Demon Derby by Carrie Harris

go airborne, so we spent some much-needed time together at the skate park. At first, I couldn’t skate for more than a few minutes without stopping, but it got better. I’d always beennaturally athletic, and I had to concede that maybe I wasn’t quite as out of shape as I’d thought. I was good with speed drills and plow stops—anything that required short bursts of energy—but my endurance was still pretty crappy. I tried not to let it get me down. I’d made a lot of progress, and I was determined that it would be enough. The derby team manager would have to see my potential; I’d only get better as I got stronger. And best yet, skating gave me that feeling of elation I hadn’t recaptured in freerunning—probably because I was still too scared to try it again.
    By the day of the tryouts, my toes were shredded from all the practice. My feet weren’t used to the rough treatment anymore. It would take a while before I built up calluses again.
    I’d just finished bandaging my feet when Darcy rang the bell. The moment I opened the door, she leapt into the car like we were twenty minutes late, but I knew we were early, so I followed at a more sedate pace. By the time I closed the car door, she was revving the engine and squirming in anticipation.
    “Are you ready?” she chattered. “Yeah, you’re ready. Okay, let’s go! This is so exciting that I could totally throw up.”
    “I’m not so sure about the puking, but yeah, I’m psyched. I’ve been practicing ever since you told me about tryouts.”
    “So, what position do you think you’ll get at first? I was telling my mom that I was worried I’d be a blocker, and she was all, ‘What’s a blocker?’ Which seems pretty obvious, right? Like, a blocker is a person who blocks, duh. So then I was telling her that the jammers score all the points, and she’sall, ‘Then why don’t they call them scorers?’ ” She snorted. “Moms.”
    “Well, she does have a point.”
    “And then she kept asking what kind of ball we use. I’m like, ‘Mom, there is no ball,’ but she still didn’t get it. I tried to explain the rules, like, five times.”
    “It’s not like they’re complicated. Tell her the jammer scores points by passing players from the other team. The blockers try to help their jammer and block the other team’s jammer. It’s not rocket science.”
    “Dude, can you write that down for my mom? Because she just wasn’t vibing me at all.”
    “Sure, I guess.”
    She paused thoughtfully. “I want to be a jammer so bad. I’ll cry if I don’t get to be one. I’m meant to score lots of points. I’m not a defensive kind of girl.”
    “Then you should give it a shot. It’s worth a try, right?”
    “Right. What about you? You’d make a really good jammer.”
    “I hadn’t really thought about it. I just want to play.”
    “Well, you should think about it. Because they’ll ask you what position you want, and then you won’t know what to say, which would be really embarrassing, you know? But then you could tell them you just got out of the hospital and they’d understand. Not that I think you should use that as an excuse or anything, or that you
need
to. Gosh, I wasn’t saying that at all. You’re not offended, are you?”
    Darcy’s eyes rolled like she was a nervous horse, and thecar swerved as she waited breathlessly for a response. The tires scraped against the curb, a long, drawn-out squeal that made me wince.
    “Hey, it’s okay. I’m used to it,” I said hastily, watching a fire hydrant grow inexorably closer to the passenger-side door. “Um …”
    “Oh, good.”
    The car veered back onto the road, passing so close to the hydrant that I could have rolled down the window and touched it with my hand. Darcy just kept on going as if this kind of vehicular near-death experience were commonplace.
    “So are you renting skates or did you buy some already?” I asked, white-knuckling the armrest. I was used to Rachel’s speeding,