Mighty Millie Novak, page 5
A few blocks from my house, the houses got bigger and fancier, and the sidewalks disappeared. I stepped carefully into the street, positive that as soon as I got my bearings, a sports car would come squealing around a corner and flatten me. But all that happened was a tiny dog on a porch began barking like mad.
Around the next turn, the trees on either side of the road curved inward toward each other, creating a canopy of foliage. The trees had already lost some of their leaves, but the remaining ones were vivid yellows and reds. A feeling of magic ran through me.
I pushed harder, picking up speed. My feet were still vibrating, and, though it had felt chilly when I’d left the house, my back was starting to sweat underneath my backpack.
One more turn, then two blocks and I’d hit the main road with the diner. I turned right and looked . . . down. I’d never thought of this street as a hill before, but it clearly was. Things looked different in skates than in a car. The street sloped steeply downward until, at a stoplight, it ended in a T-intersection. Cars buzzed past, loud even from two blocks away.
I was going to careen down this hill straight into traffic.
I did a careful T-stop until I wasn’t moving, and stared down the hill. What were my options? I could turn around, go back to my house. Or I could skate down the hill fearlessly, trusting myself to stop before the intersection. I didn’t like either of those options.
The house next to me had a lush, dark green lawn. All the leaves had been raked into big piles in the middle of the yard, and the grass by the curb was smooth and uniform. Maybe . . . I took a step into the yard, then a few more steps.
This would work. I could just clomp down the hill through everyone’s grass. It wouldn’t be pretty, and it would leave weird indentations in my wake, but it would work. I started making my way down the hill. Clomp, clomp. clomp.
“Hey!” a voice yelled from an open garage a few houses later. A man stepped onto the driveway, holding a canister of weed killer and glaring at me. “What do you think you’re doing on my grass?”
“Sorry!” I shouted back. “The hill was too steep.”
“Look what you’ve done to my lawn!” He took a step toward me, not exactly threateningly, but clearly angry. “Are you going to pay to fix it?”
“But—” It was only some dents in the grass. Good Lord. Well, I was almost at the bottom. I’d be okay. I sighed, stepping back onto the street. “Fine. Jeez. Sorry.”
But I’d been right to be afraid of the hill. I picked up speed immediately. I tried to do a T-stop, but I felt my ankle start to bend strangely and had to give up. Maybe the light would change in my favor. Maybe I could grab on to something. Maybe. Oh God. The world was whizzing by, faster each second. Oh God.
I had to bail. I couldn’t risk hitting traffic. I aimed for a pile of neatly raked leaves and threw myself forward.
I had been going fast enough that I burst right through the leaves and tumbled onto the grass. My heart was pounding, my breath sharp gasps. Was I okay? I stretched my limbs out, examined them. Only some minor scrapes on my left leg. Crinkled leaves, all gold and brown, were stuck to my clothes. I got unsteadily to my knees and began picking them off me, one at a time. At least no one was home at this house—no witnesses.
Crossing Green Avenue to reach the diner was, thankfully, uneventful. I skated through the parking lot and up to the door.
That’s what I’d forgotten. Shoes.
I stuck my head inside. A waitress carrying a coffee pot caught my eye.
“Hi, so yeah, I’m wearing roller skates. Is that okay?”
She laughed. “Roller skates! I love it. Come on in, I’ll get you seated.”
All eyes were on me as I skated through the diner. My face heated with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. A little boy in a booster seat smacked his mom on the arm to get her attention, then pointed at me. I smiled and waved back, like a beauty queen.
I slid into a vinyl booth, then pulled off my helmet and wrist guards, pulled out my mouthguard, and set them next to me. From a distance, I’d look like a normal customer, albeit one with sweaty pink hair stuck to her head.
I ordered a great big glass of water and a plate of French toast. When it arrived, I pulled The Scarlet Letter out of my backpack, the current focus in my English class, and read while I ate. Half my mind was on the book itself, while the other half was narrating to Ben, “See how much better this is than in-person school? I can do assignments anywhere I want!” I hated this book, but I was chipping away at it while eating syrup-covered breakfast food, so that counted as a win.
