Captain Skidmark Dances with Destiny, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Jennifer A. Irwin
Cover illustrations copyright © 2023 by Berat Pekmezci
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Charlesbridge and colophon are registered trademarks of Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc.
At the time of publication, all URLs printed in this book were accurate and active. Charlesbridge, the author, and the illustrator are not responsible for the content or accessibility of any website.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
Published by Charlesbridge
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Watertown, MA 02472
(617) 926-0329
www.charlesbridge.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Irwin, Jennifer A., 1973– author.
Title: Captain Skidmark dances with destiny / by Jennifer A. Irwin.
Description: Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge Publishing, [2023] | Audience: Ages 10 and up. | Audience: Grades 4–8. | Summary: “Thirteen-year-old Will is generally miserable but finds solace at dance school, and then Will’s seventeen-year-old hockey-star cousin, Alex, moves in, and Will and Alex learn a lot about each other and their relationships with their fathers.”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021053666 (print) | LCCN 2021053667 (ebook) | ISBN 9781623542542 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781632898203 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cousins—Juvenile fiction. | Fathers and sons—Juvenile fiction. | Bullying—Juvenile fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Juvenile fiction. | Hockey stories. | Dance—Juvenile fiction. | Ontario—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Cousins—Fiction. | Fathers and sons—Fiction. | Bullying—Fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | Hockey—Fiction. | Dance—Fiction. | Ontario—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.I787 Cap 2023 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.I787 (ebook) | DDC 813.6 [Fic] —dc23/eng/20211130
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053666
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021053667
Ebook ISBN 9781632898203
Illustrations drawn digitally in iPad Pro with Clip Studio Paint
Production supervision by Jennifer Most Delaney
Ebook design adapted from print design by Cathleen Schaad
a_prh_6.0_143000296_c1_r0
To Richard, my heart.
And to Charlie and Sam, my world.
Find me here.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER ONE
It was game two of the bantam double-B regular hockey season, and I was going to murder Artie Kavanaugh. He was sitting next to me on the bench with his big fat face and his baked bean teeth and his single-digit IQ.
“Hey, loser,” he said.
I ignored him like I always did, and he slashed the top of my foot with his hockey stick, which hurt like a mother.
“I said, ‘Hey, loser!’ You hear me?”
“My name’s not loser.”
How many times had I said that, or something like it, to Artie in the last two months? Fifty times? A hundred?
My name’s not loser.
My name’s not dork.
My name’s not twerp, dweeb, dillhole, or fartknocker.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Artie said, taking a swig from his water bottle. “I meant freakshow.”
Freakshow was new. I was almost impressed.
“What do you want?” I asked, staring out at the crowd on the other side of the rink. My parents were there in their usual spot, watching the game. Mom was sipping on coffee and chatting with the lady sitting next to her, but when she saw me looking over, she waved excitedly. Dad wasn’t talking to anyone. He was frowning and had his arms crossed over his chest.
“What do I want?” Artie asked. He looked up at the rafters as he pondered the question. “I want what I always want. I want to know why you’re on this team.”
His hockey gear reeked so bad I could almost see black cartoon stink lines coming off him, and I tried to shift over so I could breathe clean air. Unfortunately I was already squashed into the side of the box and there was nowhere to go.
“Seriously,” he continued, leaning into me. “You can’t skate. You can’t shoot. You’re built like a six-year-old girl. When was the last time you went into a corner? When was the last time you even scored?”
I had never scored, actually. Not in the nine years I’d been playing hockey. But I wasn’t about to tell him that.
When I didn’t say anything, he slashed me again.
“Sorry,” he said when I cried out. “My stick slipped.” Then he smiled at me, and I had to fight the urge to barf, not just from the searing pain in my foot but also from his breath, which smelled like a can of deep-fried buttholes.
“I just don’t get it, freakshow,” he said. “I mean, you’re such a sad little duster. I can’t figure out why you even bother putting on skates.”
I glanced over at my father again, who was sitting there looking miserable. It was already the third period, and I hadn’t been on the ice yet. For a guy like my dad, having me for a son must have been pure torture.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
I wasn’t actually talking to Artie, but he leaned closer anyway.
“What?” he asked. “What did you say, you little dork?”
I turned to him. “I said, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
“Yeah,” Artie said, grinning. “You are.” Then he took a big swig from his bottle and spit a mouthful of Gatorade in my face.
