Skateboard Renegade (8 page)

Zach, hiding on the other side of the kitchen door, felt a sudden urge to sneeze come over him. He tried to stifle it, but
it was too late. “Aaah-choo!!!”

His mom, hearing him, broke off the conversation. “I'll call you back later,” she told Skeeter, and hung up. “Were you listening
in, Mr. Sneak?” she asked Zach as she came out into the living room.

“Listening to what?” Zach asked innocently.

His mom frowned, but didn't say anything else until they were in the car driving to Benny's. Then she said, “That was your
uncle Skeeter on the phone.”

“Oh, yeah?” Zach said flatly. He loved his uncle Skeeter, who was one of the most fun adults he'd
ever met. But right now he couldn't muster much excitement for anything.

“He sends his regards.”

“That's nice.”

His mom sighed, and shook her head. “What time shall I pick you up?” she asked.

“I'll call you.” Zach got out and went up the steps to ring Benny's doorbell. He didn't look back as the car drove away.

“Well?” Benny asked him as he let Zach in.

“Well, what?” Zach asked.

“Any ideas for our project?”

“Nope. You?”

“Not a one,” Benny pushed his broken, taped-up glasses onto the bridge of his nose. “But I did come up with a cool program
for simulating whatever we wind up making. Wanna see?”

“Cool!” Zach smiled and followed Benny down into the basement, where the Santangelo family had their computer desk set up.
Benny called up the program he'd written.

“Say you wanted to do a bridge,” he began, and showed Zach how, by entering just a few commands,
he could create the bridge, see it from any angle, and even make it sway in an imaginary wind.

“That's incredible!” Zach said. “You did that yourself?”

Benny shrugged. “It was easy,” he said.

“Yeah, right. Man, we are gonna get an A-plus!” He high-fived Benny, but then their smiles began to fade. “We still need an
idea,” Zach said. “We could do a bridge, I guess.”

“Uh-uh,” Benny said, shaking his head. “Bernard and Enid are doing a bridge together. They'd clean our clocks. Bernard is
a genius, and Enid's smarter than he is.”

“What about an elevator or something?”

“Nah. Everyone in class will be doing that,” Benny told him. “But my program isn't limited to buildings, see. We can do anything—a
spaceship, maybe?”

“That's not a bad idea,” Zach said. “Kind of corny, though …”

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” Benny agreed reluctantly. “So what do we do now?”

“I guess we sit around until we get the idea we want to do, and then you program it in for us.”

Benny made a face. “I think you should come up with the idea then, Zach. It's only fair.”

“But I can't think of anything!” Zach complained. “My brain needs a break. What else do you have to do around here?” Zach
looked around the basement, examining Mr. Santangelo's weights and Mrs. Santangelo's treadmill.

Then he opened a little wooden door, and gasped. “Wow! What a cool workshop!”

Zach had always liked shop class at school. He was good at making things, and the projects he did invariably got A's. But
his parents weren't handy at all, and the tools they kept around the house were totally lame. So Zach never really got much
of a chance to exercise his talents in woodworking.

The Santangelos, on the other hand, had an incredible workshop set up in their basement. There was a huge worktable, with
saws, a lathe, and other power tools. On a pegboard along one wall were all kinds of hand tools. Sheets of plywood were stacked
against the far wall, and more lumber was piled in bins in one corner.

“My dad likes to do wood projects,” Benny
explained. “He built our deck last year, and now he's working on an addition to the family room. Mom always complains about
all that scrap lumber, but she sure loves the finished project when it's done!”

“Scrap lumber?” An idea suddenly came to him. “Hey, Benny, do you think I could use some of this plywood and those tools to
make a skateboarding ramp for my driveway?”

“Well, this stuff isn't mine,” Benny pointed out. “It's my dad's. And my dad doesn't let anybody work without supervision.”

“Oh,” Zach said, disappointed.

“Of course, if I asked him nicely, he'd probably come down and help us.”

“Really?” Zach asked, his jaw dropping.

“Nope,” Benny said with a smile. “He just loves to work with wood. It's what he does for a hobby, and he loves it when I do
it with him. Kind of like a father-and-son thing.”

“That's phat. Oh, man, I hope he says yes. A ramp in the driveway would be so cool!” Zach mused. He told Benny about the cones
he'd put out. “It would make my skateboarding course complete.”