“Do you go to skateparks like that?” my waitress asked as she refilled my water. “My ten-year-old is always bugging me to take her to one, so she can skateboard. She zips down those ramps like it’s nothing. I don’t know how.”
I thought of my inglorious descent down the hill. “No, I definitely don’t go to skateparks. I play roller derby.”
Her eyes lit up. “Wow! Elbowing girls in the face, that sort of thing?”
“Well, we’re not allowed to elbow people.” I hid a smile. It had become a team joke during Skatertots that any time an adult asked about roller derby, they assumed we were constantly throwing elbows. I couldn’t wait to share this with everyone.
“I used to watch it on TV when I was a kid.” She set the water pitcher back down on my table and shifted her weight to one side. “I loved all the fighting, even though you could tell it was fake.”
“Oh, we don’t do that now. It’s a legit sport.” I sounded a little snobby, I knew, but I couldn’t help it. To make up for it, I fished a crumpled flier out of my bag. “This is the info on the Juniors program, in case your daughter wants to join once she’s older.”
“Hey, you never know. I’ll tell her about it.” She smiled and took the flier, then left me to my French toast.
Once I’d finished eating, I spread my things across the Formica tabletop. I opened my French book, turned on my laptop, and found a clean page in my notebook. French toast, French class—I liked having a theme.
French was worse than English. At least I knew what most of the words meant in The Scarlet Letter, even if I didn’t care about them. I looked up a few translations, faked my way through an online worksheet, then gave myself another break.
The latest conversation in the rookie group chat had been between Pumpkin, Pay, and Bee, and it concerned the delicious gossip that Gables and a jammer named Toni were secretly hooking up—supposedly someone saw them making out in a bathroom stall after practice last week. I tapped out a quick response (Do you think it’s the thigh tattoo that Toni couldn’t resist? Or just Gables’s charming personality?), then added a few quick sentences about my adventures on the way to the diner, sharing the waitress’s “elbow to the face” comment and the interaction with the weed-killer jerk on the hill.
When a few minutes had passed with no reply, it hit me: They were all in school right now. Obviously. No wonder they weren’t answering. Probably they had to have their phones put away during class or they’d get detentions or something.
Hanging out in this diner was way better than being in high school. Why would Ben think online school was a mistake? The alternative was spending every day in a crowded old building filled with conformists who’d hate my appearance and personality, and homophobes who’d hate my existence. Ben didn’t know what he was talking about. Here in this diner, I could relax, be myself, make my own decisions.
I flagged the waitress down and ordered a chocolate shake. When it arrived, in a tall glass and towering with whipped cream, I took a selfie with it and sent it to Ben. Just another sad and lonely day of online learning, I wrote.
It was too bad no one had witnessed my ridiculous hill debacle. If Pumpkin had been by my side, it would have been hilarious, instead of terrifying. Too bad she wasn’t here with me now, drinking her own chocolate shake. No one in this diner was anywhere near my age. My stomach twisted with faint unease, but I pushed aside the dash of loneliness. As I decided to go back to my French homework, my phone buzzed.
What sort of outdoor wheels did you buy? It was Stork.
I didn’t. These are just the ones that came with my skates.
Well wasn’t it all bumpy? You need lower durometer wheels to skate outside.
Fine, Stork knew more than I did about skating. I didn’t know there were different wheels for outdoor skating. I didn’t have a clue what durometer meant. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent that message. Maybe Pumpkin and Pay and Bee were thinking the same thing, wondering what I was doing.
My hands hesitated over my phone as I tried to think of what to write back to Stork. Finally, I wrote “oh” and put my phone away.
My skate home was less eventful but also less fun. I had to go up the big hill, plus it was warmer out, plus I’d spent the previous hours eating, basically, sugar. Regardless, I took another picture of myself once I was outside my house, making sure to include my skates. Skated about 4 miles today! I wrote to the rookies, careful not to say anything that Stork might want to correct. Not bad for a random weekday!
