Mage Catalyst (9 page)

It wasn’t long, however, until the end of class bell rang and I had run out of time. Grumbling to myself I began to pack my books.
“Well that was fun,” Garry commented as we got to our feet to leave the class.
“Quiet reading beats loud work,” I replied glibly.
“Yeah, I noticed you weren’t really reading,” Garry said, his voice tense.
Before Garry could elaborate on his strange statement we were interrupted by a call from Tina who was struggling to make her way through the crowded corridor.
I turned to Garry. “I’ll see you later, mate.” I was glad that we hadn’t been able to continue our conversation. He nodded back as I turned to walk towards Tina. Damn, I had forgotten to check with Dad about Friday. Not that he’d notice my absence – he would probably be busy that night in the office anyway.
Tina appeared to be a little out of breath. I can only assume she had to run to catch me. Garry usually set quite a fast pace. He wasn’t one to amble from place to place.
“I wanted to see if you were still okay for Friday,” said Tina, still trying to catch her breath.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” I smiled back as she moved in a little closer.
“Which rink do you want to go to?” I asked as Tina fell into step next to me.
“I thought we’d try the Caribbean Markets one. I’ve heard it’s good.”
It was the closest rink to us and pretty large. I used to go there regularly before I realised I enjoyed street skating more.
“No worries.” I smiled back. “Haven’t invited Tony and Sarah yet – but I will. Who else is coming?”
Tina laughed nervously and placed a hand on my arm. I stopped and got out of the way of moving traffic.
“I thought it would be just us,” she said, trying to gauge my reaction.
In many ways I would like to think that I’m quite intelligent, alert and perceptive of what was going on around me; however, in this one case I’ll admit that I was a clueless wonder.
“Oh? You want to make sure that you can skate before you invite your other friends along? I understand.” I laughed, oblivious to the fact that her face fell a little at my response.
“Yeah, that’s it,” she agreed readily. “Pick you up at seven?”
“Sounds great!”

* * * *

Friday night came quickly. I was sleeping better this week and was feeling pretty good when I found myself startled by the honk of a car horn outside my house. Tina’s red hatchback  was parked outside. I saw her peering at me through the window waving at me. I quickly grabbed my skates and bid goodbye to Mum and headed for the door.
“Hey!” Mum’s voice caught me in midstride.
“What?”
“Is this a date?” She gestured a thumb towards Tina’s car.
Even though Tony had already teased me, the realisation came crashing down around me at this point and I’m pretty sure that Mum must have seen the expressions change on my face as I tried the idea on for size.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so, no,” I stammered.
“Good,” said Mum, “because it’s customary for you to pick her up, not the other way around.”
“Uhh, no we’re meeting up with friends, she just lives closest to me,” I lied.
I’m pretty sure Mum probably had more of an idea of what was going on here than I did, but in her typical fashion drew her own conclusions without making me look too foolish. Yet at the same time she gave me that enigmatic mother look that implied, “I know what’s really going on here young man, but I’ll do you the favour of not saying it out loud. Remember this next time I need you to do something.”
“Well, have fun, darling.”
“Thanks Mum.”
Tina smiled as I loped up the driveway. “Hi!” She grinned.
“Hey.” I smiled back. “Thanks for the lift by the way.”
“Don’t sweat it. You can pay me back later. By not laughing at me when I fall over.” Tina laughed.
It was about a fifteen-minute drive to the skating rink from Mum’s place. Tina and I chatted easily about school, teachers, roller-blading and Sarah. It was the first time I had really talked to her and she wasn’t that shy or quiet after all. To my surprise she was amazingly easy to talk to.

