Freerunner Page 6

  Jayden walked past me as everyone headed for the doors.

  “You’re getting a lot of attention,” he said. “Will getting hurt give you an excuse not to show on demo day?”

  I forgot about my wrist. I shook it out and looked back at him. There was no way I was going to let him think I was hurt.

  “Nah, I’m fine. Coach was just being nice.”

  Seriously, would Jayden ever stop? What would parkour be like without Jayden making my life miserable?

  15

  As Seen On TV

  I pulled the note from my pocket. I read it again. I unfolded it and flexed my fingers at the same time. My wrist was almost healed. It only hurt a little when it was bent all the way up or down.

  The note was signed by Parker. I found it after my last class, stuffed inside my shoe.

  Up for an adventure Saturday morning? My mom and I will pick you up at seven o’clock — sharp!

  I tucked the note back in my pocket and pulled out my mom’s cell phone. I clicked the button. It said 6:59 a.m. What kind of adventure happens at seven in the morning on a Saturday?

  Just as I started wondering if someone — like Jayden — had faked the note, Parker’s mom drove up to the curb. The passenger side window rolled down and Parker leaned out.

  “Jump in the back!” she called.

  Easier said than done. It took some effort to climb up into the back seat. I had to grab hold of the door handle for balance. Their black SUV reminded me of an armoured vehicle.

  Parker spun around and handed me a bagel with cream cheese and a bottle of chocolate milk. “Had breakfast yet?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But I can always eat. Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to be famous,” she said, laughing.

  She handed me another piece of paper.

  “Read it out loud, I want to hear it again.”

  “Calling all kid actors,” I read. “Can you jump, spin or cartwheel? Want to be in a movie? We need fifty kids, ages ten to seventeen, to act as extras in a major motion picture. Gymnastics or martial arts experience needed. Dows Lake Pavilion.”

  They would provide special clothes. Plus food, soft drinks and an hourly wage. Food and money? I thought. Wicked.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “They sent it to the gymnastics clubs,” she said. “My old coach passed it on.”

  “What’s the movie about?”

  “I dunno. Maybe it’s top secret because of all the big stars!”

  We spent the ride guessing who we might see. When the car arrived at the parking lot, we got out, waved goodbye to Parker’s mom and jogged across the crosswalk.

  A man with a clipboard met us on the other side. “You here to audition?”

  “Yeah, we’re kid actors,” Parker said. “We do parkour.”

  He looked at us, puzzled. “Okay. Just go down the stairs and around the building. You’ll see a room where you hand in your permission slips.”

  My heart sank. I didn’t bring anything.

  “Cool,” Parker said quickly.

  “But . . .” I started to say.

  “I have yours here, goofus,” she said. “My brother is always forgetting something,” she said to the man with a smile.

  He stared at us some more, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he just waved his hand for us to keep walking.

  “What permission slip?” I asked Parker once we were out of sight.

  “Um, I kind of faked yours. I didn’t know about the permission slips until late last night. I couldn’t have gotten it to you. My mom signed mine before I put my name on it. Then I copied it and wrote your name.”

  A woman met us in front of the building. She took our signed slips and asked us to wait inside. We sat for probably twenty minutes. Finally, someone came over and handed us some clothes: different pants for Parker and a shirt for me. They applied a little makeup to us both. Then we sat some more.

  Finally, the woman from the front of the building came to get us. She pressed a button on her headset. “Hey Zack,” she said into it. “I think I have two for you . . . Yup. Yup. Nope. About fourteen, look seventeen. Cute. Yeah? Okay. Great.”

  She took her finger off the button. My heart was beating faster as she looked back at us.

  “You two know how to drive a paddleboat?”

  Parker answered before I had a chance to think. “Yes!” she said. “We come here all the time.”

  “Great, follow me.”

  We returned outside to a scene of chaos. Three of the crew were carrying cameras. There were silver boxes everywhere. Lights and cables and cameras seemed to burst from the top of them. People running into the building were trying hard not to bump into the people running out of the building.

  One guy was running up some stairs, carrying a coil of electrical cable around his shoulder. He passed another guy running down the stairs with what looked like the exact same cable around his shoulder.

  “It’s a comedy,” the woman said.

  “I can see that,” I said, nodding at the cable guys.

  “Huh?” she looked at me and wrinkled her eyebrows.

  Parker burst out laughing.

  “Oh, yeah,” the woman said. I don’t think she understood my joke. “Jump into the red paddleboat here. When the director yells action, I need you to kiss for one minute.”

  “What?” Parker and I shouted at the same time.

  “Now who is the comedian?” the woman said.

  Parker kept laughing.

  “Good one,” I said.

  “Thanks. So no kiss. But I do need you to sit in the paddleboat. When the director yells action, jump out as fast as you can and run in opposite directions.”

  “Shouldn’t the boat be in the water?” Parker asked.

  “Nope, that’s what makes it funny. Trust me.”

  We took our seats. The boat was bolted to the dock. I tried to shake it or move it. But it held firm. A man walked over to us.

  “Hey, Zack,” I said.

