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    Skate Freak
    Skate Freak
    Skate Freak
    Ebook69 pages44 minutes

    Skate Freak

    By Lesley Choyce

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Dorf is all about skateboarding and so far that's worked out fine. But now that he's in a new city, the terrain has changed. He's no longer free to skateboard where he wishes, school is more difficult, and his passion for skateboarding garners him the nickname and reputation of a freak. With daring stunts he gains the grudging respect of local troublemakers, but he needs to tap into another kind of courage to effect real change.

    Also available in French.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateOct 1, 2008
    ISBN9781554697151
    Skate Freak
    Author

    Lesley Choyce

    Lesley Choyce is an award-winning author of more than 100 books of literary fiction, short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, young adult novels and several books in the Orca Soundings line. His works have been shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the White Pine Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award, among others. Lesley lives in Nova Scotia.

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      Book preview

      Skate Freak - Lesley Choyce

      Jody

      chapter one

      If it’s worth doing, do it. If it’s not worth doing, do it anyway. That’s my motto. It keeps me going.

      Leaving Willis Harbor knocked the wind out of me. Moving to the city was not my idea. I liked my old hometown by the sea. I had lots of time to myself. I had the sea. I had my skateboard. I was the only skate-boarder in that small town. And I had the rocks, the Ledges, as they’re called. At the Ledges I pictured myself as the boy with wings. The Wingman.

      That’s not what they called me in the city. The guys I met at the skate park on the commons tried out a whole lot of names on me. But the one that stuck was this: Freak. Skate Freak.

      That first Friday afternoon it was crowded at the downtown skate park. Everybody knew each other. There were kids on Razors, rollerblades, mountain bikes, freewheelers and, of course, skate-boards. The skaters ruled. The other kids were just in the way. And the skaters—well, some of them were good.

      I’d never skated a real skate park, not a manmade one anyway. Back home, I had the main road, a paved roadside ditch, one church railing and—the big challenge—the Ledges. The city had half-pipes and railings just for skaters (unreal!) and more curved concrete than I’d ever seen. At least I’d found something about this ugly place that I liked.

      Skateboarding always made me feel in groove, totally chilled and high-wired at the same time. At the skate park, though, I felt none of that. I slapped my board down, kicked for speed and dropped into the middle of the bowl. Way too many people were zigzagging crazy patterns back and forth. It was madness.

      I was getting some nasty looks. But I couldn’t leave, even though that was what those ugly staring faces said without one word. It was clear I was not liked. Was it the way I looked? Was it my hair? Or was it just me?

      That’s exactly what it was. It was me. I was new. I was not one of them. This is what they did here. Make the new guy feel like used toilet paper. Then flush him.

      And flush they did.

      I dropped down one side of the half-pipe and rolled up the other. I wasn’t trying to impress anybody. Two guys looped around me on their boards, breathing down my neck—some kind of test. I decided to be cool and pretend nothing was happening. I had as much right to skate here as they did.

      I had to kick my board up twice to keep from running into a couple of younger kids, barely rug rat graduates. They both shot me looks like they hated me. For what? I kept wondering.

      For being alive, they seemed to say. But that was just in my head. I kept at it, smooth and easy, nothing fancy. I increased my speed so that I hit the lip of the half-pipe, almost got air but didn’t, and then I drove for the bottom, angry enough that if I had run into someone, I wouldn’t have cared.

      From behind, someone finally spoke. Hey, freak, were the words.

      The guy on the bike who spoke the words slammed down on me. The front wheel of his bike landed on the backs of my ankles. I folded forward until my knees hit the ground. The rest of my carcass followed until my lips were kissing concrete.

      And all I thought was, Man, I hope my board is okay.

      I’m not saying it didn’t hurt. It hurt a lot, especially where my forehead followed my lips into the relationship with the concrete.

      I lay there trying to figure out which part of my body hurt the worst.

      I decided it was my pride. Sure, my lips were bleeding and my head was scraped and hurting and the backs of my legs felt like—well, they felt like someone had landed a mountain bike on them.

      And the guy on the bike was riding away. He never went down. He had used me like I was just another rock in an obstacle course. I saw the name on the back of his jacket: Hodge. What kind of name was that?

      As I lay there trying to recover, I realized that people were laughing. And then a skater coming down the half-pipe was yelling at me. Actually, it wasn’t one, but two. The second skater was coming from the opposite side.

      I waited for the delivery, but it never came.

      Both skaters swerved around me and continued on. They were good. I rolled left, grabbed my board and

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