I bet you never thought standing up would be difficult, did you? You have to try this, then! Standing up when your feet are fastened to a bit of wood is reeeeallly tricky!! Take it from someone who knows.
“The main thing to remember is, always put the same weight on both feet,” Suzi told us. “Have a go. If you get really stuck, roll over on to your knees and then stand up that way.”
Well, one by one we just about managed to get up and stand there in a line on our boards. But then Lyndz started wobbling, made a grab for Rosie – and the pair of them collapsed down face first into the snow! I found myself giggling so much I thought I was going to go the same way and had to clutch at Frankie to keep myself vertical. This was going to be a lot harder than I’d thought!
Once we’d got used to standing up on the boards without wobbling off, we started going down the baby slope – or bunny slope, as Suzi called it. She pushed herself off and showed us how it was done – making it look like the easiest thing in the world, of course!
I went down next. WHHHEEEEEE! It was brilliant!! I stuck my arms out to the sides for balance, gritted my teeth and went down in a dead straight line, all the way to the bottom. As soon as I’d made it safely down, I promptly fell over on my bum. All the others cheered their heads off from the top.
“Way to go, girl!” yelled Frankie, punching the air.
She went next, and was just about to push herself off when Carli gave her a shove from behind…
“Wooooaaahhhhh!” Frankie shouted as she shot down the slope. She recovered her balance a bit, but was going so fast, she had to windmill her arms about to keep herself upright. “Heeeeeeellllp!” she screamed as she wobbled over and then tumbled down the hill. Bump! She landed in a heap at the bottom.
“Are you OK?” I called, scrabbling to undo my bindings. I rushed over to her – and heard Molly and Carli sniggering from the top.
Frankie struggled to her feet Tm gonna get you for that!” she yelled to Carli. Then she rubbed her bum where she’d landed on it. “Ouch,” she moaned. “This snow feels more like rock!”
Suzi rushed over. “All right there?” she asked. “You did very well, considering that blonde girl pushed you like that. If she does that again, she’ll have to sit the lesson out.”
She looked up at Carli with a frown. “You there,” she shouted. “Let’s have less of the pushing, or your lesson ends right here. Got that?”
Me and Frankie smirked at each other and pulled horrible faces at Carli behind Suzi’s back. Always good to see the enemy getting a ticking off!
Fliss was next. She looked very nervous about the whole thing, and stood there for ages, fiddling about with her bindings as if they were going to pop undone any second.
“Come on! Give it a go!” Suzi called encouragingly.
Fliss looked warily over her shoulder to check Carli and Molly were out of pushing distance. Fliss hates people doing things like that. She either gets dead cross about it or bursts into tears. When she was sure she was safe, she stood up very stiff and straight and pushed herself off, arms rigidly out to the sides, as if she were made of wood.
“Very good,” Suzi shouted as Fliss came down the slope. “Try and relax your body a bit!”
Fliss wasn’t about to relax anything for fear of toppling over. She came all the way down in the same stiff way, coming neatly to a stop at the bottom. Only then did she allow her arms to relax. She had this tiny chuffed smile and her cheeks were flushed pink.
“That was very good,” Suzi said warmly. “Your balance was excellent!”
Fliss went even pinker. “Thank you,” she said, struggling to undo her feet from the board. Her eyes were shining. “That was fun!”
Soon we’d all been down a few times and were starting to get a feel for it. Suzi taught us how to come to a clean stop by digging our back foot right into the board and leaning all our weight on to it, and then taught us how to do left and right turns on the slope. It was just so much fun, whizzing down one by one – but then when Suzi told us that our time was almost up, I nearly cried. I couldn’t believe the time had flown by so quickly!
“We’ll have one more go each, and then that’s about it for your first lesson,” she said.
“Ohhhh!” I moaned. “Already?”
She smiled at me. “Afraid so. You’ve done very well though. I think you’re a bit of a natural, Kenny!”
I glowed with pride. I was practically radioactive with glowing! A natural!! She thought I was a natural, after one lesson! How cool was that?!
I should have left it there, of course. I should have just accepted the compliment and left it at that. But no. That’s not me, is it? Kenny McKenzie always has to go one further – as I was about to prove yet again!
OK, I admit it. I was showing off.
All right, all right – so I was showing off a lot.
I just couldn’t resist it, OK?!
I was about to have my last go down the slope – and who could say when I’d get the chance to do this again? Maybe not for years!! Maybe this was the last time I’d get to snowboard until I was grown up, and that was just ages away.
The way I looked at it, it was my last chance to try something a bit… well, a bit adventurous. And there’s no need to look at me like that. I bet you’d have done the same.
“Come on, then, Kenny,” Suzi said. “Last go. Let’s see you make a left turn first, followed by a right turn to finish off with.”
“OK,” I said.
Do you ever get a voice in your head that urges you to do naughty things? I seem to get it all the time. And this time it was a loud voice. This time it was saying, “Try one of those jumps that Nick told you about!”
The sensible side of me was trying to ignore the naughty voice – but this voice was just sooooo persuasive.
“Go on, Kenz,” Frankie said. “What are you waiting for?”
“Ooh, Kenny’s scared!” Carli mocked, and started making all these chicken noises at me.
Well, if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a chicken. No-one could ever call me that!
“Right, Carli,” I thought. “I’ll show YOU!!!”
I had in mind this thing I’d seen on one of the videos in Nick’s shop. I think it’s called the corkscrew, but basically it’s someone on a snowboard jumping up and whizzing round and round in the air and then landing flat and zooming off again. COOOL!
I was a natural, wasn’t I? I reckoned I could have a go at it – and really impress Suzi!
“Watch this!” I said grandly.
I started off down the slope. Then, about a third of the way down, I bent my knees and tried to whizz myself round like I’d seen the guys on the video do. It had all looked so easy for them…
“Kenny, what are you…?” I heard Suzi call anxiously – but suddenly the world had become a blur. With a massive effort, I’d launched myself into the air, spun round and round – and landed flat on my back. YOWCH! I gave a scream as my ankle was wrenched from the snowboard and I rolled all the way down the rest of the slope, my