Mighty Millie Novak, page 4
Stork didn’t respond to this. “I think the five of us should commit to a dedicated cross-training program. Because,” and now she addressed Pumpkin directly, “we’re athletes, remember?”
Pumpkin muttered something inaudibly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What do you have in mind?” Pay’s eyes quickly darted over to Bee’s. She sounded skeptical, which I appreciated.
“Well, that’s what I thought we could discuss. I think weights and HIIT, doing both, could be good. Do all of you have a gym membership?”
Pumpkin and I both shook our heads no.
“Weights at home?”
Again no.
Stork chewed on her lower lip. She didn’t look irritated, just like she was thinking hard. “All right. My uncle owns a little gym not too far from here. I bet I can convince him to let us all work out there together. That might be even better, actually, than working out separately and reporting it to each other.” She nodded, like she’d convinced herself. “Yeah, this could be good. I’ll talk to him about creating some sort of training plan for us all.”
If my thoughts were visible, they would be a big red X drawn over this whole scene. Yes, I wanted to get better at derby, but surely there was another option besides Stork’s uncle’s gym. I didn’t want to humiliate myself doing inevitably impossible workouts in front of the other rookies, and I didn’t want to get bossed around by Stork. That jog in my neighborhood had been bad enough. How much worse would I have felt if Stork had been there, sprinting into the distance and leaving me in the dust?
There was a bit of loose gravel on the ground, and I drew an X in it with the toe of my sneaker. “I’m not sure,” I said, without looking up. “I want to think about it.”
“How do you expect to get better at derby if you don’t cross-train?” Now Stork sounded irritated.
I tried and it sucked, I wanted to scream, but I stayed quiet.
“Um, derby practice? The reason we’re here right now.” Pumpkin glared at Stork, her big brown eyes narrowed and furious.
“You know we need more than that if we want to win games.”
“Actually, I don’t know that,” Pumpkin retorted. “You just declared it, like we’re supposed to believe you.”
“Cross-training helps performance! You think I came up with that myself?”
“No, I think I don’t want to give up my free time just because another rookie says so.”
Stork and Pumpkin squared off to face each other, both with their hands on their hips.
Okay, okay, I didn’t want to cross-train any more than Pumpkin did, but I also didn’t want to witness a fight between the two of them. Pay and Bee were staying quiet, watching the scene from under their blanket, so apparently I needed to make peace between them myself.
“Hey, Stork? Pumpkin? How about this? Let’s think about it.” My stomach ached as I spoke. Making peace and diffusing tension was, unfortunately, a skill I’d practiced way too often with my parents. “We don’t need to decide right now. Stork can talk to her uncle and get more information, and we can think about our schedules and our lives and what we want to do.”
“Fine,” Stork and Pumpkin said in unison, both still salty.
A slamming car door broke the tension. It was Cleo, carrying not only her gear bag but a big net bag filled with what looked like karate belts.
“Nice to see you here early, rookies! Ann can’t make it today, so I’m wrangling you solo. We’re gonna have some fun.” Cleo’s grin made it clear her definition of ‘fun’ would be brutal. “Move over and let me unlock the door, and you can get inside and start warming up.”
Half an hour into practice, I raised my hand and waved it desperately, trying to get Cleo’s attention. “Can I say something?” I gasped.
She nodded for me to continue.
“Does anyone . . . have an albuterol . . . inhaler? I forgot mine.” Though my asthma was generally mild, intense exercise aggravated it. This whole practice had indeed been miserable, as I’d imagined, and we still had over an hour left. Ann had led the last practice, and it had been tough but fun. Cleo, I was pretty sure, wanted us to improve badly enough that she was willing to kill for it—kill me, anyway. Right now, my lungs felt like someone had wrapped a belt around them and pulled it tight.
Speaking of belts, I was currently tethered to Gables by two karate belts knotted together. We were taking turns running sprints on our toe stops back and forth across the rink, with our partners dropped into low plow stops behind us to provide resistance. Gables, of course, was ferociously strong. When I plowed and Gables sprinted, I was dragged forward at terrifyingly high speeds, barely slowing her down at all. When it was my turn to sprint, I could barely pull her ten feet before Cleo blew the whistle.