When we arrived she said, “I’ve got to come clean here. I’ve never actually skated before so you’re going to have to teach me from scratch.”
I laughed inwardly. That wasn’t quite where I thought she was going, especially after the ideas that Tony and now my mother had put into my head. I wasn’t sure if I saw her that way but I was going to go with the flow.
It wasn’t packed. A DJ was playing disco pop, but not too loudly. Tina had plenty to space to perform a move that all rookie skaters begin with known affectionately as the two-footed shuffle. This is where the skater tries to propel themselves forward without moving their feet, their knees or any form of motion that might unbalance them and cause them to fall over.
Either from natural skill or my expert tutelage, Tina soon found she could move around the rink with some degree of ease. She was still understandably unsteady on her skates but confident enough to attempt more speed.
“Enjoying this so far?” I said as she shuffled around a corner.
Tina had an expression of intense concentration on her face and replied without looking up from her feet. I’d had to subtly guide her around three corners already because of this. When you’re skating around in a circle you really shouldn’t glue your eyes to your feet as corners are an inevitable and unavoidable reality.
“Want to get a drink?” I asked, noting that she could probably use a break.
The look of gratitude on her face said volumes as she nodded back. We slowly made our way over to the café. I was guiding us over to the exit as Tina fixated on her skates.
“What would you like? It’s on me,” I said.
“A Coke, I guess.”

“Me too. Won’t be a tick.”
I returned pretty quickly with our drinks and sat down opposite her.

“Do you do this often?” she asked.
“Drink Coke? Yeah sure, I love the stuff,” I said. 
I’d never seen anyone so skilfully pull off a “you’re a loser” look whilst still attempting to look interested in what I had to say. Most people usually don’t bother with the second part of the look.
“I used to come here often but I prefer skating on streets now,” I explained. “One, there’s no charge and two, it’s a little more challenging with hills.”
It added a degree of danger to the experience and taught you very quickly to control your speed. If you lost control and went too fast you’d fall over and if you fell on the streets you were going to get hurt. Fortunately I’d only had several small accidents leading to only scrapes and bruises but no lasting damage. The most serious of injuries that I’d had would have been the blisters on my feet from breaking in new skates.
“Are your feet sore?” I asked. Tina had taken her skates off.
“Umm, it’s not too bad.” Tina rubbed her feet.
I noticed the clock. “Speed skating is going to start in a bit!”
“Are you going to go?”
“Maybe,” I said, unsure of the convention here. I’d heard somewhere that it was bad form to abandon your date but on the other hand I really wanted to show off.

“You should, I’ll happily sit out.”

It didn’t take too long before the DJ started up the speed skating. There were about a dozen or so other skaters on the rink and we pretty quickly formed into a line. This happened often as the line was usually broken up into two groups. The speed skaters who knew what they were doing and those like me who just liked to go fast.
I stormed into the rink with a burst of speed and pulled in behind the last skater. I leant forward to pull up more speed and fell into a circular pattern with the other skaters. The skater in front of me was very good and I would have had trouble catching him if I hadn’t been caught in his slip stream.
I’d heard other people talk about this effect before and previously I’d been sceptical, but it really was true. It took less effort to follow closely behind someone than to try to keep pace next to them.
The music played during speed skating was invariably fast dance music. It got the heart racing and the blood pumping. I could feel myself getting caught up in the music and noticed with some alarm that the blue particles that were flexing down my arms were getting more and more noticeable as I gained speed. I wasn’t sure if it was in relation to the speed, the build-up of adrenaline or something else. It was becoming quite distracting though. Actually it was becoming too distracting. It is a universally accepted fact that a speed skating rink is a bad place to lose one’s concentration. I started wobbling as I took the last corner and realised with some small degree of panic that there was little I could do to prevent an eventual fall.
Now, there are two things one can do when one is about to fall – panic or attempt to control the fall. I’d fallen over enough times to know what to do. The basic technique they teach you when you start skating is to attempt to fall forward on your hands and knees to prevent smacking your head. The impact of course can be quite hard and you will invariably hurt your elbows, wrist or knees. In practice you’ll usually hurt all three.

