The Bubble Wrap Boy (5 page)

T
here aren't many noteworthy things about the town where I live, but every time I get on the trike to deliver pork balls to the obese guy at 59 Bellfield Drive, I thank every lucky star there is for the flat surface in front of me.

I'd adjusted to the trike after a few painful, cramp- inducing months, but it was never going to be a speedy ride.

My thigh muscles might now be as muscly as Popeye's arms, but it didn't make a difference—the steel rhino (as I'd named it) refused to ever move quicker than a crawl.

It had been especially mortifying in the early days. Five-year-olds with training wheels on their bikes would speed past me, laughing as they went. A bird even landed on my handlebars one day, thinking I was a branch waving gently in the coastal breeze. At one point it was considering building a nest and moving its family in.

It was the biggest nightmare ever, and time, no matter what they tell you, is a lousy healer.

Here I was, a pimped-up, luminous UFO heaving my way along Carr Lane, the
SPEEDY SPECIAL FRIED NICE
sign on my basket, reminding everyone that it was me, the tiny Charlie Han on board.

I was too busy dealing with the humiliation to realize that everything was about to change….

It was my final delivery of the day (even though the sun was still burning the back of my neck) and I heard a rumbling behind me, growing ever louder.

I braced myself, expecting the usual harassment from a gang of savage SpongeBob fans, when a boy about my age shot past on a skateboard. And man, he was traveling.

I felt his wake swish past me, and maybe it was the fact that he neither noticed nor abused me, but it was without a doubt the coolest thing I had ever seen. It was like he was floating as he weaved along the road.

Instantly, I forgot all about the delicacies in my basket, stood on my pedals, and fought with all my might; I had to keep him in sight, see exactly what he was up to. Fortunately, he stopped by a bench a hundred feet ahead.

I pedaled closer, trying to look cool despite sweating furiously. He still wasn't the slightest bit interested in me, and he hadn't stopped to
rest
on the bench. Instead, he was skating at it, full tilt.

It was terrifying, the sort of clumsy, idiotic thing
I
normally did, and for a second I thought I'd discovered a long-lost brother. It was excruciating to watch, but I couldn't help myself. Here I was, seeing myself through other people's eyes….

But then something strange happened. Strange and wonderful and utterly, utterly cool.

Just as the kid reached the bench, just as he was about to hospitalize himself, he jumped.

And you know what? The board jumped with him. It stuck to his feet like glue, sliding him and it effortlessly along the bench, sliding, sliding, sliding until…whack! The wheels landed back on the pavement—and on he skated.

I did two things when that happened. First, I picked my jaw up off the ground, and second, I clapped. Like a crazy person. Even though he didn't hear me, even though I was being watched suspiciously by an elderly couple on the other side of the road.

I saw the old man make a spiraling motion to his temple with a finger, but I didn't care. I'd just seen the greatest thing EVER. And I
had
to see more.

Looking up, I saw the kid turn left onto Well Lane and guessed where he was going: the park.

With new energy I screamed forward at half a mile an hour, not daring to stop until the kid on the flying board came back into view.

It didn't take me long to find him and twenty others.

They were grouped by the old unused kiddie pool. Some of them skating, others sitting on their boards talking excitedly to each other.

The kiddie pool had been empty for years. Parents stopped using it when a kid contracted some weird disease that hadn't been seen since the seventeenth century. It had sat sad and drained until the BMX-ers found it, and eventually, alongside the riders, came the skaters.

There was something brand-new in the middle of it now, though. A wooden ramp, U-shaped and towering. It was so huge I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed it before. Had it been made of brick, Sinus would have stared at it for a month.

It loomed above the skaters, three times their height, with a ledge at each end wide enough for them to stand and gently steady themselves at the drop.

I left the rhino grazing beside a tree, unlocked (hoping someone would be crazy enough to steal it), before sitting cross-legged a short distance from the pool.

It. Was. Amazing.

One after another they launched themselves off the ledge, hurtling to the bottom at breakneck speed before whipping skyward again. And when they reached the top they flew, the wheels spinning under their feet, backs arched as they grabbed the board and twisted, just in time for the wheels to hit the ground again.

My mouth was set in a “WOW” shape for fifteen minutes. I was utterly, utterly transfixed.