“I’ve got an inhaler, Mighty,” said Pay, taking off the belt attaching her to Bee and skating off the rink. “Back in a sec.”
After a couple puffs from Pay’s inhaler and a few minutes watching Gables sprint back and forth by herself, I felt good enough to jump back in. The imaginary belt around my lungs had loosened, so I slipped the real one back on and settled it around my hips.
“This time,” Gables said, “get lower, and get your feet out in front of you, and really push your heels out. Drop your butt. And engage your core.”
That was too many instructions. Gables took off on her toe stops, and I zoomed away again.
Before it was my turn to sprint, Cleo blew four short whistle blasts. “Come back together, get some water, and let’s talk about the next drill. Yes, it’s more endurance. I know you all passed your 27 in 5, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need faster laps and better crossovers.”
My cheeks burned, and not just from exertion. I hadn’t thought about Ann’s miscount today. What if Cleo was going to make us do the 27 in 5 again right now? What would happen if I couldn’t pass? I imagined the shame of being demoted back to the Skatertots. Could they do that? Could they send me back?
“Come on,” Gables said, using the karate belt to pull me onto the track. “Ready for this?”
I’d been so absorbed in my anxious vision of demotion that I’d missed Cleo’s explanation of the drill. “What are we doing?”
Gables grinned. “Taking turns skating laps with the belts, towing our partner, so we can really lean into the turns without being afraid of falling down. I’ll go first. You stand to my right and get in a good low stance, to provide resistance.”
Being towed around by Gables was surprisingly fun. I yelled “Whee!” a few times, waving to Pumpkin when she was near. My wheels rolled smoothly along the concrete floor. The cheesy, dated posters along the rink’s walls blurred into streaks of bright colors as I zoomed by.
But then time was up, and it was my turn to skate. If I’d thought my thighs had burned during the 27 in 5, that was nothing compared to skating laps while pulling Gables.
“Lean, Mighty!” Cleo shouted at me. “Lean in, and push with that inside leg. Use it to get more power.”
My legs were quivering Jell-O incapable of providing power. I wanted to protest that I couldn’t do it, but I didn’t have the wind available to speak. When the whistle finally blew, I pulled the belt over my head, pulled off my tank top, and collapsed, sweat-soaked, onto the floor.
“Get a drink, everyone. Take a breather.” Cleo was speaking somewhere above my head. I couldn’t bring myself to sit up to look at her. “Now, what did that feel like? What did you learn?”
People talked, but I barely listened. I could only feel the cool concrete floor under my sweaty body, and the ease in my legs, finally at rest.
“All right.” Cleo clapped her hands. “Now that you’ve had a quick break, we’ll do it again.”
An hour later, we staggered off the rink and de-geared. I’d survived, barely. Even the effort of pulling off my pads and my skates was overwhelming.
Pay was pulling her braids back into a thick ponytail at the nape of her neck, quietly chatting with Bee, when I approached.
“Thanks for the inhaler.” I tossed it back to her. “You’re a lifesaver. Like, literally.”
She zipped it into a pocket on the front of her gear bag. “Anytime, teammate.”
I smiled as I walked away. I was a teammate. It felt good, but scary. If people depended on me, that meant I could let them down.
Cleo got our attention for one last talk as we packed up our gear. “Today, we focused on conditioning and on basic skills, the building blocks of good derby,” she said. “As we go forward, we’ll keep this sort of conditioning integrated into practices, but add in more hitting drills and then in-practice scrimmages. I want you exhausted when you’re doing this, so that when it comes time for actual games, it feels easy. Practice is supposed to be harder than games.”
Everyone nodded, most of us too worn out to speak.
“Soy Anything is six months away. That’s long enough to be transformative, but short enough that we can’t waste time. What does this mean for all of you?” She paused for emphasis. “Work. Lots and lots of work. Hard work.”
