AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My stomach takes his knee and knocks the breath out of my lungs. I roll off Terence onto my back, the grass tickling my neck.
“What… on… earth…” he manages to get out, and I’m comforted that it’s not just me who can’t produce words.
“Missed… the…” I huff.
“What?”
“Violets.” I point to his flowerbed, where the violets have been safely spared from the double human cannonball that landed at their side.
He turns his head to the flowers and then back at me.
“You’re looney.”
“You shouldn’t guide roller derby types onto your lawn.”
The sound of barking fills the air.
“You’ve upset Ranger.” Terence stands up. “You know he can’t stand seeing people in distress when he can’t do anything to save them.” Terence runs to the front door to let Ranger, his border collie, out.
I know what’s coming. I don’t even bother to try to stand.
“Kiss alert!” I shout just as a giant tongue slathers me with love. “I know, Ranger. I know. It’s been a whole two days since—ew! You just licked the roof of my mouth! Not the mouth, Ranger, not the–”
He stands with his front paws on my shoulders, his backside on my stomach. I’m not going anywhere until Ranger is convinced that I’m okay and unhurt.
That’s the thing about an avalanche dog. You can take the search and rescue dog out of the mountains, but he’ll still search and rescue you when you’re flat on your back after flying like a roller derbying bird through the air.
With a bemused look and a raised eyebrow, Terence observes the love smothering. “Will you explain this getup now?”
“No getup. It’s my equipment. Okay, boy, you see? I’m all right. Let me stand up, huh?” Ranger removes himself from my torso so that I can stand and reveal the full splendor of my getup.
Did I just call it a getup? I mean my equipment.
Terence shakes his head. “Did we just fall into the eighties, or are you off for cosplay?”
“Roller derby is making a comeback, and rightly so. Besides, what do you know about cosplay?”
“I—uh—nothing.”
I narrow my eyes. “Why are you blushing?”
“Nothing.”
I know Terence. I know everything he’s done since he was six years old. Ever since he tripped me coming out for recess during the third day of first grade.
He was the scrawny new kid at school with a white-blond mop of hair, crystal blue eyes, and an attitude like he was the king of the world.
And then he tripped me.
See, I was the most popular and well-loved classmate of the first-grade class at P.S. 62. I’d known all those kids since birth. But Terence took me down with a quick lift of his foot as I exited for recess.
When I landed face first on the asphalt, all the other first graders stared in awe. No one had ever taken me on during the previous year in kindergarten. I was the most popular and well loved, after all.
Even then, I saw what Terence was doing. He was the new kid from somewhere across a big ocean (actually, he was born in Boston, but my parents didn’t know that until later).
He was testing me.
Six-year-old me understood the dynamics at play. He was vying for position. I didn’t mind sharing my spot, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with behavior like that.