  He gave me the same wrinkled eyebrows as the woman had. A funny noise came from Parker as she tried to hold back her laughter.

  “Hi,” he said.

  He crouched down beside us like he was sitting in the boat.

  “When I yell ‘action,’ I need you to lift yourselves out of the boat as fast as you can. Boy runs that way,” he said, pointing behind me. “Girl runs that way.” He motioned the other way. “Got it?”

  “No problem,” Parker said.

  “Great.”

  He had us try it a few times. He offered us some tips on how to make it look funnier. When he was satisfied, he went back to the camera crew.

  “I guess we got the part, eh, ‘Boy’?” Parker said.

  “Looks like it, ‘Girl.’”

  More people appeared and started buzzing around us. Two people dressed like a bride and groom walked to the end of a dock. We were just behind them, to the left. The cameras were set up and more people appeared. Some carried microphones. Others held smaller cameras.

  “Action!”

  I jumped from my seat. I turned and started to run. It didn’t take long for me to reach the end of that dock area. A metal bar between two posts stood in my way.

  Nobody had told me when to stop, so I vaulted over the post and landed on the deck below. I kept running over the boat slips. I had to jump over some water from dock to dock. Finally, I ran out of room on the docks. I jumped back to the main area and vaulted over another metal bar.

  There wasn’t anywhere else for me to run. Everyone was looking at me.

  “Can you do that again?” Zack shouted at me from across the docks.

  “Sure,” I shouted back.

  I looked back at the army of movie makers watching me. Maybe parkour is useful after all, I t
hought.

  16

  Super Tricky

  Our school bus passed signs for horseback riding, cross-country skiing and camping. Finally we pulled into the parking lot of Cloverfield Park.

  “Do we have to race the horses?” I asked the kid next to me.

  He looked at me with wrinkled eyebrows. People were doing that a lot lately, I realized. I guess if you have to explain your jokes, they are not funny.

  “Walk calmly and line up once you get onto the grass,” our teacher said. “There are hundreds of kids here. You have your instructions. Don’t get lost!”

  It was hard to hear her over all of the shouting and laughing. Our bus pulled in next to eight others from schools across the city. More buses were waiting behind ours. I scanned the few faces and buses I could see, looking for the bus from Parker’s school. After I’d heard about the race, I’d slipped a flyer inside her shoe at parkour practice.

  On the front was the registration form for School of Hard Knocks, the Ottawa Junior High School Obstacle Course Race. On the back I wrote, See you at the finish line. I was pretty sure she’d accept my challenge, especially after we spent Saturday on the movie set.

  Our teacher led us to bleachers set up near the start-finish line. My division — for fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys — was last. It meant I could watch the other kids before running. I climbed the bleachers. Grey clouds had been dropping light rain almost all morning, so I had to be careful. But I wanted to be high enough to see as much as I could and plan my strategy.

  The course seemed straightforward. I knew right away my parkour would help. It started with a simple wall. All I needed was enough speed and room. I’d be able to speed vault over it without much trouble. There were some steps on each side. I bet they would be crowded. I planned to stay in the middle to avoid the crowds.

  Next was a camouflage net. I would have to crawl on my belly under it. I thought about our beast walks. I hoped my wrist was healed enough.

  From there, it was hard to see anything. I could see two A-frame climbing walls, but not in detail. The cross-country running course snaked its way through some trees and bushes. I could only imagine what was waiting for us inside them.

  I stood to look at the course behind the bleachers when I spotted a familiar face. Staring up at me was Jayden. He was smirking. I smiled and waved politely. I knew we were about the same age, so I would get my chance to see him up close during the race.

  It was an hour before I had to leave for the warm-up area. But all that time I was able to watch and listen. The other schools’ kids swirled and whirled around me like birds collecting seeds. They chattered about how heavy the hay bales were to carry. They shared ideas on how to get over the monkey bars. They discussed the best way to crawl under the cargo net. I took it all in.

  Sure, this was all just for fun. But I really wanted to win. Especially after seeing Jayden.

  The organizers led us in some warm-ups. Then the crowd of boys and girls in my racing group funnelled to the starting area. It felt like we were walking into a gladiator arena. Fences, signs and flags forced us in one direction. There was no turning back. The sun had just started to come out from behind the clouds. Suddenly, everything felt too close, too tight. Boys jostled for space. We lined up six across and maybe ten rows deep. Shoulders bumped easily with nowhere else to turn.

  Someone cracked a bad joke: “Mooo. Welcome to the farm!” I was glad it wasn’t me, because nobody laughed.

  The girls were grouped ahead of us. Just before they started, I spotted Parker. She was too far away and there were too many people between us for me to wish her good luck. I memorized her orange T-shirt and knew I’d see her after the race.

  Finally, it was our turn. I ran through in my mind what I knew of the course. I decided there was no point trying to get out first. It was a long race — the fastest time so far was twenty-eight minutes or so. There would be plenty of time to catch the leaders. I had to pace myself. I had to be smart about the obstacles.

  The horn sounded. We were off and running. Jayden and his buddies bolted like race horses for the first obstacle. I let a few keeners skip ahead of me. I wanted my space to vault the wall.

