The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (5 page)

“
I said I would try. I may
be a superhero but I’m not perfect.” Jay struck a pose, putting his
hands to the top of his button down shirt as if to undo it
revealing his superhero tights underneath.

Frowning a little, Binny offered “you
don’t need to be a hero. Just go be a parent.” Binny seemed to feel
that with her judgment rendered, the conversation was now over and
started in again on the remainder of the waffles.

Jay decided this was as good as he was
going to get from Binny that morning and headed into the fray
developing between his other two children.

4

Despite the sizable number of
chocolate chip banana waffles in her stomach, Binny Jordan came
rocketing out of her house ready to attack the day. Skateboard in
hand, helmet firmly on her head, the trials of the previous night
were forgotten given the promise of a beautiful day, her
skateboard, and lots of empty sidewalk.

While the skateboarding world had
dozens of different tricks to learn, they all involve some
combination of the person on the board and the board itself leaving
their comfortable relationship for a moment while one or both flip,
swivel, or jump, only to reunite happily as if nothing at all had
occurred.

And while she had only been riding for
a few months, Binny’s desire to perform even the most basic of
these tricks had only grown. But so far, the only trick she had
mastered was how to break a skateboard.

While mastering a trick
called an
Ollie
would allow her and her skateboard to jointly jump over
objects, several weeks of failure tempered her goals. Binny decided
to set her sights on an interim step – the
Hippy Jump
. It would still
let
her
jump over
objects, just not with her skateboard. When executed properly,
Binny would jump up and over the obstacle and then land on her
skateboard, continuing forward as if the jump had never occurred.
But so far, no jump
had
occurred. Despite the lack of progress, Binny
stubbornly pursued mastery of the
Hippy
Jump
just as doggedly as she pushed her
agenda with her parents.

Since the Jordans lived on a hill,
Binny had to walk a couple of houses up the hill to get to a clear
expanse of flat sidewalk where she could practice her tricks in
relative safety. The house at the top of the street had a low slung
brick wall around its front yard as well as around several soil
beds. She would place a long stick from wall to wall to create a
“high jump” of sorts.

After configuring her obstacle, Binny
grabbed her skateboard, double-checked her helmet strap, and walked
a dozen steps to give herself some room to pick up speed. Her right
foot still on the ground to the right of her skateboard, her left
foot on the front of the board, she crouched slightly, ready to
spring. Intent on completing the trick this time, Binny steeled
herself and pushed hard against the sidewalk with her back
foot.

The skateboard shot forward with Binny
along for the ride. When she thought she was going fast enough, she
brought her right foot to rest across the back of the board. Her
crouch got even more pronounced and her face scrunched up tightly
with added focus and intensity.

Apart from Binny building up some
momentum, and getting in a relatively good crouching position, that
was as good as it got. Instead of both feet leaping from the
skateboard simultaneously, Binny was only able to lift her front
foot from the board. This had the unfortunate effect of tilting the
board backwards, causing Binny to lose her balance. In a desperate
attempt not to fall, Binny slammed her front foot back onto the
skateboard. Her foot made sloppy contact with the board just in
time for the front of the board to hit the stick that was suspended
about a foot over the sidewalk. Rather than have the courtesy to
get out of the way, the stick broke, sending Binny sprawling
forward onto the sidewalk.

While Binny’s proficiency at the Hippy
Jump was still a ways off, she was getting pretty good at falling
with minimal damage. The wrist guards she asked Jay to get her took
the brunt of the fall, but the fire in her knees told her that
they’d taken some of it as well. Her skateboard did a couple of
spins before sliding out into the street. It couldn’t have looked
very impressive. Luckily, no one was watching.

“
Nice try.” Came a voice
from above.

Oh no, Binny thought.

Up the hill a bit and across the
street from the Jordan house, a gray house with lots of windows had
been sitting empty for several months. The FOR SALE sign had sat
there so long it had come to feel like a permanent fixture on the
front lawn. But one day it was gone. Like most kids, Binny didn’t
notice much about the real estate transactions in her neighborhood,
but it did occur to her that the absence of the sign meant that a
new family would be moving in to the neighborhood. And maybe that
family would have kids. Maybe even someone her own age. To Binny’s
surprise, they did. Ten-year-old Penny Yang and her mother had
moved in three weeks earlier. Binny hadn’t seen a dad around. But
she often saw Penny “lurking” about. The girl just seemed
weird.

Binny hadn’t had many encounters with
the girl from across the street in the couple of weeks since the
new family had moved in, but the ones she’d had were enough to let
her know that this girl was definitely not friend material. On one
occasion Binny was walking by the girl’s yard only to find her
stacking rocks. Starting with big flat ones, then laying on
progressively smaller stones to make several decently sized piles.
Binny’s mistake was to stare a little too long as she walked by
only to have the girl offer “they’re sculptures, you
know.”

Penny Yang was sitting cross-legged
and barefoot, wearing long army shorts and an over-sized plaid
flannel shirt over a tie-dyed t-shirt. Her super straight black
hair was of medium length but looked like she’d cut it herself. The
girl’s glasses weren’t much cleaner than her bare feet.

But Binny didn’t care much about how
the girl looked. It was the “lecturey” tone in the girl’s voice
that set Binny off. What you would expect from a teacher or a
parent. And it put Binny on the defensive right from the
start.

“
Oh.” Binny responded, not
quite sure what to say next.

