She imagined grinding the rail down the middle of the pyramid and wondered how much air her semi-new Zero deck could grab on the half pipe, especially now that she'd replaced her old trucks. Aside from street skating, the only chance to expand her tricktionary was in Appleton at the indoor skate park. An hour and a half away, she went maybe three or four times a year when her family visited Aunt Milli. She sighed heavily.

She had two problems. The first and least troubling: the promise to herself and her mom to finish the ninth grade math assignment due in the morning. She glanced at her book, then at the elongated white skull running down the bottom of her black skateboard. Why did it have to be math? Why not English or science? Her worst subject, math totally sucked. Why couldn't they download the data to her head, like in the movies?

A whoop echoed off the field house behind her and she looked up in time to see Jimmy the Giant land hard off one end of the curved rail.

Problem number two.

Twice she had watched Jimmy and his minions chase off would-be skaters. First, a pair of boys rode up mongo-style, pushing with their front foot instead of their back, which probably meant they wouldn't escape the park without major physical damage. They were run off on a wave of wedgie threats and worse. The second time, the kid had been about ten or so. All Jimmy and his crew did was stop talking, cross their arms, and glare at the boy. He took off down the sidewalk, showing at least some skill on his board.

Kaylee ran a hand along the length of curly brown hair dangling from her ponytail, smoothing the stubborn locks that gave her perpetual bed head. Three boys didn't make it past them. And I'm a girl. She heaved another breath. Six math questions left to go and all of them the absolute worst kind-word problems. They might as well have been written in some weird spy code. Facing the guys was less torture than trying to decipher algebra.

Sorry, Mom.

She closed the book and stuffed it and the notebook in her backpack. Standing, she shouldered the pack and studied the skaters across the park. Would they leave soon? Could she just wait them out and skate her fill of the ramps and flybox once they were gone?

The darkening sky and a glance at her watch said otherwise. Only an hour left before dinner. A school night, they ate by six-thirty so they could spend quality time together. Which usually meant some goofy game like charades or Operation--a game she had outgrown four years ago at the age of ten. Her dad should take some of his own advice; just let go and understand he couldn't keep her from growing up.

No time to wait for the park to empty. Gathering all her courage, she popped up her skateboard, skipped down the last three steps, and dropped the board. She glided easily around the merry-go-round and avoided scattered wood chips from the jungle gym. As she got close enough to hear the boys, and for them to notice her, she slowed to a stop.

Jimmy laughed. "Dude, you're gonna make hamburger outta your face, you try that."

"You try it, then," Danny, his seventh-grade sidekick said. "Bet you can't."

"What'd I tell you about that?" Jimmy slapped him on the back of his head. "You still owe me ten bucks from the last time. I don't bet with welshers, douche bag."

Ernie, almost as tall but twice as big around as Jimmy, spotted her. His round, pudgy face squished up in amusement. "Hey, Jimmy! Looks like you've got a groupie."

They all spun on her, including Frank at the top of the half pipe, legs dangling over the edge as he drank from a can of pop. Baseball cap turned backward, dog tags hanging from a chain around his neck, he spat sideways and glared.

Eight inches taller, Jimmy sneered down at her. "What do you want?"

She cleared her throat and dropped the backpack on the ground. "You guys almost done?"

Jimmy jerked his head to triple-X Ernie and a shaggy blonde, hard-knuckled boy named Will. They nodded and pushed off, Will ollying onto the wavy rail and Ernie diving down the half pipe. "What does it look like?"

"I'm just asking." Kaylee winced inwardly. Not good to come off defensive with these guys. Like sharks after blood sensing weakness, they'd swarm in for the kill. She raised her chin and in a more forceful tone asked, "How much longer you gonna be?"

Jimmy threw her a wicked smile. Beneath long-layered dark hair, his tanned skin creased at the corners of his up-tilted eyes, giving him the look of a laughing wolf, all happy malice. "For the rest of your life."

"Yeah." Danny snickered in unison with Frank. "For the rest of your life."

She wanted to roll her eyes, but her father had taught her this was a physical manifestation of a desire for confrontation. In shrink-speak, that meant they would think she wanted to pick a fight. Instead, she wedged a teasing smile on her uncooperative mouth. "Why? You afraid a girl could out-skate you?"

Jimmy broke out in great big fake guffaws. The others immediately joined in and erased all her hard work.

"Girls ain't got the guts. Go home before you break a nail."