Benny turned to the computer and logged on to
the Internet. “Let's just see if we can download some building plans for a ramp and go find Dad!”

Three hours later, when his mom came to pick him up, Zach was standing in Benny's driveway. Next to him was a curved wooden
ramp made out of plywood. “Hi, Mom!” He waved to her.

“What's this, Zachary?” she asked him, getting out of the car.

“Benny's dad's giving me this ramp,” he told her. “It's for skateboarding tricks in the driveway.”

“Well, isn't that nice of him!” his mom said with a smile. “I'm so glad you're making such nice new friends at Amherst.” Then
she cleared her throat. “Of course, Zoey is not to go anywhere near that thing, do you understand?”

“Of course not, Mom!” Zach said, rolling his eyes. “Do I look that stupid?”

“All right, all right,” she said. “Come on, let's get this thing in the back.”

They managed to lift the ramp between them. It just fit in the back of the station wagon. As they drove off toward home, his
mom asked, “So what did you two boys come up with?”

“Uh, nothing,” Zach said lamely.

His mother's mouth grew tight. “What do you mean, nothing? I drove you over here so you could work on your project. Did you
do any work at all?”

“We tried, Mom,” Zach explained defensively. “But neither of us could think of anything good.”

“I'm sure,” his mother said, making a face. “You probably just played video games or watched TV.”

“Whatever you say, Mom.” Zach stared out the window. He sure wasn't going to volunteer the information that they'd spent their
homework time building a skateboarding ramp.

“Look, young man,” she said, pulling into their driveway and stopping the car, “you are still officially grounded until you
work off your debt to your sister. Since you're obviously taking advantage of our good nature, next time you and your partner
can work on your project here at our house.”

Zach clucked his tongue and got out of the car without answering her. What was the use, anyway?

As he came into the house, the phone rang. Zach picked up the extension. “Hello?” he said.

“Zach? It's your uncle Skeeter, dude!”

“Oh, hey, Skeeter,” Zach said grudgingly. “You want to talk to Mom again?”

“Actually, I called to talk to you, partner,” Skeeter said, in that hippie twang of his. Skeeter had once been an actual hippie—living
on a commune in northern California for two years after dropping out of college. Later he'd gotten work harvesting giant sequoia
and redwood pinecones by climbing hundreds of feet up into the great old trees. On one of those climbs, he'd taken a fall
of over a hundred feet and broken nearly every bone in his body.

Skeeter had recovered much better than anyone could have hoped, but he never got back to having what Zach's parents would
have called a “normal life.” He now lived in Venice, California, in a little house just off the beach and the boardwalk. Zach
had no idea how his uncle got by, since according to Zach's mom, he never had a job.

Still, Zach really liked Skeeter. Normally he would have been happy to talk to him. But right now Zach was in a pretty foul
mood. He knew the reason Skeeter wanted to talk with him was that Zach's mom had asked him to.

“I gotta go do something right now,” Zach said.

“Okay, this'll only take a minute, dude,” Skeeter said quickly, not letting Zach off the hook. “Look,
I've got lots of space out here, and not a lot of company, so I was wondering if you'd maybe want to come out and visit me
over Columbus Day weekend. We could spend some time hanging out, and I could show you the scene out here. It's pretty incredible.”

“Sounds okay,” Zach said. “But I don't know if I —”

“There's a big skateboarding exhibition gonna happen on the boardwalk,” Skeeter said, tempting him. “Professionals from all
over the country.”

“For real?” Zach gasped, forgetting his reluctance.

“I know some of these dudes from the old days,” Skeeter said. “I could introduce you. You might even pick up a pointer or
two, assuming you're not already a super hotshot yourself.”

Zach laughed. “Okay. I guess I could make it.”

“Excellent!” Skeeter said, in his Valley-guy surfer-dude voice. “And bring your board, dude. It's gonna be a party on wheels!”

O
n the Thursday before Columbus Day weekend, Zach finally paid Zoey back the last of the money he owed her. He even had a few
dollars left over.

Feeling confident that his parents would give him some money to spend in California, he decided to celebrate by spending his
few extra dollars on a sundae at the Ice Cream Parlor, down by Foley Square.

