Snowboard Champ Read Free Page B

himself. Yes, he’d improved a lot in that one week. Here he was, on the intermediate slope on his first day back — and already bored with it! He felt like he could go up to the next level, but he knew Uncle Clay wouldn’t like him doing that without him there.
    He could go try some of the other intermediate slopes — Dragon Mountain Resort had more than a dozen of them — but then how would Uncle Clayton find him when he came back?
    Matt looked up the hill from the area outside the main lodge. There was the slope with the jumping ramps. If he did some jumping, he might be able to spot Clay in his bright orange parka when he got back from his business meeting.
    Clay had taken him jumping once at the end of last Christmas vacation. It had been scary, but Matt had actually landed on his feet once or twice. It was a rush like no other, and Matt had promised himself to really get good at it next year.
    Well, next year was now, and Uncle Clayton or no Uncle Clayton, Matt was tempted to give it a try
right now.
In fact, that’s just what he was going to do.
    As soon as he got off the chairlift at the top of the jump area, he wished he hadn’t been so impulsive. Why was it that, in a place as big as Dragon Mountain, with more than fifty slopes and hundreds of people on them, he kept running into the same four kids? Actually, there were more of them now. Matt counted seven standing in a group around Riley, who was fooling with one of his bindings.
    One of the new kids in the group, a tall, chubby boy, was complaining about how crowded it was today. “I don’t know why all these people have to come here and ruin everything,” he said. “I mean, can’t they go snowboarding someplace else? Does everyone have to come to Dragon Mountain?”
    “I’ve got an idea, Perkins,” Riley said, looking up with a half-smile. “Why don’t
you
leave town and make some space for the rest of us?”
    The other kids laughed, but Perkins ignored him.
    “Seriously, there must be some other slopes in this part of the country. In fact, I know there are. Why don’t they go over to Snowbottom, or Craigsmeur, or wherever?”
    “Because those places stink compared to here,” Nelson said.
    “Really,” Abby said, rolling her eyes at Perkins. “Maybe
you
should go check them out, Jeff.”
    “I will if you come with me,” Perkins said in a joking tone.
    “Whoo-ooo!” everyone in the group said, looking at Abby to see how she would react.
    “Not worth it,” Abby said. “I’d rather be stuck in a crowd than alone with you.”
    “Whoo-ooo!” everyone said again.
    “Dissed!” Nelson crowed. “Man, she dissed you bad!” “Shut up!” Perkins said, shoving Nelson, who fell right onto Riley, knocking him over.
    “Get off me, you peanut-head!” Riley shouted, pushing Nelson facedown into the snow and scrambling to his feet. “What is
wrong
with you?”
    “He pushed me!” Nelson complained, pointing at Perkins and wiping the snow off his face.
    “So? Push him back.” And with that, Riley gave Perkins a shove, sending him reeling backward into the snow. “Like that.”
    The snaps on Perkins’s down parka popped open, revealing a black sweatshirt underneath. “DRAGONS” was written on it in red letters, surrounded by a yellow tongue of fire. And below that, in smaller yellow letters, was “Dragon Valley Middle School.”
    Oh, no,
thought Matt. These kids were from here, all right. And although they didn’t know it yet, he was about to become their classmate.
    One of them.
    Matt waited his turn, watching as the others took their jumps. The girls, Perkins, and Nelson all took safe, ordinary, simple jumps — and every one of them except Abby went sprawling on their landings. Then Riley showed them how it was done. He got so much air under him that it seemed like he was sailing through space. At the top of his arc, he twisted his arms and made himself spin around 360 degrees, landing perfectly with his arms raised in triumph to