“Try a pair of these on,” he said, passing me a pair of black boots.
I could hardly tie up the laces, my fingers had suddenly gone so trembly. “There,” I said finally. “Blimey, they’re heavy, aren’t they?”
“Need to be, mate,” he said. “You need good, solid support round your ankles when you’re ’boarding. Don’t want you toppling over to the side, do we?”
“Suppose not,” I said. I’m telling you, my feet really did look cool in those boots. I suddenly wished the others were there to see me, Kenny, about to have a go on a real, humungously big snowboard!
“Now, step on to the board,” he told me. “Let me fix the bindings for you.” He fastened up some straps and clasps – and then suddenly my feet were firmly joined to the board. It felt dead weird!
I tried lifting a foot up experimentally – and nothing happened, except I gave this sort of wobble…
“Whoooaaaa!” I said, arms flailing about.
Nick grabbed hold of me. “Easy, tiger,” he said, laughing at my face. “Not as easy as it looks, is it, just standing still?”
“It’s so weird!” I said. “And you can really slide down snowy mountains on one of these?”
“Oh, yeah!” he said, chuckling. “And it’s a lot more exciting than just standing in a sports shop in Cuddington, I can tell you! To take a corner, you just have to lean to the left or right – and round you go!”
I closed my eyes and put my arms out to the sides to keep my balance. “OK, I’m in the Swiss Alps,” I said, imagining as hard as I could. “It’s a gorgeous sunny day and there’s tons of snow everywhere.”
“And you’re right at the top of this awesome. mountain and… you’re off!” Nick said, going along with my pretend. “And you’re whizzing down as fast as you can go, snow spraying up on either side of you – to the left, to the right – watch out for that tree!”
I opened my eyes with a jump, and we both started to laugh.
“You’re pretty good for a beginner,” he teased. “Shame about the tree, though!”
“Oh, well, it shouldn’t have been in my way,” I joked. I looked down at my feet and sighed. “I wish Leicester wasn’t quite so… flat,” I said.
“Not many mountains around, are there?” Nick agreed.
“I’m trying to talk my mum and dad into a snowy holiday over Christmas,” I said hopefully – even though I knew it was about as likely as them taking us to Mars after my stairboarding tricks. “Where would be a good place to go?”
His eyes brightened at the thought. “Well, at this time of year, France would be good enough, if you don’t want to go far. The Alps would be great – there are some wicked resorts there. Or Italy. Or Switzerland. Or Austria. And we Aussies get snow too, in Victoria…”
He groaned out loud, then laughed as he started unfastening my boots. “Now we’re just torturing ourselves,” he said. “There’s always those indoor places if you can’t talk your parents into a holiday.”
I frowned. “It’s not really the same though, is it?”
He shook his head. “It’s not the same, but it’s better than nothing.” He yanked the boots off my feet and put them back in a box. “At least you can learn how to do it before you get on the real slopes, eh?”
“True,” I said, thoughtfully. I’d just remembered Emma saying something about it the other night, only I’d been too cross to pay any attention. Hmmm!
“Well, pop in any time you want more info – always happy to help out a fellow fan,” he said. “I can bore you with more of my stories about surfing and snowboarding my way around the world for as long as you like!”
“Thanks!” I blurted out, feeling myself going pink. “Brilliant!” (I know it sounds like I’m being Flissy but he really did have a nice smile. Honest!)
“No probs, Kenny,” he said. “See you around!”
I cycled home as if I was cycling on air. As you know, I’m not the soppy type AT ALL, but Nick was really… amazing. The kind of person I just wanted to talk to for hours and hours and hours. He was so COOL – to think he’d been to all those places and could do all those excellent, exciting, dangerous things! I was just totally totally impressed, and suddenly understood what Mrs Weaver was on about when she talked about role models. I’d never really paid much attention to it before, but now I had my very own role model – I wanted to be just like Nick!
After school the next day, I went round to Frankie’s house for tea before Brownies. I love going round to Frankie’s house. For starters, her parents are really cool and friendly and speak to you like you’re grown-up and not just some school kid. Plus she’s got no horrid brothers or sisters (well, not yet, anyway – her mum’s having a baby in a month or two actually) so she has a bedroom all to herself. Plus ’cos she’s an only child, she has everything a kid could possibly want – a computer, loads of games, a telly in her bedroom… She is seriously kitted out, that girl.
When I went round there that night, it was all a bit different, though. Like I said, Frankie’s mum is nearly eight months pregnant and apparently her blood pressure has gone dead high (that’s how fast your heart pumps blood round the body, by the way – and if it gets too fast or too slow, you’re in trouble, Dad says). So she’s not working at the moment and Frankie’s been a bit worried about her.
Maybe it was partly my fault that everything had gone a bit strange there. You see, I’d asked Dad if he could help Frankie’s mum at all, with him being a doctor and that.
“No,” he’d said. “There’s nothing I can prescribe for her – she’ll just have to relax and take it easy.” Then he pushed his glasses up his nose thoughtfully. “Maybe your friend Frankie could do a bit more around the house to help out – I’m sure that will be good for both of them!”
Typical parent remark, so I was kind of expecting Frankie to ignore it when I told her. “Help out around the house?” she’d said at the time. “Right.” And I’d thought that would be the end of it. I wasn’t expecting Frankie to turn into a housemaid!
Usually when I go round to her house, me and Frankie go straight up to her room and get stuck into some Playstation games. Or, if it’s summer, we go out and mess about in the garden, or take our bikes out, or… Have fun, basically.
This night, though, we went straight into the kitchen. Now, I don’t know about you, but I tend to leave the kitchen area to parents. The only time I go in there is to make myself one of my hunger-buster sandwiches or to sneak some biscuits out of the tin while Mum’s not looking. If I’m really unlucky, I’ll be in there to wash up if I’m trying to get in Mum and Dad’s good books. But that’s about my limit!
This time though, Frankie was straight in there, apron on, filling the kettle with water and emptying the dishwasher. I hovered in the doorway, wondering what she was up to.
“Camomile tea, Mum?” Frankie called through to the living room where her mum was lying on the sofa.
She caught me looking at her with my gob hanging right open, and wiped her hands briskly on the apron. “It’s relaxing,” she told me. “Good for her.”
“Frankie, you’re acting like someone’s aunt,” I told her. “Shall we go and play Tomb Raider or something?”
“I’ll just sort Mum out first,” she said, like an old mother hen. She got out a tray and put this cup of yucky-smelling camomile tea and a banana on it, then frowned at the heating switch on the wall. “It’s a bit cold in here,” she sniffed.