And do you know what the best thing was?

Sometimes, quite a few times even, they fell off their boards. And when they did, they looked awkward and clumsy.

But no one laughed at them. They'd help each other up, with a slap on their back and a high five before trying again.

That was when I knew this was my chance. I'd found something where it didn't matter if I was a bit clumsy. That was part of it. I could feel the pats on my spine already, my heart racing, excitement building. THIS WAS IT!

Until my phone rang and Dad whispered into my ear.

“Have you had a flat tire, son? Number 59 are screaming for their food.”

I felt my dream deflate quicker than a tire.

There I was, dreaming of skateboarding fame, and all I had was a steel rhino. It couldn't have been any more useless, and I knew I had to do something about it.

But how could I afford my own board? And more importantly, how could I ever get this new, dangerous love past Mom?

S
inus didn't break his gaze from the school brickwork to answer my question. He was so close to the wall, all it would take was one sneeze to decorate the whole thing.

“Skateboarding? Don't know much about it. But tell me if you do take it up, because I'll need to save for a funeral suit.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” I laughed. “It's not that dangerous. And anyway, I've watched them down at the half-pipe. It's no big deal if they fall off. It's all part of it.”

Two eyes flicked my way, joined by a pair of raised eyebrows. The head shook with pity.

Maybe Sinus wasn't the right person to talk to, but I didn't really have any option. There was no way I was going to ask Mom for money for a board, and Dad was so under her thumb that he'd probably blab if I asked him.

So that left me with Sinus.

I'd thought of nothing else since my first trip to the ramp a week ago. Had visited every page on skating that existed, and the more I saw, the more obsessed I became. I'd found footage of this guy Tony Hawk, who they said was the daddy of all skaters, and he did things that defied logic and gravity. I looked hard for the wires that held him up, or signs of CGI trickery, but there were none. The guy was a legend.

I devoured every clip, every interview there was, and they all told me the same thing: that I was destined to do this, that this would be the
thing
that lifted me out of the gutter.

Affording the board, though, was a real problem. New ones were way out of my league, especially as my cash box contained five quarters, two dimes, a penny from 1975, and a Justin Bieber button. Don't ask me how
that
got there. I had no clue, but I suspected foul play of the Sinus kind.

Tips from the deliveries hadn't exactly flowed into my pockets either. The rhino was so slow that food was lukewarm when it arrived on people's doorsteps, and Dad spent more time taking complaints than people's orders.

I'd tried eBay too, bidding on anything that came up within a ten-mile radius, but every time I thought I'd picked up a bargain, someone would outbid me and my dream board would disappear for the princely sum of $1.56 and two Bieber buttons.

I was failing. Failing before I had even begun.

And that's why I'd turned to Sinus. Talk about last resorts.

“So what I really need to find is someone with a spare board.” I sighed.

“Sounds like it.” He wasn't interested and wasn't hiding the fact. Instead, he was now busy sticking his nose deep inside a new-looking notebook.

“Either that or find someone who tried it then gave up. Someone who'd give me the board because they didn't want it,” I persevered.

“Yeah, because that'll happen. Keep dreaming, sunshine.”

And that was it. That was the sum total of Sinus's input.

We sat there for twenty minutes, him alternating between scribbling furiously and staring dreamily at the science lab wall in front of us.

I'd just about given up when he finally spoke.

“You could ask Bunion if you can have his.”

I stared at him. Bunion. His big brother, with feet so big that they made Sinus's nose look like a pimple.

I often wondered what was going on with the genes in his family. I was relieved that Sinus's parents only had two kids. A boy with ears that dragged along the ground wouldn't have stood a chance in life.

“You're kidding me?” I yelled at him. “Bunion's got one? Bunion's had one all this time and you didn't think to tell me?”

“You only mentioned it twenty minutes ago.”

“And is that how long it takes sound to bypass your nose and reach your brain?”

He batted the insult away. “You listen through your ears, not your nose, numbnut.”

I hated it when my insults fell flat, especially as his never did.

Irritated, I stood and walked away. Sinus breathed heavily as he scampered to catch up.

“Where are you going?” he asked, not wanting to miss the next gripping installment of
Charlie Has a Death Wish
.

“Where do you think?” I muttered. “To see your brother.”