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Today, there was an intruder.
As far as Latula was concerned, this was her territory. No one else had ever dared to ride the half-pipes so early in the night. Everyone she knew was still asleep, and that was just the way she liked it. It was too cold for anyone in their right mind to be here, especially dressed as she was. Shorts and kneepads, a tank top and elbow pads, tightly tied tennis shoes and a board under her arm. Goosebumps covered her skin, and supposedly cold air caused more harm than help to her muscles when trying to pull off tricks. She convinced herself that potential stiff limbs were worth it when it came to being able to practice in private.
And there he was, messy black hair spilling out under a bright yellow helmet, twisting and turning around the pipe like he owned the place. Who did he think he was, anyway? He looked to be around her age, maybe five and a half sweeps old. Where was his lusus?
Thankfully, when she approached, he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he stayed focused, completely relaxed in a way that frustrated her. He made it all look so simple. Sure, she could pull off grinding the edge, nailing ollies, and gaining serious air on her jumps on the pipe.
In reality, she could do it better.
When she first practiced with the other kids, the ones on the sidelines would nitpick at the fact she wore so many pads. A real skater didn’t need those, they told her. When she fell, her skin protected by the pads she wore, the other trolls would blame her mistakes on the fact that she was female. Having had enough of that, she dedicated herself to living by GameGrl magazine and ordering nearly all their merchandise. She read every issue multiple times, reveling in just how radical girl skateboarders and girl gamers could really be. According to GameGrl, boys drooled constantly, even if she couldn’t actually see them in the process of drooling. The reason for this? They were dumb. Boys were dumb, and their biology didn’t make it possible for them to reach the awesome level of their girl peers. A true GameGrl would put a poser GameBro in his place at any opportunity.
Showing this boy that she was boss was absolutely essential. And like any true GameGrl would be, she was ready. Without much thought to it, she took off her elbow pads and stuffed them in her bag. They weren’t necessary, and she was supposed to look amazing without them on, anyway.
Taking a deep breath, she puffed out her chest and walked tall, despite the fact that she was notably shorter than the boy she was about to approach.
“Sup, ‘scuse me, but this is my pipe,” she said, waiting at the bottom as the boy carved around the pipe to finally skid to a stop at the top.
He looked down at her with a grin. “Yours? I thought this was, you know, like a public thing.”
“No, it’s totally mine, because I’m the only one with the mad skillz to grind on this shit.” She paused, because maybe she was sounding a bit too mean. The last thing she wanted was for this guy to hate her, after all. “I mean, only for like this time of day. But every day! Every day at this time, I am all up inz.”
Man, using GameGrl lingo made her sound so radical.
“I’m not really sure what you mean by all that, but you can use it if you want.” He shrugged, appearing nonchalant.
Latula almost found herself agreeing, but suddenly shook her head when she thought of a much better idea. This one, GameGrl would be so proud of. If this worked out, maybe Latula would be recognized as so inspirationally radical that she would be inducted as a fellow GameGrl to GameGrl herself - whoever she was.
“No! We’ll skate for it!” A smirk widened across her face, and she knew she had this one in the bag. Well, mostly. A part of her was downright terrified that she would find a way to genuinely mess this up.
“Skate for it?” He tilted his head in a way that emphasized the slight chubbiness of his cheeks despite his scrawny demeanor. “Like a competition? Uh, sure, hell yeah.”
“Duh, a competition! I hope you’re ready to get hellz of creamed!”
The boy laughed a bit nasally and turned to face her. “What’s your name? Gotta know who I’m gonna be owning. I’m Mituna.”
“Latula,” she said, flipping back her shoulder-length hair with the back of her hand and taking her skateboard up to the top of the pipe. “Well ‘tunez, Hope you’re ready to check out the sweetest movez you’ve ever seen ‘cuz they’ll be all up in your biz!”
Mituna stared at her for a moment before responding. “Still can’t make out much of anything you’re saying, but let’s fucking do this. I’ll go first.”
With no room for Latula to respond, she watched as Mituna glided down the pipe with such a clear precision that it made her nervous. She fought to keep her composure as he landed an ollie at the top of the pipe before descending back down only to turn it around again. He kept at it, playing safe except for a few intermediate moves that Latula mastered a long time ago.
However, when he bailed a grind, he ended up falling and sliding down on his back. Save for a couple bruises, he cleanly picked himself up and gave her a thumbs up. “Your turn, Tulip.”
She scoffed at his inability to get her name right. “It’s LATULA,” she emphasized.
He shrugged as he leaves the pipe to sit on the concrete and watch. “Whatever you say, Tulip.”
She gave him one last glance before hardening her expression and descending down the pipe. Gaining some air, she started off big by turning the board half-way around before dropping in again. From then on, she gained confidence, executing everything perfectly.
Just as she was about to skid to a halt, she turned her head to briefly catch the expression on Mituna’s face. His mouth agape, he lifted his finger to point at her. This boy was obviously impressed by her talent, so much that he couldn’t even find the words to-
And then she biffed it, hard against the pipe, losing her balance on the board as it slid out underneath her, and she fell backwards, rolling to the bottom of the pipe. She turned just in time to see the board heading straight for her face. With no time to react, it collided, and everything went black.
“Tulip?”
Her eyes opened, vision blurry at first as she felt something ice-cold on her forehead. Reaching up to touch her head, she realized what a bad idea that was as a jolt of pain shot up her arm.
What happened? This wasn’t the skate park! No, she was inside somewhere, lying on some kind of soft mat that was much longer than she was. There were skating posters everywhere, all the greats. Even Troll Tony Hawk, her favorite. Was that a limited edition and autographed poster of Troll Bam Margera?
The face above her, she finally noticed, belonged to Mituna. Without his helmet on, his hair looked akin to a lawn ring that escaped being maintained in sweeps. His horns caught her attention next when she noticed she wasn’t seeing double after all. He really did have two on each side.
He waved his hand in front of her face, and she frowned. “What happened?”
“You ate it,” he said with a grin that made her angry just watching as it grew. “You fucking ate it.”
She scowled in his direction and closed her eyes. “Freak moment, that never happens, I’m the raddest skater there ever was!”
“You’d think the raddest skater would know how to put some elbow pads on.”
She growled, snapping at him. “You bailed, too, you know! I watched you go hella down that pipe, but I did WICKED malicious movez that you couldn’t even TOPZ if you wanted to, you just think you’re better because I’m a girl!”
He started laughing, and for a moment, she wanted to punch him in the face.
“Are you kidding? I know you were way better than I was, those tricks were stellar! I haven’t seen any other kid do what you do!” He gave her a knowing grin as soon as the laughing ceased.
“Who cares if you’re a girl or not when you can shred like that?”
Caught completely off guard, a light teal brightened up her cheeks. “Oh. Thanks. I guess.”
“You’re just fucking nuts for not using elbow pads. And that helmet you were wearing? Doesn’t do anything. You’re probably gonna have to wait a bit to go back out there and kick ass like you do, considering the shape your arm’s in.”
Embarrassed, the tension in her muscles eased and she averted her gaze, her throat beginning to burn. “That bad, huh?” Her voice cracks a bit. GameGrls don’t cry.
“Well, the injury was bad. But I’d still say…what’s that word?” He stops and makes a dramatically pensive pose, tapping his finger to his chin. “I’d say you were pretty rad.”
She cracked a smile. Mituna looked away when he spoke next.
“Rad and cute, actually. I think I could learn a lot from you if we hung out a bit more. Maybe tomorrow, same time? Except you’re sitting your ass down. Give me some verbal instructions or some shit.”
The blush remained on her cheeks. “Sounds rad.”