I was lying on the couch, half-watching TV with my math book open in front of me, when Pumpkin finally replied.
Jealous of your adventures!
I looked at the time. Her school day was over. My mom would be home from work soon; my dad, an hour or two later to grab his final few bags. I was suddenly desperate to escape, to see someone else my age.
I’m so bored right now, I wrote back, hoping it was clear that I was fishing for an invitation to hang out.
I’m at Target with friends now, she wrote, but let’s hang out tonight.
Victory!
Pumpkin kept writing, now in a private message instead of the rookie group chat.
I have a great idea. It’s a surprise. Be outside at 7.
chapter 7
I jumped into Pumpkin’s passenger seat as soon as she’d come to a stop. “Tell me, tell me! What are we doing? Where are we going?” I had been waiting on the porch for fifteen minutes. Ready for anything. Also, avoiding my mother.
“Are you sure you want to know? Maybe you should close your eyes and find out when we get there.”
I was grinning so hard my face hurt. “Okay.”
“Actually . . .” She reached onto her back seat, which was still overflowing with random junk, and grabbed a brightly colored paisley necktie. “My AP physics teacher gives us extra credit if we wear a tie on the days of exams—ridiculous, right?—so I keep one in the car. But today, it’s a blindfold!”
She tied it carefully around my head, covering my eyes, then gave it a yank and pulled it tight.
“So you’re in AP classes?” The darkness was immediately disorienting, and we’d only just left my driveway.
“Yeah, I’m a senior. Hopefully I’ll pass the AP tests, so I have fewer classes to take in college.”
“I’m only a sophomore.” It felt like a confession, like admitting I wasn’t as cool as her.
Pumpkin wasn’t fazed by my sophomore status, at least as far as I could tell beneath the blindfold. “Enjoy it. The workload gets so much worse junior year.”
“What’s senior year like?”
“Definitely better. At this point, I’ve got the balance figured out where I can do just enough work to get the grades I need to get into a good college, but nothing beyond that. The main good thing about school is that I get to see my friends and David.”
“Your boyfriend?”
“Yeah.” Then she snorted. “For now, anyway. I’m pissed at him. He went to see my favorite band at the Metro and didn’t invite me. Which, okay, bad enough, right? But I didn’t even find out until this girl Angela that I hate shared her photos from the show, and he was in them.”
“What a jerk.” I wasn’t sure exactly what to say, but that seemed safest.
“Right?”
The car shifted as we came to a stop. A moment later, Pumpkin whisked the blindfold off. “Ta-da!”
“Are we at the rink?”
“Yeah! I parked in back, so it’s easier to sneak in. The charter team has practice tonight! We can hide in the DJ booth and watch them!”
I laughed. “Genius!”
“Come on,” Pumpkin said, climbing out of the car and shutting the door quietly. “I know what to do.”
I followed close, stifling nervous laughter. Juniors weren’t specifically barred from watching other practices, but we hadn’t exactly been invited, either.
“Ann always props open the back door, ’cause it gets so warm in there, even when it’s cold out,” she said, “so it should be easy enough to slip inside.”
But the heavy gray door was locked.
“Huh.” Pumpkin paused, hands on her hips. She was wearing a faded band T-shirt thin enough to show the red bra beneath it, and shredded jeans that looked so fantastic on her they made me want an identical pair. I doubted they’d look the same on me, though. Pumpkin and I were both short and curvy, but she looked more like a 1950s pinup than, say, a fire hydrant.
“I have another idea.” Pumpkin grabbed my hand. “Come on.”
We ran around the side of the building, where the giant garbage and recycling dumpsters were. Pumpkin headed straight for a stack of recycling sitting in front of the bin.
“Find a cardboard box that doesn’t look too gross or beat up. We want it to be something we can actually carry stuff in.” She held up a specimen. “Something like this.”