I ripped off my helmet and started flushing my eyes with water, writhing like someone had thrown a vat of acid at me. It’s possible I was overreacting, but you had to know Artie. The dude never brushed his teeth. Plus he was always belching and vurping and hocking up loogies. And once someone dared him to finish off a half-eaten hot dog he’d picked out of the trash, and he totally did it. There was no limit to the diseases that were most likely inhabiting his backwash. I could almost feel them scorching my retinas.
My coach, unfortunately, was not sympathetic.
“Quit fooling around, Stone!” he hollered. But then instead of turning back to the game and ignoring me like he usually did, he looked me over warily.
“All right,” he sighed. “We’re up by five points. Might as well get out there and see if you can do…something.”
Whoa. Ice time. That was unexpected. And terrifying. I mean, the only reason I was on the team at all was because my dad had pulled strings to get me there. Even so, I’d spent way more time warming the bench than I’d actually spent in games. It’s like that when you’re the worst player in the entire history of hockey.
But fortune favors the bold, as my mom always says. So I jammed my helmet on my head and crouched down to fumble blindly for my stick, which Artie had managed to kick under the bench.
“Now, Stone!” Coach yelled, while Artie guffawed like an idiot. Even though I hated hockey, at that moment I would have sacrificed my left nut for the chops to score just one goal. Then I could skate to the box, grab Artie by the mask, and shout “Suck it!” right in his big ugly mug.
Coach opened the door and I waddled over, but the second I stepped on the ice, I fell flat on my face.
“For god’s sake, Stone! Your skate guards!”
Crap.
I rolled over and looked up at Coach. He was like a rabid pelican with his red face and his beady black eyes and his fat neck that was all puffed out over his collar. He looked close to climbing over the bench and giving me a beatdown, so I ripped off my guards and threw them over the boards as fast as I could.
It took me another minute to climb to my feet, and then I skated in a wobbly circle, trying to figure out where the puck was while Artie and the rest of the guys laughed themselves unconscious on the benc
And then, all of a sudden, there it was. Someone on the other team missed the pass, and the puck came sliding down the ice toward me. It actually almost hit my stick. It was the closest I’d come to touching a game puck in my life, and I don’t know whether it was because of Artie or because I was sick of Coach and his angry pelican neck, but for once I didn’t even think about what I was doing. I just put my head down and went for it.
I was flying. I couldn’t see anything but the puck. I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my heart beating in my ears. I was tearing up the ice, weaving in and out between players who were practically throwing themselves in the way to stop me. But it didn’t matter because this time, I was on fire. This time, the fartknocker was Too. Darn. Fast.
Even the goalie was intimidated. When I got to the net, I could see his eyes were wide behind his mask, and I swear I could hear him saying “Will, no! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” and I was all like, “Oh, yeah. That’s right. Be very afraid.”
I deked. I shot. And then it happened.
I scored a goal.
I actually scored a goal.
Suddenly I was overcome with the kind of joy I imagined only taller and more athletically inclined people were able to experience. I threw myself around the ice, pumping my fist like I’d just won the Stanley Cup, and it wasn’t until I started looking around for another player to high-five that I realized something was wrong.
I glanced over at the goalie. He’d ripped off his helmet and was pointing at his face, and for a second I thought, “Why the heck is Zak playing for the other team?” But when he screamed, “We’re on the same team, you moron!” I realized my mistake.
If I hadn’t been so busy flushing Artie’s vile sputum from my eyes, I would’ve noticed the period had ended and the goalies had switched ends. If I hadn’t been so amped to actually shoot a puck, I might have realized the players who were all over me on the ice were actually my teammates and that I’d scored the only goal of my entire hockey career on my own net.
I covered my face with my hands and dropped to my knees right there on the blue line. I’m not sure how long I stayed like that—it felt like hours—but when I looked up, I saw that all the people in the stands were laughing at me. All of them, their big mouths wide open, their eyes squinched tight, fingers pointing.
Then I scanned the crowd and my eyes landed on my parents. My mom had both hands clamped over her mouth like she’d witnessed a heinous train wreck. Which, let’s face it, she basically had. Dad sat there watching me, while spectators clapped him on the shoulder as if congratulating him for having an idiot for a son. The look on his face was a mixture of disappointment and something even worse.
Embarrassment.
I had embarrassed my father.
