Freestyle with Avery (5 page)

“Unless what?” I asked. He didn’t say anything. “Come on, Dad … just tell me.”

“How are you for a helmet?”

I thought of my scratched-up black helmet. It had been feeling pretty tight around my ears lately. “I’d LOVE a new helmet!” I blurted.

Dad laughed. “I think that can be arranged.”

“Hey, Mr. M, we just got in a whole new order of pink helmets yesterday if Avery wants to try one of those,” Ricky suggested.

I looked at Dad. He looked at me. We were both thinking the same thing: NO WAY!

“That’s okay, Ricky. I’ve already set one aside for her at the register.”

“Yeah, and also … I really don’t like pink,” I explained.
That
was the understatement of the year.

I slipped on the helmet Dad had chosen—cherry red—and checked it out in the mirror. The outfit was definitely worthy of a Snurfer trophy.
But was Avery Madden worthy
?

“Need anything else?” Dad pointed to the racks of pants and tops. “Anything at all?” He held up a ski hat that looked like a Viking helmet made of fleece with two horns and long yellow yarn pigtails sewn in.

“Okay, Dad, that’s just plain scary. And besides, like you say—it’s not what you wear, it’s how you tear …
it up
!” Dad laughed at my personalized version of his rule. “Now can we get outta here already? I
need
to get to the mountain!”

“No problem. I’m out of here, Ricky,” Dad said. “Andie should be in shortly.” And finally, we headed for the Snurfmobile. It was hard to find room for my board in the trunk. “Dad, what’s your snowmobile doing back here? It’s taking up all the space.”

“Oh, that. I thought I’d use it later to hang a few posters for the Snurfer around town.”

I rolled my eyes. My brothers and I joked that Dad
looked for any excuse to drive that thing around Telluride. Dad called it his favorite toy. I wedged my new board next to the snowmobile and we were off … ready to hit the slopes.

The first thing I did when we got to the mountain was sign up for the Snurfer. I filled out all my info, printing my name as neatly as I could, and dropped it into the box by the ticket window. Dad pulled out his digital camera. “Just one. We need documentation!” I got close to Dad and he held the camera in front of us with one of his long arms. “Fleas!” we cried at the same time. Dad liked “fleas” better than “cheese” because he said it made people smile more sincerely.

“There. Now we can always remember how I got my big break!” I laughed.

Dad smiled. “So should we start on Boomerang?” he asked. Boomerang was a
blue square
run, which meant that it wasn’t too difficult. I knew he was choosing a blue square run for my sake—as a warm up. But it was a deep pow-pow day, so starting on a blue square was fine by me. “Oh, and here’s your lift ticket.”

“Thanks!” I fastened the tag on my zipper. “Are you shreddy?” I asked, pulling my goggles over my eyes.

“Are you?” Dad smiled and looked toward the mountain. “Race you to the gondola!” he declared. And with that, he took off. People turned to watch Dad pump his way through the crowd, creating a flurry of snow. He was tall and skinny in his bright blue outfit with the Snurfman jester cap flopping everywhere. It was a pretty funny sight.

“No fair, I wasn’t shreddy yet!” I huffed and puffed
after him. I wasn’t totally used to the altitude, either.

The gondola was free so people could ride from the base up to the Mountain Village to shop, eat, watch a competition, or just check out the view. It was going to be an amazing snowboarding day—I could tell just from looking out of the gondola. The trees were covered with snow, which meant one thing: deep powder runs.

The lift zipped us up to the top of the mountain, where fresh snow was just beginning to fall. It was finally time to ride. “Sweet runs, here I come!” I shouted as I paddled myself to a bench to buckle my boots. I was totally ready to go, but Dad was still wiping his goggles. Time for revenge. “Hey Dad … race you to the halfway point!” And I was off. He seemed surprised to see me float by, but smiled and waved me along. For the first ride of the season, Dad always had my back.

The trail started off slowly and I took wide, graceful turns in the fluffy snow. My legs were jelly at first, but soon I felt as if I’d never been away from the mountain. I thought of a bumper sticker on the Snurfmobile: “Born to Ride.”
That’s me
! I thought.