Ugh. In my heart, the idea of hard work scared me not because I was lazy but because . . . what if it didn’t make a difference? What if I tried my absolute best and still sucked? I wished I could just do the fun stuff, have the fishnets-and-bruises aesthetic, and magically improve.
I glanced around, hoping to catch the eye of someone—anyone—who felt as intimidated by Cleo’s pronouncement as I did. Instead, I saw Stork nodding seriously, scribbling notes in a tiny notebook. Oh God. If Stork was intense before, what would she be like after hearing this?
“We’ll use the Winter Showcase and other games to refine our strategy and practice operating cohesively,” Cleo said. “This is a team sport, and you need to practice together enough that you’ll anticipate each other’s moves on the track on a subconscious level, on pure instinct.”
“Hey, Cleo?” Luna pulled her fabulous trans-flag-colored hair, now sweaty, into a messy bun on top of her head as she spoke. “Do we know which other Juniors teams will be at Soy Anything?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know when I find out.”
Gables snickered. “I know who we’re all thinking of, and don’t worry, we’re going to fucking destroy them.”
I had no idea what she was referring to, and based on the shiver that ran through the other vet skaters, I didn’t want to know.
Cleo’s jaw tightened. “Gables, remind me what could happen if you use language like that during a game.”
“A penalty.” Gables rolled her eyes. “We will gosh darn destroy the Sonics, okay?”
Luna spoke up again. “How are you going to make roster decisions?” A derby game could only have fifteen skaters per team, so not all of us would be able to skate in any given game.
“If you want to be rostered, you know what I recommend?” Cleo looked out at us expectantly, waiting for a response.
“Work,” I murmured queasily. “Lots and lots of work.”
“I’ll see you all next week.” She gave us her scary grin. “Time to head out, give the charter skaters some room.”
For the first time, I noticed more people had been filtering into the rink as she spoke. Charter skaters were wandering in, chatting and laughing and beginning to unpack their gear bags.
“Come on,” Gables said. “Let’s get out of here, everyone. The charter skaters think we’re too obnoxious and annoying. We don’t want to distract them with our immaturity while they’re practicing.” She said it loudly, her voice thick with sarcasm.
One of the nearest charter skaters, a heavy girl with full-sleeve tattoos, snickered. “I miss you, too, Gables.”
“Oooh, yeah, charter practice.” Pumpkin came up behind me and leaned her elbows on my shoulders. “Look, Mighty. The charter team.” She gave me a nudge, pointing to the stream of skaters flowing in the doors. “The. Charter. Team.”
Ah. Okay. I figured it out after a second. Spineapple, the eighteen-year-old who’d left Juniors for charter over the summer, the one Pumpkin thought I should date, had walked in. I looked at her, trying not to be obvious. She had short, bleached hair, a septum piercing, and a denim vest with the Prairie Skate Rollers logo printed on the back. She looked really cool, obviously, but also really intimidating.
“Come on, grab your bag and let’s head out to the parking lot. Now.” Pumpkin pulled on my arm. Luna gave us a quizzical look, and I shrugged, trying to look as mystified as she did.
I scurried along with Pumpkin, laughing, trying to look anywhere but at Spineapple. But I should’ve paid more attention to Pumpkin’s path. She planted us right in front of Spineapple and her friends.
“Spineapple? Me and Mighty saw you in that exhibition game at the county fair last summer. The way you knocked that one jammer literally into the crowd? Amazing. Mighty and I just wanted to say it was amazing.”
“Oh.” Spineapple looked slightly stunned. “Okay, uh, thank you.” She turned back to her friends to finish her conversation.
Outside, I grabbed Pumpkin in an only somewhat-playful headlock. “I swear to God, Pumpkin, you are the least subtle person ever. I’m going to have to kill you; it’s my only option.”
Pumpkin tried to shout something back at me but was laughing too hard. We scuffled around a bit, then I started laughing while she twisted away from me. “You’ll thank me someday. Like, at your wedding.”
I wanted to be indignant, but I was still laughing too hard.