I didn’t much think that this was such a good idea at the speed I was going. My ego had much to say on the subject – if you’re going to embarrass yourself on a date then you’d better make it seem intentional.
Using the last bit of my control over my feet I attempted to sweep my feet out into a slide and aim myself roughly in the direction of the exit. You know what they say, if you’ve got to go, go out with a laugh.
This was all right in theory, my legs collapsed under me and I slid over onto my side. I landed with grace and I soon found myself sliding at high speed towards the exit. I had one arm behind me attempting to direct my travel the other waving cockily at the crowd as I departed the rink. As the surface of the rink was quite smooth, I hadn’t notably slowed down by the time I reached the edge of the circuit.
I realised my mistake at about the same time I realised that there wasn’t much I could about it. I was aimed directly, feet first, at the carpeted floor beyond the rink exit. Now carpet is usually pretty soft right?
Wrong. When you’re sliding across it at high speed it’s actually pretty rough.
I hit the carpet while I was still going pretty fast. My natural showmanship with my unorthodox exit had served me well as the crowd of skaters had vacated the exit and were laughing at my tumbling act.
The funny thing I’ve noticed whenever I’ve hurt myself is it’s not so much the act that hurts it’s the moment just afterwards. I didn’t feel a thing as my arm shredded along the rough carpet, nor as my shirt was pulled back and my lower back exposed to the same treatment, I didn’t feel anything until I came to a standstill and carefully got to my feet. Carpet burn is a harsh mistress.

Wincing, I watched as Tina made her way over to me with a look of concern across her face. She placed a tender arm around under my shoulder as she helped guide me back to the cafe. I played down the pain I was actually feeling. People were patting me on the shoulder as I passed them by – everyone loves a good laugh.
I sat down looking calculatingly at the burns along my arm. It wasn’t too bad actually, it hurt like blazes and looked awful, but I wasn’t bleeding and I wasn’t too badly bruised. All in all I’d live. I didn’t particularly want to inspect my back, especially in front of Tina as I suspected that it would look worse.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tina asked, gazing at my arm.

I waved her off nonchalantly, attempting to suppress a grimace at the pain that shot down my back from my grazed side. Forcing a smile I shrugged.
“Forgot about the carpet.” I grinned cheekily at her. “You want to go again?” I gestured towards the rink.
“Uhh… No. I think that’s enough for one night.” Tina smiled back.
It was almost closing time anyway so we weren’t missing much. Tina waited for me to remove my skates and we headed for the door. Already I was feeling a little better and could walk normally without wincing. I also noticed with some surprise that the mana in my body had dulled and was now lazily circling throughout my body.
“Where do you need me to drop you?” Tina asked as we got back into her car.
“Any station is fine. I’m going into the city. Thanks again for this.”

“Thanks for teaching me how to skate.”
“Well, actually I think I showed you how not to do it.”
“Well, that too. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ve done worse.” I smiled as Tina put the car in gear and drove out of the rink car park.
It was a strange ride to the station. The station wasn’t overly far from the rink and we pretty much drove in silence. Tina was very quiet; I couldn’t help think that perhaps I’d done something wrong or I’d offended her somehow. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d inadvertently offended someone with a witty comment that had turned out to be incredibly offensive, stupid or both. 
The train hadn’t arrived at the station when we did and Tina offered to wait with me. I told her that wasn’t necessary as she’d already helped me out enough. She smiled politely enough and pulled the keys from the engine and opened her door.
It wasn’t that late, but the station was pretty much abandoned. It clearly wasn’t a commonly used station. There were only a few cars in the car park illuminated by the overhanging lights from the station.
“Well, thank you for a lovely night out,” Tina stated quietly.
“No, thank you, it was your idea.” I tilted my head in mock salute, which brought a tentative smile to Tina’s face.
I was just in the process of trying to think of something witty to say when she quickly leaned forward and planted her lips on mine. I was so shocked at first that I didn’t quite know how to respond.
Wow, she was kissing me. I attempted to pull my arms around her but before I could act she was gone. She rushed back to her car with her head down. I thought I heard her mumble something like “Thank you for a good night” before disappearing into her car.