“I’m coming!”
Chip skated forward to help him.
Just then the chain of girls, linked by their hands, zipped by.
“Come on! Crack the whip!” he heard one of the girls call.
He didn’t want to fall in front of the girls. Desperately he grabbed in the air—grabbed for anything to keep him upright.
Before Chip could save him, the last girl on the line grasped one of his flailing arms and suddenly he jerked up and rolled forward, the last link in the whip.
He sped along, pulled by the chain.
The kids on the sidelines cheered.
The faces around him became a blur. He saw Holly’s face go by. And Chip’s.
The longer he held on, the faster he went. There was only one thing he could do. He didn’t know what would happen but he had to try something.
He let go.
He braced himself to fall.
But he didn’t fall.
He waited to roll to a stop, but he didn’t even slow down.
He sailed across the floor.
On one foot.
Then the other.
Back and forth.
Out of control.
He flew over the small curb at the end of the rink.
The crowd parted and watched in stunned silence as he continued on across the expanse of carpet.
He was headed right toward a door, but he couldn’t stop.
He put his arms out to brace himself for the crash as he neared the swinging door.
As he pushed it open and flew inside, he saw golden letters on the front.
He could barely read the writing as he whizzed by. The golden letters said:
GIRLS’ BATHROOM.
Chepter 10
Boy!
The door slammed shut.
There was silence for a moment, then a high-pitched voice screamed one word:
“Boy!”
Cody had been in some tight spots before. Tight spots were usually his specialty. He could always say just the right thing to save himself. His imagination had never let him down.
Once he had torn his shorts during P.E., when he had jumped off the balance beam and squatted down like he’d seen a man do in the Olympics.
Rip!
His shorts had split in the back. Before anyone could even laugh he had come up with the perfect line.
“Oh good, air conditioning!”
Another time he had burped during quiet reading time. Accidentally, of course. Before he could even get into trouble, he had again said the perfect thing.
“I’m reading about space men,” he had said. “That’s the way they say ‘Good morning.’”
But to roller-skate into a girls’ bathroom... a girls’ bathroom full of girls. For once, there was nothing that he could say.
He closed his eyes. “I’m not look—”
“Eek!”
“Boy!”
Screams echoed around him.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Help!”
“There’s a boy in here!”
Then the high-pitched voice said:
“Get him!”
Cody put his hands up to protect himself. Rolls of toilet paper hit him from all directions.
Streamers of white toilet paper rained down on him from over the tops of the stalls and from the crowd of girls beside the sink.
“Honest, I’m not look—” A roll hit the top of his head.
He tried to back up, but he couldn’t. Instead his skates rolled out from under him and he fell down on the bathroom floor.
The entire room was a snowstorm of toilet paper.
The voice spoke again. This time it called out:
“Wrap him!”
The girls sprang into action. Toilet paper was wrapped around his legs. Toilet paper was wrapped around his middle. Toilet paper was wrapped around his head.
He was a toilet-paper mummy.
Someone put her hands under his elbows and pulled him to his feet. Somehow he regained his balance. He steadied himself, his arms reaching blindly, trying to find something to hold him up. Was he going to make it? Was he going to survive the girls’ bathroom?
Hands gave him a push. The door burst open. And back out the door he rolled.
Cody sailed across the carpet, blinded by the toilet paper. He couldn’t see where he was headed, and he couldn’t stop. His weight shifted back and forth as he made his way across the floor.
He felt arms grabbing him, and he sank down to the carpet. He took a deep breath and reached up to pull the toilet paper from around his eyes.
He peeled off one layer. Then another and another.
He looked around.
There were Chip and Holly and all the kids from his classroom. Every mouth was in a perfect circle.
Chapter 11
The Truth?
Cody’s brain worked frantically. He had to think up an excuse to get himself out of this one.
What could he say?
He unwrapped a long piece of toilet paper from around his head.
He looked around at the kids. They all stared at him.
He tried to think of a story.
Super Cody would answer like this:
It was my skates.
They were taken over by a magic spell.
Like that story about the red dancing shoes.
Remember? The shoes that kept dancing?
Cody shook his head. That was dumb. That one would never work.
He had another idea. He could say something like this:
I was working on a science project.
It’s about moving objects.
You know—action and reaction.
I was testing the force it takes to stop a moving object.
He sighed.
That would never work either.
He looked at Chip. He knew the truth—that he, Cody, couldn’t skate. Chip had heard him yell it out right before the girls pulled him into the chain.
He took a deep breath. It was time, he decided, to get rid of Super Cody for good.
“I have never been on a pair of skates in my life,” he said softly.
“He says he can’t skate,” someone said.
“He can’t really skate,” someone else echoed.
“That’s right,” Cody said, louder. “I can’t skate.”
He pulled himself onto a bench and began to take off more toilet paper.
As he unwrapped the paper, he talked.
“And we don’t have a Jag, we have a station wagon.”
He couldn’t look up. He pulled white paper from around his arm.
“And I didn’t move from Alaska, I moved from Topeka.”
Now that he had started, the words came more easily.