Wind whistled past my helmet and gigantic snowflakes ricocheted off my goggles. I was about to shout when I heard a loud “Whooooo-hooooo!” whizzing by. It was Dad! I went into a
tuck
position and whooshed even faster. Dad and I weaved around the trail and stopped when we reached a post with signs and arrows that told us which trails were for beginners, intermediates, experts, and the completely insane!

“Is this nirvana or what?!” Dad exclaimed.

“Ner—what?” I asked as I tried to catch my breath.

Dad laughed. “It means a state of heavenly tranquility,” he explained.

“Oh yeah, then this is
definitely
nirvana!”

“Better than soccer?” Dad challenged me with a grin.

“Don’t even go there! That’s like … that’s like asking me which BSG is my favorite.
Impossible
.”

I was about to push off again, when Dad caught my shoulder. “Hold up a second, Ave. See that group of boarders coming down the
double black diamond
? Keep your eyes peeled for the pink helmet. Watch.”

I squinted and focused in on a bright pink figure bouncing over moguls. She turned at the bottom where her trail intersected with ours and coasted toward us at avalanche speed. Just when I thought she was going to crash into me, she slid to a quick stop, sending a mini snowstorm all over us. It was a move that I used to pull on my brothers all the time … but no one had ever sprayed
me
with snow before!

“Jake the Snake!” said the girl. She wore a magenta jacket with orange pants. Blond braids woven with purple ribbons hung from her matching pink helmet. I had a pretty good guess where the helmet came from. The crew of boarders hung back a few yards away.

Dad held up his glove and slapped her hands in a series of high fives, like a secret handshake or something. “You almost gave me a heart attack!” Dad laughed. “Way to make an entrance!”

“How sweeeet is this shredding, Snurfman?” Pink girl pulled up her goggles. “Talk about perfect pow-pow!”

“Better believe it!” Dad agreed and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Kazie, this is my daughter, Avery. She just got in yesterday from Boston. Avery, this is the one and only Crazie Kazie, Andie’s daughter.”

“Hey, nice to meet you,” I said slowly.

“Nice to meet you too.” Kazie grabbed my hand and squeezed—hard. She was more than a whole head taller than me, probably as tall as my friend Katani. The kids behind her all looked a little older than me too.
Were they high schoolers?
I wondered. Kazie tilted her head at them and raised her eyebrows. “You guys want to come with?” she asked.

I glanced at Dad and tried to send him a psychic message.
Say no
…
Say no
… But I think we must have been disconnected, because a huge grin spread on his face.

“Wow! That’s nice of you, Kazie. What do you say, Ave? Want to go?”

“Um …” I stalled. These kids seemed cool enough, but I didn’t feel like dealing with new people. This was supposed to be my day with Dad … not Kazie’s. “Nah, that’s okay,” I mumbled.

Dad looked confused. “You sure? Kazie’s
crippler
is world famous.”

Boy, our psychic line was
way
off. For a second, I wished I were a skier so I could tap Dad with my ski pole.
Hello? Get a clue! This is kind of weird for me
. “I still want to warm up a little,” I explained. It was true—well, kind of.

“Come ON, Kazie!” one of the kids shouted. “Let’s shred it up already!”

“Yo, chillax,” Kazie called back. “Okay, well, I’ll see you tonight, Jake-the-snake-Snurf-dude-man!
Sick
riding, Avery. Later gators!” Kazie and another kid rode toward a major snow ramp and flew off it at the same time. In midair, they bent their knees and their snowboard bottoms smacked,
bonking
perfectly. The echo boomed through the trees even after they disappeared over the slope.

Was that my competition
?

“How old is she again?” I asked.

“Thirteen.”

My jaw dropped.

“She’s really tall for her age,” Dad added.

Now I felt more charged than ever. As we boarded
on down the mountain, I focused on my moves. No more kids’ stuff. Dad and I reached the bottom and we took the chairlift back up.

