CHAPTER 1
Conner Klout was on his back. He could hear his skateboard rolling back and forth along the bottom of the half-pipe next to him.
“Fail!” his friend Hannah Lowery shouted. She stood at the top of the half-pipe, ten feet above him.
Conner waited for his board to roll to a stop against his thigh. Then he grabbed it and sat up.
“You have to admit,” he said, “I came pretty close that time.”
“Close to ending up with a concussion?” Hannah replied with a smirk.
“Very funny,” Conner said, climbing to his feet.
“Watch out,” Hannah said. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Conner dropped his board and rolled off the half-pipe to make room for Hannah. Before he’d even turned to watch, Hannah dropped in. She took a few passes back and forth to pick up speed.
On the third pass, Hannah got some air off the far side of the pipe. She flew straight up from the ramp, pulled up her knees, grabbed her skateboard, and spun around completely. A perfect Indy 360.
“Yes!” Conner shouted.
For pros, an Indy 360 was a basic trick. But for Conner and Hannah, it was a pretty big deal. Conner still couldn’t do it, which is why he had ended up flat on his back at the bottom of the ramp at the end of his turn.
Hannah took another pass and then rolled to a stop at the bottom. She pulled off her helmet, and Conner gave her a high five.
“Not bad, huh?” Hannah said.
“Amazing,” Conner said. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that Hannah was better than he was on the half-pipe. “I’ll get it eventually, though.”
“Definitely,” Hannah agreed. “And for now, you wreck me on the street course anyway.”
Slim’s Skate Park, the only indoor skate park in Hilltop, had a full street course. Hannah and Conner had raced through it many times, and Conner always won. The park also had lots of ramps of different sizes. It only had one half-pipe, though.
The park opened at 8:00 on Saturdays, and Conner and Hannah were always the first ones there. Usually no one else showed up until almost lunchtime.
“I’m going to take another shot at it,” Conner said. He stood up and hopped onto the bottom of the ramp.
“Watch out, newbie,” called a voice from the top.
Conner squinted up the pipe. The bright lights mounted on the high ceiling shined in his eyes.
“Where’d you come from?” Hannah said, glaring up at the top of the ramp.
Conner shaded his eyes. A big guy, not much older than they were, stood at the top of the ramp, ready to drop in.
“Doesn’t matter,” the guy said. “Tell your friend to snap out of it and get out of my way before I run him over.” Without waiting for a response, he dropped in.
Conner hurried off the ramp and stood next to Hannah. Two other boys came up behind them.
“Watch this,” one of them said. “Hank will show you what good skating really is.”
The other boy laughed as Hank picked up some speed on the pipe. “Yeah,” he said. “We sure got a kick out of watching you two celebrate that lame Indy.”
Both boys cracked up as Hank started his tricks on the pipe. He did an Indy 360 easily. On the next pass he added a rotation to make it a 540 and did the next pass backwards.
After he got some speed, Hank went for the big one — a 720. He landed it easily. Behind Conner and Hannah, his friends cheered and hollered.
Even Conner clapped. He’s really good, he thought. Even if his friends are kind of annoying.
Hank rolled off the ramp and came to a stop in front of them.
“That was really great,” Hannah said. “I’ve never seen you at the park before, though. Did you just move here or something?”
Hank grinned at her, but he didn’t answer. He just stood there with his hands on his hips and looked back and forth from Hannah to Conner.
“Yeah,” Conner said, trying to break the silence. “Really impressive. I can’t even pull off that 360 yet.”
Hank stepped aside. “Take your turn,” he said. “Drew, Jay, and I want to skate.”
Conner stepped onto his board to enter the pipe. Just as his foot hit the skateboard, Hank took a menacing step toward him, like he was going to knock him off.
Conner flinched. His board shot out from under him, and he fell to the floor.
“Wow,” said Hank as his friends laughed at Conner on the floor. “I wasn’t going to hit you, dork.”
Conner looked up at Hank, but he didn’t say anything.
“That was pretty mean,” Hannah said. She helped Conner to his feet.
“Whatever,” Hank said. He turned to his friends. “Let’s run the street course until the babies are done on the half-pipe.”
Hannah crossed her arms and stared at Conner as Hank, Drew, and Jay rolled off.
“What?” Conner said.
“I can’t believe you let him do that!” Hannah said.
“What was I supposed to do?” Conner said. “Fight him? He’s huge! Besides, I didn’t come here to fight. I came here to skate.”
“So you’re just going to let him get away with it?” Hannah said.
Conner watched as Hank started running the street course. The big new kid did a grind across a rail followed by a kick-flip. Then he turned and coasted up and over some ramps.
“You’re really not going to do anything?” Hannah asked.
Conner took a deep breath and shook his head. “No way,” he said.