He rode his skateboard over there, sat down on one of the old-fashioned swivel stools by the bar, and ordered the house special
sundae—chocolate ice cream with fudge and strawberry sauce, topped with whipped cream and sprinkles.

He was just digging into it when who should come into the place but Brian Jeffers. “Hey, Halper! Long time, no see!” He came
over to Zach and put a hand
on his shoulder. “Que pasa, man? What you been up to? Still playing with your little sister?”

“I've been grounded, okay?” Zach shot back. “I had to give Zoey lessons till I paid back the money I took from her.”

“Oh, yeah? I notice you're out and about.”

“I paid it off today.”

“Cool! So now you're free to come boarding again?”

“That's right.”

“Too bad Moorehead Park's all torn up. There's no place else in this stupid town to board. The A&P lot really stinks.”

“Actually, you should check out my driveway. I've got it all set up,” Zach told him.

“Yeah, right. Your driveway.”

“No, listen, it's really working. It's long and pretty wide, and I put out cones and a ramp, too.”

“A ramp? Where'd you buy a ramp?”

“I didn't buy one. I made it.”

“Yeah, right, you made a ramp.”

“I did, with my friend Benny and his dad.”

“Benny? You've got a friend named Benny?”

“Yeah. Benny Santangelo. What's wrong with that?”

“Benny Santangelo. Sounds like a gangster.”

Zach laughed in spite of himself. “He's pretty cool.”

“Pretty cool for a nerd, you mean.”

“I'd like to see you make a ramp as good as the one he made,” Zach challenged.

“It's pretty good, huh?”

“I'm telling you, you've gotta try it. The cones are phat, too.”

“Okay, we'll come down,” Brian said. He ordered two scoops to go, then said, “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I'm getting my tattoo tomorrow.” Brian flashed him a conspiratorial grin. “Right here.” He pointed to his left bicep. “It's
gonna be a skateboard, flying through the air, with the word
ragin'
written on it.”

“Ragin', huh? Cool,” Zach said, staring at his sundae to avoid Brian's gaze.

“You gonna get one, too?” he asked Zach. “All the other guys are doing it.”

“They're all getting the same one?”

“Uh-huh.” Brian shrugged. “Unless you've got a better idea.”

“No, that one sounds good,” Zach said, nodding.
Inside, he could feel his heart hammering in his chest. Tattoos hurt a lot, he knew. All those needles puncturing you. And
they sometimes got infected. … And they were part of you
forever.

Zach had already been burned once, bleaching his hair. This time, he decided, he would wait to see if the others went ahead
with getting tattoos. After all, this was the first time one of his old friends had spoken to him for a long time. How was
he to know for sure if they were really going to go through with it? He still wanted to be a part of their crew—after all,
they were the skateboard renegades of Moorehead City—but it wouldn't hurt to be the last one to get tattooed.

“Wanna come with us and get it done, all of us together?” Brian asked.

Then Zach remembered, with a huge rush of relief, that he had a perfect excuse. “I can't,” he said. “I'm going out to California
for the holiday, to visit my uncle.”

“My condolences,” Brian told him, assuming Zach didn't want to be going. “Well, we'll all meet you Tuesday after school, then.
Four o'clock—your driveway?”

“I'll be there,” Zach told him.

“Great,” Brian said, paying for his ice cream and heading for the door. “We'll check out your skateboard course, and then
we can all board down here to Foley Square, and get you tattooed like the rest of us!”

Zach thought about that tattoo all the way to Los Angeles International Airport. Only the sight of his uncle Skeeter in the
terminal took his mind off the prospect of getting hundreds of needle pricks in his arm.

Skeeter had straight blond hair, done in braids that reached all the way down his back. His dancing eyes were light green—so
light that they looked almost yellow, like a cat's eyes. He wore a floppy black hat with a rainbow-colored feather in it,
a woven Mexican vest with fringes, and big shorts that went way down below his knees. Old, torn sneakers topped off the look.

Skeeter looked like a bum—or an old hippie or a retro fashion statement—depending on how you looked at it. Zach glanced around
the airport, a little embarrassed when Skeeter gave him a big hug in greeting.

“How're you doin', big guy! Whoa, look at you, dude. You are seriously big.”

Zach smiled shyly. “I grew four inches this year already,” he told his uncle.