CHAPTER NINE  

Mambo’s voice echoed in Kenzie’s head the next morning.

One—drop!

“Ugh,” Kenzie groaned. She rolled out of bed and onto the floor. She felt like she’d hardly slept. She had tossed and turned all night, her brain replaying the scene at the park over and over.

Two—up!

Kenzie slid her backpack on at the front door. Why did she have to explode at Shelly like that? Why couldn’t Kenzie just tell her about the feelings she got whenever Bree was around? Kenzie was used to sharing secrets with Shelly, not keeping them from her. But things with Tomoko and the team were getting so complicated. Mambo was right: Kenzie had to skate forward. If she and Shelly were going to play derby, that meant they needed to work together.

Which also meant Kenzie needed to apologize.

“Hey.” Kenzie stopped in front of her classroom. Shelly stood in their usual spot. Her brow was furrowed.

“Are you talking to me?” she asked. “Or to someone who hasn’t ruined everything?”

“I’m sorry,” Kenzie said. “After what happened with Bree, I was really embarrassed. But I shouldn’t have said that to you.”

Shelly pressed her lips together. “You were the one who said you didn’t like Bree as a friend,” she said. “I didn’t think you had a crush on her. And it’s really important to get another skater for the team.”

Kenzie hung her head. All her feelings were wrapped tightly together like strings that had gotten tangled in a drawer. If Kenzie told Shelly the truth about Bree . . . then she might spill everything bothering her about Tomoko and the M&M handshake, and the team would fall apart before they even got started.

“I don’t have a crush on anyone,” Kenzie said, swallowing her secret inside her. She was beginning to understand a little bit better how her dad felt in his “before” stories.

Shelly squinted at Kenzie like she was reading something on her forehead. She still looked a little mad.

“We’ll find another skater for the team. Today. I promise.” Kenzie offered her hand to Shelly. Shelly paused for a moment, then bumped Kenzie’s fist.

“OK,” Shelly said. “Let’s do this.”

Kenzie grinned.

Tomoko and Jules came around the corner.

“The rest of Team Derby!” Shelly said. The girls all tapped hands.

“I don’t think that’ll stick,” Tomoko said. “All the basketball teams I know have real names.”

Kenzie glanced at Shelly. Since they were the ones who formed the team, they should be the ones to come up with a name. Not Tomoko.

“Let’s wait until we get a full team first,” Shelly said.

Kenzie nodded.

“Speaking of a full team,” Jules said, “any ideas on where we’re going to find our last member?”

The girls all waited for someone else to come up with a plan.

“Hey! Maybe we should brainstorm,” Shelly said.

Jules grimaced. “I thought teachers came up with brainstorming as a torture device.”

“No,” Shelly said. “Kenzie’s mom has us do it all the time, and it works! That’s how we got the idea to form a derby team in the first place. Come on, let’s go to the meeting spot.”

Shelly turned for the bathroom. Kenzie paused a moment, then followed with the rest. Since when did the bathroom become the team meeting spot?

The door closed behind Kenzie. Shelly, Tomoko, and Jules stood in a semicircle by the sink in the corner. A girl at the middle sink eyed them as she wrestled her hair into a bun.

“Come on,” Shelly said, waving Kenzie over. “Only ten minutes until class starts.”

Kenzie swung her backpack around and unzipped the main pocket. She reached deep in her pack, way past her notebooks, to the black hole where graded spelling tests and unfinished activity sheets liked to vanish. She fished out a crumpled ball of paper that turned out to be a parent permission slip she thought she lost three months ago. She smoothed it out and flipped it to the blank side. Jules handed over a pencil that was barely longer than Kenzie’s pinkie finger. Kenzie looked at Jules.

“What?” Jules said. “I like my pencils extra sharp.”

“OK,” Shelly said. “List time. We need to find someone who’s skated before. What are some ways we can get our last member?”

“Ooh! I’ve got one,” Jules said. Everyone turned to her. “It starts like this: First, we prank-call the secretary and tell her to come see something going on at the playground. Then, while she’s gone, we sneak past her desk and break into the principal’s office. We take over that thing with the huge speakers. What’s it called?”

“The intercom?” Kenzie asked.

“Yeah,” Jules said, “the intercom. Then, when it’s time for morning announcements, we’ll tell the whole school about roller derby! I’ll bet we could get at least one skater to come to practice that way.”

The others stared at Jules.

“That’s your idea?” Tomoko said.

Jules nodded.

Intercom takeover, Kenzie wrote on the list.

“I don’t even know where to start about how bad that plan is,” Tomoko said.

“It’s a great plan!” Jules huffed. “If you think it’s so awful, you come up with something.”

“What if we had a bake sale?” Shelly said. “And then we could use the money to pay someone.”

“They should want to be on the team without being paid,” Kenzie said. She wondered if Shelly was thinking of Bree specifically.

Even though Kenzie didn’t think they needed to raise money, she still wrote Bake sale down. That was one of the rules of brainstorming: No idea was too out there to go on the list.

“We can’t really do a bake sale in one day anyway,” Tomoko said. “I don’t think complicated ideas are going to work.”

“The whole point of brainstorming is to get lots of ideas,” Shelly said. “Then you can cross things off later.”

“Yeah,” Jules said. “You still haven’t added anything.”

Tomoko sighed. “OK,” she said. “There’s this thing in basketball right when the buzzer’s about to go off and the quarter is over. Whoever has the ball, even if they’re way on the other side of the court, has to throw it at their basket.”

“And?” Shelly said.

“It’s called a Hail Mary,” Tomoko explained. “And most of the time the ball doesn’t make it through the hoop. But once in a blue moon, the Hail Mary works and you get the shot. I think we need a lot of Hail Marys today.”

Hail Mary, Kenzie wrote on the list.

“So we’re throwing things at people?” Jules asked.

“No,” Tomoko said. “We ask a bunch of kids about derby. Like, as many kids as possible. And we hope that one—a skater—says yes.”

“I like it!” Shelly said. “Let’s go with that idea first. Talk to as many people as you can in class, over lunch, and at recess.”

Kenzie shrugged. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

The girls threw their hands into the circle between them.

“Go, team!” Shelly said.

They raised their hands in the air, then set off on Operation Hail Mary.