  Just like I had guessed, most kids ran for the steps. The middle was wide open. So I took the space, placed my hands on top of the wall and kicked my legs over. I must have passed twelve kids that way. They were all crowded in a line waiting for the stairs. Some of them looked at me as if to say, I didn’t know we could do it that way!

  Next were yellow plastic tunnels snaking along the ground. After that, off to the right, were hay bales. It was another great chance to use some parkour and gain some time. I chose the tunnel farthest to the right. I wanted to have the best route to the bales.

  The tunnels were coiled together. My hands and knees didn’t enjoy skimming over the edges. My wrists hurt a little from the hard plastic. I’d already caught up to one of Jayden’s buddies, though. He was one who had been sprinting from the start. I guess he didn’t have the endurance after all.

  It was slow, following him through the tunnel. I managed to get some room around him, even though it seemed like he was trying hard to nudge me off the course. I took two big steps ahead and he couldn’t follow.

  The hay bales were the perfect size. I put both hands ahead of me and pounced. My legs swung underneath and I vaulted past another few competitors. That obstacle was made for the Kong vault.

  “Whoa! Awesome!” someone shouted behind me.

  That gave me a burst of confidence. I kept running.

  17

  Boss Battle

  The race got flatter, slower and heavier. The obstacles seemed to vanish. So did my parkour. I was running ahead of about eight others. We rounded some trees to find what looked like an arena. It was separated by fences from the race course.

  There were a few kids already carrying straw bales.

  “What the hay?” I said.

  It was too bad nobody was around to hear my joke.

  “You’ll pair with the racer behind you,” the marshal said. “It’s teamwork time.”

  I had no idea who the kid behind me was. Each bale was wrapped with a thick strap. I grabbed one end and a sturdy-looking kid in a purple T-shirt grabbed the other. We carried it along the fence. Then we swung it across a line marked in the dirt, where it landed with the other hay bales in a cloud of dust.

  We shuffled down a small hill where another challenge awaited us. Racers were rolling big tractor tires from one end of a yard to the other and back.

  “Okay, now I’m tired,” I said.

  The kid in the purple T-shirt gave me a look.

  I bent at the knees, dug my hands under the tire and lifted. The tire was as tall as me. But it wasn’t too heavy. I immediately thought about home. My uncle had wanted to pay me twenty dollars a day to help him sort through junker cars. I must have had something better to do. Or maybe it was too much work, because I only did it once. Now I wish I had stuck it out.

  I started rolling the tire. It wobbled right away and nearly fell. I sped up and it rolled much smoother. But then it got away from me and fell on its side, off the course. I ran up behind it and bent to grab it again. By the time I finally got it up and finished rolling it back, I had lost precious time.

  I’d thought Jayden was in the arena with me. But now I could see his neon green shirt jumping over an A-frame on the other side of the course.

  I really had to pick up the pace. The A-frames had knobs drilled into them like a rock-climbing wall. I ran ahead of two kids to get the best path over it. I skipped the knobs and instead jumped for the top of the frame. My feet landed first and I grabbed the top with my hands. I had cleared the bottom half of it with one swoop.

  Precision jumps were moves we worked on at the gym all the time.

  Once I pulled my body to the top, it wasn’t that far down. So
I leaped forward, ducked and landed with a parkour roll. It spun me forward and I was sprinting hard for the next challenge.

  My heart was beating hard in my chest now. Spread out ahead of us was a cargo net about half a metre off the ground. We had to crawl under it, army style. It was time for “beast mode.” I dove down so my belly was close to the ground. I alternated right arm, left leg with right leg and left arm. I crawled ten metres, keeping as low as possible for a fast time.

  It was nothing compared to Coach’s workouts.

  Jayden was just scrambling out as I started the cargo crawl. I knew it would be a close finish. When I stood up again, it was just me and him. There was a monkey-bar set between us and the finish line.

  From what I could see, there were two options. You could swing across the bars, like the laché bars at the gym. But there had to be a dozen of them. My arms were throbbing as I approached. There was no way I could swing across very fast. Plus, there was a mud pit down below. If I fell into that, winning would be almost impossible.

  There were rock-climbing pegs on the outside of the monkey bars along a wood frame. That meant you could shimmy along the outside beams. There wouldn’t be any mud to worry about. But you’d need an amazing grip. That way might be even slower than the bars.

  I stopped for a second. Jayden glanced back at me. He stopped too, leaning over to catch his breath. We watched another kid sprint past us. He jumped for the first bar and started to swing. He made it across three of them before losing his grip and splatting into the mud. His legs and feet were covered in it. He had to drag himself out and try again.

  Jayden took off after that. He was making good time on the bars when I spotted something. The wood beams holding the bars were thick. There were two ways across the mud. Could there be a third?

  I decided to risk it. I went to the side and stepped on the first peg. I grabbed two more and climbed to the top. The beams were as wide as they looked from the ground. Rather than standing, I crouched and walked like a cat along the top of the beam.

  In seconds, I was ahead of Jayden. His face was red and his knuckles were white. He could only hang there and watch me from the middle of the bars.