Freerunner

  Free Runner

  David Trifunov

  James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers

  Toronto

  For my parents, Rick and Kathleen.

  1

  Mall Mayhem

  I laughed when I saw them — noise-cancelling headphones. I stole them anyway.

  Well, not right away.

  Aren’t headphones supposed to be noisy? I thought as I scanned the box.

  I had only been in Ottawa for a month. I didn’t like it. The Rideau Centre mall was surrounded by homeless people. But it was filled with people who had too many homes: condos, cottages and vacation homes. I had no idea whether I belonged inside or outside. A woman’s sleeve brushed my roughed up army surplus jacket as she headed for the checkout. All I could smell was flowery perfume. That scent probably cost more than what my mom spends on groceries in a month. Behind the woman was a girl about my age, maybe fourteen. Her tennis shoes were bright white and had sleek pink logos on the sides. She was carrying some kind of new tablet. Her lips were tight, like she was trying to hide a satisfied smile.

  I headed for the escalator. I know now I should have kept going. I couldn’t let it go, though. I reached the bottom, turned around and took the escalator right back up again. I walked back into the store and headed for the headphones.

  That girl’s mom was paying for the tablet. Since the cashier was trying to sell her junk she didn’t need, I grabbed the headphones off the shelf. In a dark, deserted corner of the store, I ripped open the box and let the headphones drop into the saddle bag hanging near my hip. I walked through the security gates at the front of the store, expecting alarms. But nothing happened. I finally breathed.

  I looked at the escalator crawling down. I’d be a sitting duck on it, so I walked through a door into the parking garage. As the door slammed shut, I collapsed against the wall. I put my hand on the bag to feel if the headphones were really there. They were.

  All I could smell was exhaust. It didn’t smell like freedom, so I forced myself to stand up again. I walked down the ramp toward the street. As I reached the sidewalk, the sun hit me and blinded me. I panicked. I couldn’t see anything. I was convinced security guards would be waiting. The girl with the tablet and her mother would probably be there too. And they’d watch security lead me away.

  My eyes adjusted. The street was empty.

  You’re such a baby sometimes, I thought.

  I decided to walk toward the front of the mall and head into downtown. Maybe I could sell the headphones at a pawn shop. Then I thought about wearing them to school. They might keep people from talking to me. Who cares if I didn’t have anything to plug them into? People would think they were wireless.

  That’s when my luck started to change — for the worse.

  The number 97 bus to Bayshore left me in a cloud of blue smoke. It meant I’d have to find something to do for a half hour until the next one came. I looked at the mall. No way I could have gone back inside. The other day I’d noticed a pawn shop a couple of blocks away. Maybe someone there would want to buy the headphones.

  “Hey, can you come with me?”

  I didn’t know the voice was talking to me at first. Then I felt someone touching my arm. I jumped and looked down. There was a hand on my wrist. I followed the hand to an arm under a long-sleeved blue shirt to a darker blue vest. On the vest were a walkie-talkie and a name tag. On the opposite side was a badge. Above the vest was a man’s face. Dark skin and sunglasses.

  I broke the hold on my wrist and ran.

  Holy, I’m running from the police, I thought.

  I turned back the way I came. Now the parking garage seemed like a safe place. There’d be lots of cars to hide between. Maybe I could climb into the bed of a pickup truck. Maybe there would be boxes or garbage bags I could hide under until the owner came back and drove out of there.

  “Stop!”

  The police officer sounded close. I skipped past the parking garage and bolted across the street.

  A blue construction fence cut me off from some high-rise buildings. I jumped and caught the steel mesh. My fingers ached and my toes nearly slipped from the tiny metal holes. An entire block of fencing nearly toppled under me.

  I found some grip and jumped again over top of it. I looked behind me. The cop had to find a longer way around. That fence bought me two more seconds to get away.

  I turned another corner. The art gallery was across the street.

  I sprinted in front of a line of cars turning left. The lead car hit the brakes, hard. Someone behind him honked. I caught a quick glimpse of the driver. She was staring at something behind me. I knew it was the cop.

  I jumped for the gallery’s fence. It was stone on the bottom. But the old metal spikes up top would do damage if I slipped. I grabbed the top of the corner pillar, put my foot on one of the spikes and jumped for the grass on the other side. It was awesome. It was like I was flying. But my plan backfired.

  The cop just followed along the other side of the fence. He never tried to jump it. We even made eye contact. He was just waiting until we hit the break in the fence. He would just grab me.

  If I was going to get out of there I had to keep taking risks.

  Next was a handrail. I could jump that too. I grabbed the bar and swung my legs over the side.

  I ran down a staircase back to the street. The cop was almost on top of me. I had one last chance to clear more construction fences and two of those giant garbage bins. Then I’d have to sprint through a construction site.

  Thankfully the garbage bin was closed. I pushed off the top of it and jumped the fence.

  I surprised a construction worker as I landed. I had to scramble over a pile of loose rock.

  “Hey, get out of here,” she yelled. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

  Maybe she was right. But I would rather risk a police chase through a construction site than answer to my mother on a shoplifting charge.