“Are Kazie’s parents divorced too?” I asked when we were seated in the rocking car.

“Actually, Kazie’s dad died in a car accident when she was three.”

“Oh,” I said. I suddenly felt really sorry for Kazie. “You know my friend Charlotte? Her mom died when she was little too.” I leaned against Dad, and he put his arm around me. Even though I didn’t say anything, I knew he understood that I felt really lucky to have both my parents, even if I couldn’t see them at the same time.

“Andie’s a fantastic mom, though. She’s raised Kazie all on her own and works full-time. She’s helped friends open sporting goods stores in seven different states—even in New Hampshire, where Andie’s from. Andie says she’s a ski bum for life, but she’s really talented at what she does. You know, skiing and working. And being a mom.”

Dad sure did have a lot of nice things to say about Andie. I couldn’t help feeling bad for my mom a little. I mean, Dad and Mom were friends and all, but still … “Is that why Kazie’s so good at boarding?” I asked. “Getting to go all the time?”

“Well … it certainly doesn’t hurt. You only ride a few weeks a year, and you’re
still
an awesome boarder. That says something, Avery.” We passed the sign that said “Ski Tips UP” and I flipped up the safety bar on the chair. Dad pulled on his goggles. “Shreddy Freddy?”

I smiled. “You bet!”

The
halfpipe
looked like, well, half of a pipe—prime for tricks and turns. The snow had been groomed carefully into two steep sides with a rounded center. I watched Dad sail down the pipe riding
fakie
, zip up the other side, catch big air, turn, and slide down. He looked up at me from the bottom.

This was it—no hesitation. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and cried “GERONIMO!” at the top of my lungs. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it could burst out of my chest. I went right up the side of the pipe, picking up speed till I popped into the air—really flying. I grabbed the
nose
of my board, getting perfect
slob air
, and gravity pulled me back to the icy wall. I switched my stance and slid downhill riding backward, then popped up in the air from the other side. I landed again without turning—BAM—an
air-to-fakie
. Avery Madden, Snowboarding Superstar, was BACK!

The rest of the way down the pipe was easy. I flew up the wall, made a clean
alley-oop
, rotating 180 degrees, and slid back down.

I sailed through the bottom of the pipe with both arms in the air. When I stopped, I heard a voice behind me say, “That’s my girl. You’ve always been a natural.” Dad had been watching me the whole time. I felt a warm glow inside that got bigger and bigger and spread through my entire body. “Time for a hot chocolate break?” he asked.

“Big time!” I looked up at Dad in his funny hat. This “quality time” thing was turning out to be super fun after all. “By the way, Dad, my new board is wicked cool!”

He grinned. “Ahh,
wicked
, huh?” Wicked was one
of my best funny Boston words, and Dad hadn’t been to Boston in a long time.

We unsnapped our boards and headed to the Village. We could definitely handle an early lunch.

It was late afternoon by the time Dad and I got back from the slopes. I could see Marty’s tail wagging from his window seat when we pulled in the driveway. I opened the door and ran inside with my boots still on. “Marty … I’m hoooooome!” I called.

Marty leaped into my arms and licked my face.

“Looks like the Abominable Snow Monster paid us a visit today,” Dad said.

I turned and saw the trail of white chunks that my boots had left on the wooden floor. “Ooops! Can’t take ’em off though! I still gotta walk Marty.”

I knew that Marty was full of saved-up energy. He ran so fast around the block that we had to go around again. On round two, I demonstrated some of my halfpipe moves on little snow mounds along the sidewalk. “What do you think about this one, huh Marty man?” I slid off the pile backward and grabbed my feet. “That’s called a
grab
. It looks a lot cooler on a board.”

Marty spun around twice on the ground to show me he had been working on his moves too. “Not bad … not bad at all!” I told him. Maybe the dog-on-snowboard thing could work out after all.

When we returned home, the air was full of delicious dinner scents. “Savory,” as Scott would say—the word he used to describe things that were tasty from
flavor
instead of
sweetness
.