Roller Hockey Radicals by Matt Christopher

Author:Matt Christopher [CHRISTOPHER, MATTHEW F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780316094214
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2009-12-19T05:00:00+00:00

8

Just as Kirby and his parents were coming home after the game, the phone rang. Kirby ran to answer it. It was Marty Bledsoe.

“So, did we win?” he wanted to know.

“Tied, 2-2,” Kirby said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Kirby said, smiling. Marty couldn’t be too badly hurt if he was joking around. “So? Did you break your arm?”

“Nah. They thought my shoulder was dislocated, but it turned out it’s only a bruise. It got all purple, though. Wait till you see it — it’s really cool.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Only when I move it. But I’m in a sling, so I don’t move it very often.”

“I — I guess that means you can’t play with us next week,” Kirby said.

“It’s worse than that,” Marty said, his joking tone turning dismal. “Here’s the really bad news. When the town found out I hurt myself, they got all scared about people using the parking lot. My dad told them we weren’t going to sue or anything, but they don’t care. The mayor already told my dad he’s going to ask the town council to lock the parking lot so no one can play.”

“Oh, no!” Kirby’s stomach knotted. “They can’t do that!”

“Yeah, well, you try and stop them, because my dad couldn’t. And he’s a lawyer.” Marty sure sounded down about it.

“Hey, Marty?” Kirby asked, a thought suddenly striking him. “How come you called me first, and not any of the others?”

“Huh? I don’t know,” Marty confessed. “I guess… I guess I wanted to see how it was going for my new teammate. And I don’t know — about the lot being closed, I thought you might have an idea or something. I already know what the others are going to say about it.”

“Like… ?”

“Like Trevor will start getting himself all upset, Lainie will throw a fit, Nick will cry, and Jamal will secretly be happy he doesn’t have to get out there and face the Bad Boys again.”

Kirby laughed. “So what do you want to do?”

“I need to rest,” Marty said. “They gave me something at the hospital for the pain, and I’m kind of out of it. Could you call everybody, and tell them to meet on E Street tomorrow at two? We need to figure something out.”

“Okay. See you then,” Kirby said, and hung up.

“What was that all about?” his dad asked, peeking over the top of his newspaper.

“Marty’s okay,” Kirby said, and explained about his shoulder being bruised, not dislocated. “I’ve got to make some calls, all right?”

He ran upstairs to call the others from the phone in his mom’s office. Kirby wasn’t sure he wanted to tell his parents about the parking lot thing. Not until after the meeting, anyway. Whatever happened, he didn’t want to do anything else to get them upset about roller hockey. Things were touchy enough already.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.