I looked for my box without asking questions. This was her show; I was just happy to be here and not inside my house. Underneath a pile of flattened cardboard, I found two intact shoe boxes. “How about these?”
She appraised them. “Yes, those will do.” She picked up her own box. “Now quick, back to my car!”
We darted to the back of the building, clutching our empty boxes and unsuccessfully fighting laughter.
“All right,” Pumpkin said, popping her trunk open. “Find some stuff in here to put in our boxes that looks sort of related to derby, or skating in general. Really, anything. Look in my back seat, too. Then we’ll carry the boxes in the front door and say we were told to bring in some stuff for Juniors, to stash in the basement with the rest of our things. And once we’re in there for legit reasons, or what they think are legit reasons, we’ll just stick around and watch.”
I opened up her car’s back passenger-side door. “What about this sweatshirt? It could be . . . in case someone forgot a workout shirt to wear to practice.”
“Yeah!”
“Oh!” I got on my knees and pulled some things out from under the seat. “Two Gatorades. Perfect. Hydration is important.”
She laughed. “Excellent. I’m all set from the trunk. I’ve got a box of Kleenex, another sweatshirt, and a little shovel.”
“Why would Juniors need a shovel?”
She shrugged. “You never know when you might need a shovel.”
“Fair enough. I want one more thing for my boxes.” I rooted blindly through the papers behind the driver’s seat. Then—“Ouch!”
I jerked my hand out. Blood dripped from a jagged line across my palm.
“Mighty!” Pumpkin dropped her box and ran to where I’d been digging.
“What do I do?” I held my hand up above my head, something I was pretty sure I’d seen done in a movie when someone was injured. “It doesn’t hurt yet, but . . . okay now it’s starting to hurt.” I looked up at my hand. Blood was slipping down my palm, past my wrist, and along the side of my arm.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” She lifted something from the papers on the floor. “I didn’t realize this was still in here.” A broken coffee mug. She held it carefully by the handle, as the opposite side was gone, a sharp, dangerous edge in its place.
A fat drop of blood fell from my elbow, plopping onto the seat of Pumpkin’s car. “Uh, we need to do something.” I looked again at my palm, slick and red.
Pumpkin shook herself. “Sorry. Come on. There’s a first aid kit inside the rink. Someone can help us.”
I followed her around to the front of the building, watching my arm bemusedly. It looked gruesome but didn’t feel real. I started to laugh.
“What?” Pumpkin’s face was drawn with fear. “You’re laughing. Why are you laughing?”
I began to laugh harder. “You found a legit reason for us to go in the rink!”
She shook her head. “We need to get you help.”
As she pushed open the main doors to the rink, I could see beyond her that most of the skaters on the track were watching our entrance. They were standing together in the center of the rink, on a water break. One of them broke away from the pack, skating toward us fast.
“It’s a lot of blood, though, that’s the one thing. The part you didn’t consider.” I laughed again, then realized I wasn’t feeling quite right. My limbs were tingly, and my vision fuzzy. “I’m woozy,” I whispered to Pumpkin, leaning against the wall and then sliding to the ground.
“What’s going on?” I heard the charter skater ask Pumpkin as she approached.
“We were trying to drop off some derby stuff, and she cut her hand on a broken cup in my car. Can we use the first aid kit?” Pumpkin sounded worried. I wondered distantly why I wasn’t worried.
“Let me take off my skates, and I’ll run and grab it.” The skater’s voice sounded familiar. Was it Ann up there above me? I hoped it was Ann.
“I’m in shoes,” Pumpkin replied. “If you stay with her, I can run and get it, instead. That’d be quicker.”
“Good idea.”
I heard Pumpkin’s feet hit the ground as she ran away, then felt someone touch my shoulder. The skater was sitting next to me on the ground. “Your friend will be back in a second, and we’ll get you cleaned up.” It wasn’t Ann; Ann would’ve known Pumpkin’s name. “Just hang tight, okay?”