I pulled myself up and skated to the boards, barely able to lift my head. But instead of moving toward the bench, I left the ice completely, stripping down as I walked. My helmet went bouncing down the rubber walkway; my gloves hit the wall with two thuds and slid to the floor. I stopped at the exit to untie my skates, and I kicked them into a corner. Then I pushed open the door and stepped out into the night.
Freakshow had left the building.
CHAPTER TWO
Okay, so here’s some things you should know.
Yes, I suck at hockey. I am, in fact, epically tragic at any activity involving running, jumping, or precision hand-eye coordination. I’m also the shortest kid in my class by at least six inches, and that includes the girls. And every third week, I get this recurring zit on my chin that is so huge it looks like I’m starting to grow another head.
I’m also failing math.
I’m not completely useless, though. In fact, there’s a bunch of things most people don’t even know about that I actually do quite well. I’m excellent at Scrabble, for example. I can also recite the alphabet in six seconds—backward. And if I drink enough apple juice in one sitting, I can write my entire first name in the snow. That’s a pretty impressive display of bladder control, if you ask me, especially considering my full name is William. I’m hoping by the time I’m fourteen I’ll have what it takes to dot the i’s.
So.
Maybe I am a loser.
No one thought so at my old school, though. At my old school I wasn’t, like, Mr. Popular, but I was generally accepted by everyone, and even the worst, most socially deviant bullies in my class pretty much left me alone. They didn’t trip me or steal my lunch or pin me down so they could dangle a long chain of spit in my face until I almost barfed. And they certainly would have never dreamed of drawing a huge penis on my locker door and then plastering it with an array of feminine hygiene products.
Not at my old school.
But a few short months ago, my dad, who up until that point was just a regular high school English teacher, was offered a position as principal at Boundary Street Middle School. Suddenly, and without warning, we had to move to Evanston, Ontario, or the Armpit of the Universe, as I like to call it. Ever since then, my life has taken a most righteous turn toward the cruel and unusual.
It’s hard enough being the new kid. It’s way harder being the son of the new principal, especially when said new principal is replacing an older, much-beloved principal who just happened to suffer from a fatal heart attack while locked in an outdoor toilet during Evanston’s Fort Town Festival. (And can I just add for the record that biting it while you’re taking a crunch in a Port-A-Crapper is like top three on my list of the world’s worst ways to die.)
Anyone else coming into that principal job might have understood that given the circumstances, it would be best to keep a low profile, at least at first, but there’s never been anything low profile about my dad. He’s definitely not your usual principal type with a potbelly and a comb-over, that’s for sure. He played hockey for the Montreal Canadiens for one season before he blew out his knee and had to quit. He’s super tough and really tall, and even though he’s pushing fifty, he’s still totally ripped. He’s the only guy I know his age who actually has a six-pack.
To match his tough looks, he has a tough motto: No Mercy. Which means the minute he stepped through the doors of the middle school, he started running the place like a military unit. He instituted a demerit system, and in addition to the major offenses—like talking back to a teacher or skipping school—people started getting infractions for little things like walking around with their shirts untucked or having their phones out. All of a sudden, students were getting regular detentions and suspensions, and sometimes expulsions. They started referring to my father as “Mad Dog Stone.”
And that was fine for him, I suppose, since he had all the muscle. It’s not so great, though, if you’re someone like me and are forced to spend your days surrounded by angry teenagers who are nursing serious revenge fantasies and begging for someone to take them out on.
From the first day of class, it was like every student in the school grew a set of infrared Terminator eyeballs—you know, the ones that generate computer stats down one side about whatever you happen to be looking at.
As soon as they scoped me out, I’m sure this is what they saw:
Object: Will Stone
Origin: son of Mad Dog Stone, the most hated man at Boundary Street Middle School
Age: 13
Height: five-foot-nothing
Weight: 100 lbs
Risk: object is of no threat; he is powerless, pathetic, and couldn’t play hockey if he was paid good money to do it
Mission: KILL! KILL! KILL!
You might be thinking that with my father as principal, most bullies would make a point to avoid me, but you couldn’t be more wrong about that. Once they realized there was nothing they could do to me that would make me tell on them, I was totally fair game.
And I wouldn’t tell, no matter what. Not even under direct examination by my father, which happened from time to time.
Like the Tuesday following the game that ruined my already crappy life, for example. My dad sent a message to one of my teachers that I was to see him the minute school ended. He didn’t come to tell me himself, most likely because he’d barely spoken to me since the night of the game except to say on the drive home, “That equipment is expensive. You shouldn’t leave it lying around.”
