Snowboard Maverick (4 page)

His other teachers were nice, but it didn’t matter. Dennis just didn’t have the heart to pay attention. Everyone seemed to
have noticed he wasn’t himself.

Robbie came up to him at lunch. “Hey, Dennis,” he said. “Are you okay? You look like your hamster died or something.”

“I’m fine,” Dennis said. The last thing he wanted was for Robbie to feel sorry for him. And that’s just what would happen
if Robbie knew what was bothering him. So rather than confide in his friend, he bottled up his feelings.

Robbie opened his mouth incredibly wide, and
sunk his braces-covered teeth into an enormous hero sandwich. “Mm-mm-grble-mph,” he said, shrugging.

Dennis sighed and got up to join the cafeteria line. The food, which was normally halfway decent, looked terrible today. Gummy
macaroni and cheese, something called Welsh rarebit, whatever that was, and creamed spinach or brussels sprouts — whichever
you thought was less gross. Dennis just bought himself a chocolate milk and decided to skip lunch.

When he got back to the table, Tasha was there with Robbie, eating a pasta salad her mom had made for her. Dennis suddenly
felt hungry. Tasha’s mom made the best food — always totally healthy, but it tasted good anyway.

“Hi,” Tasha greeted him. “What’s the matter, aren’t you eating lunch?” she asked.

“Did you check out what they’re serving?” Dennis asked her, rolling his eyes.

“That bad, huh?” she asked. “Want some of mine? I’m not that hungry anyway.”

Dennis knew she probably was hungry enough to eat everything her mom had packed her, but Tasha was the kind of person who
would give you everything
she had. It made her a really super friend, but Dennis didn’t want to take advantage of her good nature.

“No thanks, I’m not hungry anyway,” he told her, trying not to look at her pasta salad.

“Robbie says something’s bothering you,” Tasha said, nodding toward Robbie, who was stuffing the last of his hero into his
mouth. Robbie sure could eat, for a little skinny short kid. Maybe it was because his mouth could open wider than a snake’s.
It was like his jaw was double-jointed or something.

“Nothing’s bothering me,” Dennis lied, looking away from Tasha’s inquiring gaze. “I’m just … I’m just not feeling well — that’s
all.”

“Oh,” Tasha said, nodding slowly, like she wasn’t sure she believed him. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk about it…”

“No, seriously,” Dennis insisted. “I’ve got this feeling in the pit of my stomach.” Well, at least that much was true. It
was like a hard knot of heartbreak, right below where the two halves of his rib cage met. If he touched himself there, his
eyes brimmed over with tears. He’d tried it once on the school bus, and he wasn’t about to risk embarrassing himself again.

“Maybe you should go see the school nurse,” Robbie suggested before gulping down an entire can of apple juice without coming
up for air.

“I might, if it gets worse,” Dennis said. “It’s the worst snowboard I’ve ever had.”

“Huh?” Robbie said, blinking.

“So that’s it!” Tasha said.

“What?” Dennis asked.

“Didn’t you hear what you just said?” she said.

“I said it was the worst stomachache I’ve ever had.”

“No, you didn’t,” Robbie giggled. “You said it was the worst
snowboard
you ever had!”

“I did not.”

“Did, too!”

“I did?”

“Yup.” Tasha nodded sympathetically.

Dennis groaned and buried his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I said that,” he said.

“It’s okay, Dennis,” Tasha said. “We’re your best friends, remember? You can tell us anything.”

“Thanks, guys,” Dennis said. “Well, I guess I will tell you, then, since you already kind of know. I want to get a snowboard
really bad, but my folks have
already done all their Christmas shopping. They said I have to wait for next year!”

“Oh, no!” Robbie said. “They can’t do that! You need a board now!”

“Tell me about it,” Dennis groaned. “But I can’t afford one. No way. So I guess I won’t be boarding with you guys this winter.”

“You can always borrow my board,” Tasha offered. Dennis thanked her, but they both knew it wasn’t realistic. Dennis boarded
goofy style. Tasha couldn’t very well have her bindings remounted just for him. After all, it was her board.