  Those rocks were my third strike.

  The pile of rocks was deeper than I had thought. My footing gave out. I sprawled onto my face.

  I could hear honking horns coming from a row of taxis parked outside the gallery. The drivers were whistling and cheering — for the cop.

  “Phew! That was awesome,” the cop said as he towered over me. “Kid, you can move! I thought you had me. But it looks like I have you, doesn’t it?”

  2

  It’s Tricky

  It was bad enough having a mall worker watching me like I was a criminal. But worse was her gum chewing. It was so loud I wanted to scream. Finally she stopped smacking her lips. The relative silence made the buzzing of the overhead lights sound like music. But she was still chewing. I wanted to say, “Don’t you know how awful that sounds? You look like a cow when you do that.” But I just stared at her, hoping she could read my mind and stop.

  She didn’t stop. All I could do was wait for the police to come back — with my mom. The cop had hauled me back to the mall’s security office. They sat me down and asked me all kinds of questions. I had to tell them my mom’s phone number at work. It was that or be taken to the police station.

  I had to think about the better choice. Mall security or the police station? Mom was going to lose her mind either way. She had told me a thousand times why she moved us from Red Rock. It was so she could get a better job and I could have more opportunities.

  Now, here I was. Just a few days at a new school in a new city and I’m caught shoplifting. Mom had to leave work early. She had to drive downtown. I know she hates driving downtown. After spending all her life in small-town Ontario, Ottawa might as well have been Los Angeles or New Y
ork City.

  I knew it was going to be bad. So I couldn’t figure out why Mom was laughing when the door opened.

  “Just because I’m laughing, Patrick, doesn’t mean I’m happy,” she said.

  I had always guessed she could read my mind. Now I knew it. I also knew she was serious. She only called me Patrick when she was serious.

  The cop was laughing too. Only five minutes together and they’ve teamed up against me, I thought. I had no chance.

  The cop sat down in one chair. Mom sat beside me.

  “You can leave now,” the cop said to the mall worker.

  I studied the cop’s vest. His name tag said, “Jack.” He was huge. I thought he was going to break the chair just by sitting in it. How could a guy that big move fast enough to catch me?

  He stuck out a meaty hand. “My name is Constable Ishman Jack. It’s nice to meet you, Patrick.”

  We shook hands. Well, his hand swallowed mine. His grip was like iron.

  Ishman, that’s a weird name, I thought.

  I didn’t say that. “It’s Tricky,” I said.

  “What is?”

  “My name. Everybody calls me Tricky.”

  “He was always running away from me,” Mom added. “Or slipping out of his crib.”

  It seemed more than a little strange to be talking like this. Why are we all trying to make friends? I didn’t understand.

  “Your mom says that breaking the law is not like you, Tricky. So I’ve got a deal to offer,” the officer said. “The store won’t press charges — and they really want to — if you do something for me. I’ve checked it out with your mom. She loves the idea.”

  Oh, no, I thought. I’m going to be sweeping the streets for years.

  Both of them could tell I was getting nervous. It made my mom smile and laugh. She enjoyed watching me squirm.

  “Have you ever heard of parkour?” the cop asked.

  It didn’t sound like an ancient torture device. I was somewhat relieved.

  “Park? What?”

  “Parkour. It comes from a French word that means ‘journey.’ But it’s a sport too. What you did today outside the mall, that’s kind of it. You see something in front of you — like fences or walls. And you get past them the fastest, best way you can.”

  I was still confused.

  “It’s like sport meets art,” he continued. “It’s the art of getting from one place to another in the most efficient way.”

  I still didn’t understand. “So . . .”

  The cop shifted his chair a little closer to mine. He actually cast a shadow over me. The world was closing in.

  He pulled out his phone. “You like James Bond?”

  My growing confusion must have shown on my face.

  “The movies. You like his movies?” he prompted.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  He pulled up a video, a movie clip. Two guys were chasing each other through a construction site. People were running all over the place as stuff blew up around them. It was totally cool. But what did it have to do with me?

  “That’s parkour,” he said.

  “So you want me to be a stuntman?”

  The cop laughed. My mom laughed. Of course they laughed. They were best friends.

  “Sorry,” he said, “not a stuntman. Parkour is like gymnastics and martial arts and obstacle course racing. I volunteer at a gym called Ground Zero. We teach parkour. If you promise to spend twelve weeks with me learning parkour, the store won’t press charges.”

  The room went quiet again. The buzzing lights got louder. At least nobody was chewing gum.

  “Say ‘yes,’” Mom said. “It will make the car ride home a little happier.”

  It didn’t sound right. That’s all I had to do? Take some silly classes?

  “So I just have to go to the gym?”

  “Well, you have to try,” said the cop. “I think you’re going to like it. And I think you will be good at it. The gym is full of good people. Your mom agrees that it will be nice for you to make friends. You’ve just started grade nine, right? That’s not easy in a new city.”

  I looked at Mom and frowned a little. She was still smiling at me. She had always been a happy person. But now she was freaking me out.