“Now come on.” Pumpkin tugged at my elbow. “Let’s get going. I need to shower before I see my boyfriend tonight.”
Pumpkin had a boyfriend? That left a weird feeling in my stomach. Not because I was attracted to her. No, pangs of jealousy were twisting my insides because she had a thriving social life outside of derby. I wasn’t the life raft for her that she was for me.
As we headed to her car, we passed Stork, sitting in her own car, fiddling with her skate and examining one of the wheels.
“One second,” I said to Pumpkin, then knocked on Stork’s car window.
She set her skate in her lap and rolled down the window. “What is it?” Her voice was cool.
“You were right.” It hurt to say it. I bit my lip. “Today basically destroyed me. I need to get way better if I want to do well at Soy Anything.”
I had my own personal reasons for needing success at the March tournament, ones that I definitely wouldn’t try to explain to Stork. It was the shiver of fear I’d felt when Pay called me “teammate,” and the praise everyone heaped on Stork because she was so good, and the way no one in my family expected me to keep taking roller derby seriously. It was all those things and more. Soy Anything was my chance to prove I really deserved this spot on the team, this derby-girl image, this new life. I had to give it my best shot.
Stork looked at me expectantly. I bit my lip again.
“So, yeah, let me know what your uncle says about us training at his gym. I’m in. Let’s do your cross-training thing.”
Spending extra time with Stork was still the last thing I wanted to do—I couldn’t forget how many times I’d heard Cleo say “Great job, Stork” in the past two hours. Why give myself another avenue to falter in comparison to her? But Stork’s face had split into a delighted smile, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit excited, too.
chapter 6
time until Soy Anything: 5 months, 27 days
My dad had officially moved out, but movers still needed to get some big furniture items, like his desk and office shelves. They were scheduled for a weekday, so I planned to hole up in my bedroom until they were gone. It wasn’t that I couldn’t bear to watch, exactly. It just felt uncomfortable. Wrong.
Shortly before they arrived, I had an idea. Maybe it was the plan for cross-training with Stork that gave me the idea, or at least put me in the right mindset to come up with it. I was feeling slightly, minorly, cautiously optimistic.
Online school gave me freedom, as I’d told Ben, and really, why didn’t I take more advantage of it? All day every day I padded around the house, bored and restless. But no longer! It was time to take advantage of it. Because I not only had freedom, I had wheels.
Ha, not a car. Even though I’d be sixteen soon, I still needed quite a few supervised driving hours with my parents before I could take the driver’s test. Even then, I didn’t expect to get a car.
But I did have skates.
I put together an outfit that was my best approximation of the sorts I’d seen Lady Trample, a famous jammer from Australia, wearing in her skatepark videos: white knee socks with two teal stripes at the top, dark purple denim shorts with a super-high waist, and a cropped sweatshirt with a badass-looking unicorn on it. Then I threw my books and laptop in my backpack, strapped on my various pieces of protective gear—knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, mouthguard, helmet—and pulled on my skates. Time to go! It was morning, the sun was out, the air was crisp, and I wasn’t going to waste a minute of this day.
There were three small stairs leading from my porch down to the sidewalk. I had not considered stairs. Carefully, I turned around, knelt down, and crawled backward down the steps, like a toddler. Then, feeling significantly less cool, I struggled to my feet and started skating.
There was a diner not quite two miles from my house, and I could stay on quiet subdivision roads almost the whole way. I would skate to the diner, have breakfast, spend a few hours on my homework, and skate home. It would be wonderful.
The sidewalk, though, was bumpier than I’d imagined. Every twig, every acorn, every crack shook my skates and made my whole body reverberate. Was I doing something wrong? At the next intersection, I leaned on the street sign and examined my wheels. Everything looked fine, not that I really knew what I was looking at. My skates were standard beginner’s derby skates, and I hadn’t altered them beyond trading out black laces for sparkly green ones. Maybe I just needed to get used to the road. It was bound to feel different than skating on a derby track—I should’ve expected it.