They sat there, unusually silent, for the rest of the lunch period. None of them had any answers, it seemed. Dennis felt better
that he’d confided in his friends, but on the other hand, he felt even worse, because not being able to help him had brought
them down.

When he got home that afternoon, he barely said hi to his mom before going up to his room and burying himself in his homework.
It wasn’t much fun, but at least it took his mind off things. Unfortunately, less than an hour later, his homework was all
done. He needed something else to distract him. So he
grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, flicking to his favorite sports station.

Dennis couldn’t believe it. The screen was filled with snowboarders! It was the
Rad Sports Show,
a weekly documentary, and this week, they were featuring some of the world’s best snowboarders, racing down impossibly steep
packed-powder slopes, doing rad stunts on the half-pipes.

Dennis sat there, hypnotized. For the moment, he had forgotten about his miserable predicament. In his mind, he was out on
the slopes, his snowboard strapped to his feet, scooting down that open-topped half-pipe of snow, doing all the impossible
stunts with the best of them — tricks he already knew how to do on a skateboard.

Dennis had felt this way once before, years back, when he’d fallen in love with skateboarding. That year, he’d begged his
parents for a board of his own,. and when his birthday came, they’d given him Flash.

But he knew this time would be different. There would be no snowboard for him on Friday morning, when the family opened their
presents. He would spend the whole winter watching on the sidelines while all his friends went snowboarding.

When the show was over, he started channel surfing, but wherever he looked, Dennis saw snowboards. He kept running into advertisements
for Ford’s Mountain, showing happy snowboarders coasting down the slopes, and ads for ski supply stores selling awesome-looking
snowboards. It was like he was cursed.

Finally he couldn’t take it anymore and shut off the TV. Anyway, he was starving, not having eaten lunch. He spent dinner
eating, not talking, sharing his feelings with no one.

The entire week went on in much the same way, except that Dennis felt worse and worse as Christmas got nearer and nearer.
On Thursday afternoon, when school let out for the holidays, Tasha asked him if he wanted to join her and Robbie — they were
going to run home for their snowboards and practice on Schoolhouse Hill.

Dennis sighed and turned her down, saying he still wasn’t feeling well. “Besides, I’ve got to go buy you and Robbie your Christmas
presents. I still haven’t picked them out.”

“Oh,” Tasha said, looking down at the floor. “Listen, Dennis, you don’t have to buy us anything.”

“Of course I do,” he replied, not understanding her attitude. “Anyway, I want to. You’re my best friends. It’d be pretty strange
if Christmas came and I didn’t give you anything.”

“Um, I guess I should warn you,” Tasha said. She heaved a big sigh. “Robbie and I are kind of broke this year, and… well,
we didn’t get you anything. So you really don’t have to get us presents.”

Dennis was stunned. He and Robbie and Tasha had always given each other small presents in the past. It didn’t hurt his feelings
or anything, but he felt bad that they were so broke. He guessed they must have spent all their money on presents for their
families or on snowboarding equipment.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he told Tasha. “I want to get you guys something anyway. You don’t have to buy me a present. You’re still
my friends, and I know you would have gotten me something if you could have.” The two of them parted, and Dennis knew she
was feeling as bad as he was.

Later, after a quick trip to the music store, where he bought them each a CD, Dennis skateboarded back over to Schoolhouse
Hill and spent the better part of an hour watching from a distance as Tasha,
Robbie, and about a million other kids did what he would spend the whole winter not doing — having fun. Snowboarding.

On Christmas Eve, things actually began to look up. That morning, Dennis had made himself a promise that he wasn’t going to
let his disappointment stand in the way of having a good Christmas. After all, his parents had probably gone and spent a lot
of money and time and care on buying him several other presents. Most of the time, the things they got him were pretty cool.

Besides, Dennis was old enough to understand that Christmas wasn’t just about getting gifts. It was about being kind to others
and spreading joy. In fact, weeks ago, he had gone out and bought presents for his parents (photo albums he’d filled up himself
with favorite pictures and original captions), for baby Elizabeth (a little teddy bear), and for Felix (a rawhide bone).