  “I’m smiling like this because you got lucky, Tricky,” Mom said. “Constable Jack wants to help you. Outside this office I was crying. In the car, driving over here, I was crying. Don’t make me cry more, Patrick.”

  “It’s one class per week for about an hour,” the cop said. “If you want to come more often, or stay later, that’s fine. After twelve weeks, you’re a free man. Well, you’re a free man everywhere but here. Mall security has your picture. They don’t want you back here.”

  Of course I was going to say yes. What were my options? But I hated when people told me where to be, and at what time. Really, I wanted to move back home. I could live with my grandma in Thunder Bay or something.

  I didn’t say that. All I could manage was: “Okay.”

  3

  Welcome to Ground Zero

  It was Monday, the first day of my “punishment.” Mom said I should call it “fun-ishment.” I didn’t laugh. I had spent some time watching parkour videos, and some of it looked cool. But I still couldn’t understand why people did it.

  I jumped on the bus after school and arrived at the gym twenty minutes later. I had nothing to do after school anyway. But it didn’t mean I was excited about parkour.

  At first I was sure I had the wrong address. When I stepped off the bus, I saw nothing but warehouses. A row of what looked like police cars were lined up outside some place called SureSecure. Next to it was what looked like an abandoned building with graffiti above the door. When I got closer, I could see “Ground Zero” spray-painted in a 3-D pattern.

  I didn’t want to be there, so as I was walking I repeated to myself, “Twelve weeks. I can do anything twelve times.” I took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

  The gym had a cool name. But it was just a gym. It still smelled bad. All the kids wore funny clothes. And it needed better vending machines.

  Little kids were blocking the entrance as they took off their shoes. Girls were spinning and giggling on the gymnastics bars. Coaches barked out instructions somewhere far away. Moms and dads socialized nearby. Everyone turned to look at me. So I just stepped around the kids and walked to a chair against the wall. A sign told me to take off my shoes. I sat down.

  Past the front desk were three different spaces. The area on the right was full of gymnastics stuff. In the middle was a wide-open floor. On the left, there were steel bars and wooden blocks. It looked like someone stopped in the middle of building a mini-city. It reminded me of an abandoned town in a zombie movie.

  Constable Jack appeared from around a corner. He waved to me as he talked to someone at the front desk. He was dressed like a gym coach. He looked a little smaller out of his uniform, but he was still scary. I almost expected him to shout, “Hey, stop! Police!”

  “Tricky, come with me,” he said instead. He was smiling.

  I could feel the workers behind the counter look at me. It felt like everyone was looking at me.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Good, sir.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Hah! Call me Coach, or Coach Jack. The class starts in half an hour. But I wanted to give you some lessons first. Most kids in your class have been doing this for a while.”

  He took off his socks and walked to the parkour section.

  “First, this is a gym. We have rules. Be respectful to everyone. Wear the right clothes. Treat the equipment with respect. If something is broken or dirty, clean it or fix it — or tell the staff. Now, take off your socks.”

  I wondered how many people’s bare feet had been on this floor. Gross.

 
“Let’s talk more about parkour,” he went on. “It’s about running, jumping, climbing and crawling. It’s about balance. But it’s also about expressing yourself and enjoying movement.”

  He was quiet for a second, looking at me. I guess he was letting me think about it. It still sounded weird. But I wanted to get this over with.

  “Okay,” I said.

  The lines on Coach’s forehead wrinkled. I was glad when he kept talking. I knew I’d get it in time. Hopefully.

  “The first thing we’re going to learn is the parkour roll. This is important because it helps you keep your momentum when you’re running. It also protects you if you fall.”

  He crouched down on his knees and placed his left hand on the mat. He extended his left leg behind him. Then, he ducked his head under his armpit and kicked his leg over his head. It was the most complicated somersault I’d ever seen.

  “The most important thing is to move your head to the side. Tuck your chin into your chest. You roll on your back muscles, not your spine.”

  I put my left hand on the mat, stretched my left leg behind me and rolled. Just like in grade three Gym class.

  “No, that’s not it,” Coach Jack said. “You rolled along your spine. Parkour is often running outside on hard surfaces. You don’t want to roll your spine over rocks.”

  I tried again. This time, I put both hands on the mat. My fingers and thumbs formed a diamond shape on my left side. I tucked my chin to the side and rolled. This time, nothing but my back muscles touched the floor. I bounced up again.

  “Yes, better,” Coach said. “Now do it nine more times.”

  We rolled around on the floor. I tried it on my left and right sides. Other than making me dizzy, it was kind of fun.

  That’s it? I thought. This is going to be easy.

  Then we jogged over to the gymnastics area. He pointed me to a balance beam. We walked along it a few times.

  “Balance comes from the heel through the arch and out the second toe,” he told me.

  I was amazed at how well that worked. After that we jogged back to the mini-city. He led me to a box shaped a little like a triangle, wider at the bottom. I’d seen them at my school. But this one was lower. Coach ran at it, placed a hand on top and swung his legs over the side.