CHAPTER 6
Hannah and Brian couldn’t believe what they were hearing.
Just minutes before, they had been so excited as they zoomed down the mountain.
Now, they were confused and upset.
“What?” Brian said, struggling to figure out what to say. “What do you mean? Why is it our last run?”
“Oh, not for you,” Zach said. Then he pointed at Hannah. “For her.”
Zach started to glide away on his board.
“Hold on a minute,” Brian called after him. “What are you talking about?”
Zach stopped in his tracks. He spun back toward them. His face was angry, but he had a bit of a smirk, too.
“Look,” he said. “I’ll make this simple for you. Our snowboard cross team has one simple rule: No girls.”
Hannah and Brian looked at each other, completely confused.
Hannah had heard from her parents about times when girls weren’t allowed to do a lot of the things that boys were allowed to do.
But those times were long gone.
Hannah had never been told she couldn’t do something just because she was a girl.
She had no idea what to say.
Brian was just plain angry.
“You can’t do that, Zach, even if your mom is the manager!” he yelled. “That’s discrimination!”
Zach laughed out loud. “I can do whatever I want,” he said. “If it wasn’t for me, there would be no team. And I’m not going to be caught snowboarding on the same team with any girls.”
Brian was astonished. “Are you kidding?” he said. “You’re kidding, right? Even you can’t be this mean.”
“It’s not about being mean,” Zach said.
“I want to win. Period. That’s all I care about,” Zach added. “And I can’t win if I have a girl on my team.”
Brian was trying to stay calm. He thought he might have a way to reason with Zach.
“Hey, man, you’re making a mistake,” he said. “Hannah’s as good a skier and snowboarder as any of us out here. It shouldn’t matter if she’s a girl, as long as she’s good enough. And she’s more than good enough.”
Zach’s response was quick. “I don’t care,” he said.
Now Brian was back to being angry. “Well, I do care,” he said. “I care a lot. And so do the other guys here.”
Brian was moving toward Zach as he spoke. By the time he was done, he was in Zach’s face. “If Hannah can’t be on the team, then none of us will be, either,” Brian said. “You won’t have a team at all!”
Brian backed up a bit. He felt like he had made his point.
Zach let out a sigh. “Well, that would be a shame,” he said. “Because my mom made a new rule at the resort: The only kids who get free snowboarding are the kids on the snowboard cross team.”