By dinnertime, Dennis had forgotten how miserable he had felt watching the other kids snow-boarding. The smells of cooking
wafting in from the kitchen, the fully lit and trimmed tree, his dad coming
home from work, carrying yet another shopping bag— all these things cheered Dennis up considerably.

The meal was fantastic. Dennis felt grateful that both his mom and his dad were such good cooks. He knew kids who wouldn’t
touch their parents’ cooking.

Then, afterward, they had hot cocoa in front of the tree, and everybody, according to O’Malley family tradition, got to open
one present. The rest would have to wait till morning.

Dennis gave each of his parents their photo albums, which were a big hit. So was little Elizabeth’s teddy bear. She played
with it, trying to eat it, for the next half hour, while the rest of them looked over every treasured photograph, and every
funny or heartwarming caption. Dennis felt proud of himself, and he caught his parents exchanging a tender glance that meant
“Isn’t our son wonderful?”

His own gift was a book. Not the kind where you read a story — the kind you find on coffee tables: big, with glossy photos
of neat stuff. His had pictures of scenic America. Dennis always loved traveling with his family to different places in the
U.S., and this book gave him lots of ideas for where to go.

When he went to bed that night, he took his new book with him. A gift like this showed how well his parents knew what he liked.
Maybe if he had asked for a snowboard sooner, they would have gotten him one.

But they hadn’t known in time, had they?

On Christmas morning, the sun came through the window and woke Dennis with its golden warmth. He scooted down the hallway,
knocking on his parents’ bedroom door to wake them up. Something told him …

Maybe it was just the Christmas spirit, but he felt, deep inside, that somehow, his parents had gotten him that snowboard
after all. He didn’t know why he felt that way — he just did.

His mom and dad kept looking at each other and smiling secret smiles over breakfast. That made Dennis feel even more sure
he was right. Of course, they could be smiling over something else, some other gift they were looking forward to giving him…
.

Finally, breakfast was over, and the family gathered once again in the living room. Dennis had given out his presents already,
so his parents did all the giving.
Actually not quite all — there were sweat suits and sports jerseys from his grandparents in Florida and California, a subscription
to
Sports Mania
magazine from his aunt Mildred and uncle Jack in South Carolina (they gave him the same thing every year, and that was all
right with Dennis), and even a box of chocolates for him from baby Elizabeth (his mom and dad told him she’d asked them to
buy it for him).

Dennis’s presents from his parents included a remote-controlled motorcycle, a kit for making paper airplanes, a set of art
materials, and some other, smaller things, too —some books and a CD or two.

But no snowboard.
It suddenly, finally, sank in that he had been wrong about his feeling. He had opened up his last gift, and there were no
more to come.

With a deep sigh, he got up, trying not to show his disappointment. “I guess I’ll go upstairs and look at my new books,” he
said, grabbing them and heading for the hallway. “Thanks again for everything, Mom and Dad. The presents are really cool.”

He was halfway up the stairs when he heard his father’s voice.

“Oh, Dennis! Come on back down here — there’s one more present we forgot to give you.”

Dennis could hear the blood pounding in his ears as he jumped all the way back down the steps in a single bound. He slid on
his slippers right into the living room, and there were his mom and dad, holding a big, long, gift-wrapped package between
them.

“Just a little token of our love,” his mom said, giving his dad a wink. “Tasha and Robbie chipped in on it, too.”

Dennis stepped forward, holding his breath, and took it from them. It was heavy — just the right weight…

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” his dad asked.

Dennis tore open the paper, and there it was — sparkling, metallic blue on top, with yellow lightning bolts, and the word
Gizmo
in the center.

A snowboard!

There were so many things Dennis wanted to say, but they all tried to come out of his mouth .at the same time and he wound
up unable to say anything at all. Instead, he threw his arms around his parents and hugged them extra tight.

After a long week of misery that had felt more like a year, Dennis O’Malley was happy at last.

N
ow, just because we got it for you doesn’t mean you’re to go be a daredevil,” Dennis’s mom cautioned him as he sat on the
living room floor, running his hands over the sleek surfaces of his dream come true.

“That’s right,” his dad chimed in. “Don’t go showing off before you’ve even got the hang of it.”