The girl continued, even though Binny
hadn’t asked for further explanation, “They’re totems.”

“
Oh.” Binny responded
again. A totem? She was starting to feel stupid. She hadn’t asked
what the girl was doing. She’d just been walking along. She hadn’t
even said anything to the girl, but now she was stuck in a
conversation with her. And what the heck was a totem anyway? Binny
suspected the girl was using this fancy word to make Binny feel
dumb.

“
My mom says that the
totems will keep us safe and happy in our new home.” The girl
added.

Now this unwanted conversation felt
definitely distinctly like a lecture. And the last thing Binny was
interested in, especially from this girl.

“
I’ve got to go.” was all
Binny could think to say.

“
I’m Penny. Nice to meet
you.” the girl offered and went back to her stone
stacking.

She hadn’t even waited for Binny to
respond before she’d turned back to her “sculptures” or “totems” or
whatever it was she insisted on calling them. Binny had never seen
sculptures like these. Were they supposed to be stacks of fat
misshapen pancakes? Ugly alien accordions? Honestly, what they
resembled most were piles of rocks. And Binny was quite certain
that forming a stack of rocks out of a stack of rocks did not quite
qualify as “sculpture”. But instead of sharing her art critique,
Binny just said, “Uh. Nice to meet you too. I’m Binny.”

Penny responded with a quick smile and
went back to her arranging. The girl’s smile seemed smug to Binny.
Just Binny’s luck – she got her wish that someone her own age would
move into the neighborhood, but the girl who arrived might as well
have been from another planet.

After encountering the girl a couple
more times with equally unsatisfying results, Binny made every
effort to avoid passing in front of the gray house. She had
considered her makeshift skate park to be a good enough distance
from the house since it was all the way across the street. Quite
clear of the usual spots the girl hung out.

Maybe the voice from above
was someone else’s? Maybe a
new
new girl had moved into the neighborhood. Binny
put her palms by her sides and lifted herself up. There was that
crazy haircut surrounding a bespectacled face with that smug smile.
The girl’s eyes were wide and expectant. Ugh.

What was she doing over here? Where
had she come from? Binny was quite sure she had been completely
alone when she’d arranged her obstacle course. There was no doubt
the girl had snuck up on her. This girl was so stealthy she must
have practiced her lurking on a daily basis.

“
Hi.” Binny said,
grimacing as she slowly raised herself on her stinging palms. Binny
collected her skateboard from the street and regrouped. She didn’t
want to practice her trick in front of this girl, but she also
didn’t want to turn and leave after only one failed attempt. If she
did, the girl would know that Binny was leaving because of her. But
more importantly, Binny felt that this was her spot, and leaving
immediately would cede it to the girl.

Binny tried again. And again. And
again, to do the hippy jump, with no success. Each time her feet
wouldn’t quite leave the board at the right time, and she wasn’t
able, even the best of circumstances, to get more than one foot
over the new stick she’d placed across her path.

“
Maybe a few deep breaths
would relax you.” the girl suggested to Binny. More
“wisdom”.

“
Maybe a swift kick in the
butt would keep you quiet,” Binny said using the voice in her mind
that only she could hear. Binny wondered if she could project the
thought telepathically to the girl, but the girl’s continued smile
made it clear that the Binny’s message had not gotten through.
Could this girl really be unaware of how superior she acted? She
was so obnoxious.

Binny took a deep breath and tried
again despite her irritation. Still no luck. And all the while the
girl’s face remained patient, and could it be – supportive? Had
Binny asked for this girl’s support? Certainly not. Yet this girl
now seemed to think she was Binny’s skateboarding coach.

“
I’m sure you’ll get it
once you get more comfortable.” The girl sounded
encouraging.

“
I’m not used to having an
audience.” Binny responded sharply, punctuating her sentence with
her trademark raised eyebrows. The signals were lost on Penny.
After realizing this, Binny added, “I really would prefer if nobody
was sitting there judging whether or not I’m any good at this
trick.”

Without missing a beat the girl
responded in a measured tone, “Oh don’t worry. I’m not judging your
skateboarding skills. The only thing you seem to be no good at is
reading my mind.” The girl looked pleased with herself, but if she
was hoping to put Binny at ease, she’d had the opposite
effect.

Now Binny was getting really
irritated. “I need more speed, I think.” Binny muttered to herself.
This time Binny walked her skateboard all the way to the point
where the sidewalk turned the corner on its approach to the Jordan
house. Maybe Binny was hoping to get enough speed to end her trick
by landing feet first on the girl’s head.

Binny flipped the skateboard down on
the ground hoping to project some confidence and indicate to the
girl that she didn’t really care what she thought. Rather than
landing on its wheels, the skateboard ended up upside-down. Even
her trusty deck was against her today.

Binny bent down and righted the
skateboard. Just then, a flash of light caught the corner of her
eye. As she looked down the sidewalk to her left, there was her
sister Cassie playing in front of their house, something reflective
and shiny in her hand.

It couldn’t be, Binny thought to
herself. The mirror. Again. That brat had gone into her room and
taken it again! And now she appeared to be doing some kind of
singing performance with it on the sidewalk. Binny silently scolded
herself for not putting her precious keepsake on a higher shelf
earlier that morning when she’d had the chance. On the plus side,
this was a convenient excuse to give up on the trick and get away
from the annoying girl from across the street. Binny jogged her
skateboard a quarter turn and launched, hurtling towards
Cassie.