Oh, he just wanted to make her mad now. Everyone at Marsden knew she was the most athletic girl in the whole school. As a fullback on the soccer team and captain of the swim team, she didn't have any nails to break. Go take a flying leap, Jimmy.

"If I beat Danny, then I get to skate here."

Danny paled beneath brown, cotton-candy hair, more messed up than spiked. Did he ever use shampoo? The least experienced, every sick stunt he attempted turned into a wipe out. Half the time he couldn't skate because of a brace or a cast.

"Beat Ernie first. I won't waste my time on a girl."

Jimmy rolled his eyes. Latent hostility anyone? "Dude, she can't beat me, she can't beat you, she can't beat Ernie, not even Willy-Nilly over there. She's a girl!"

"Hey!" Will shouted. Though he didn't try stupid stunts like Danny, he spent more time on his bike than a board and paid for the lack of practice, often wobbling-out during a trick. "Shut up about the nilly thing, already."

"Dude," Jimmy tossed back, "stop lookin' like a bobble-head and I will."

Danny said, "Doesn't matter. He'd out-skate a girl any day."

"I got a better idea." Ernie skated to them, his sweatshirt stained with sweat even in the cold. "She's gotta go through an initiation."

Kaylee frowned, wary now. Even if she went through any initiation they might dream up, it was no guarantee they would let her skate in the end.

"No. I want a challenge."

Jimmy jerked his thumb at his chest. "We make the rules. We're doing the initiation thing." He pointed a finger at her. "You wanna skate here, you do what we say."

She screwed up, should have got him to think a skate-off was his idea. Cracking her neck, she unclenched her teeth and asked, "What do you want me to do?"

Ernie grinned. "You ever hear of the Larson House?"

Oh, God, she had. "Yeah, it's supposed to be haunted, right?"

Frank belched loudly and crushed his empty pop can. "Haunted to the extreme, dude!"

"By an axe murderer who chopped his whole family into little pieces and buried them in the cellar," Danny chimed in. "You go in there after dark, you come out with white hair and they ship you off to the loony bin up at Chester."

Frank said, "Her dad works up there. Probably got a bed all picked out for her."

That's it. Kaylee scowled at him. "Yeah, and I remember your brother Paul spent some time up there. Does psycho run in the family?"

Frank hopped down, throwing the can sideways, letting it clunk along the concrete. "You say something about my bro? You gotta beef with me?"

Oh, crap. She stood her ground, but barely. "What's your problem?"

Jimmy stepped between them. "Chill, bro. What're you gonna do? Beat up a chick?" He turned to Kaylee. "Up to you. You gonna go through the initiation? You gotta go after dark and it has to be tonight. You got the guts?"

She looked at her watch. Not enough time before she had to be home. That meant sneaking out, and while she'd done it once or twice to hang out with her best friend Davey next door, she never went far or stayed out long. "Fine. I'll do it. Meet you back here nine o' clock.

Before they could argue, she shouldered her backpack and sped away on her board, cursing herself. So stupid. If she got busted, if her dad found out she took off to meet a bunch of boys that late at night, she'd have to go through another talk about the dangers of puberty. He would chalk it up to some yucky sexual blossoming no matter how much she protested that Jimmy the Giant was no Ryan Sheckler, and his goons were the grossest, bottom-of-the-barrel boys. No girl in her right mind would do anything so disgusting with them.

She shivered just thinking about it.

Ten minutes later, Kaylee banged through the front door and dropped her gear in the hall. "Mom! I'm home."

"We're in here, honey," her mother called from the back of the house.

She thumped begrudgingly away from the television in the living room and past the snack counter in the kitchen to the back office where, just as she thought, both her parents waited with those smiles on their faces. The sort of smiles that were meant to make her think everything was okay and they didn't actually plan on forcing her to endure a serious discussion. How she hated those smiles. Oh, they loved her all right, they loved her to death sometimes.

"What'd I do now?" She slumped in the chair beside her father's desk and looked up at her mother, perched near the worn out rolodex.

Neat and trim, Diane Hensler wore a baby blue sweater that matched her eyes, a color Kaylee wished she inherited instead of the pale hazel hue from her grandma. She got her mother's curly hair, but her mom wore hers almost like a boy and Kaylee would have endured endless ribbing, being so active in sports, if she attempted a style that short. Lacking a boyfriend, the gossip mongers would have a field day and no boy would ever be interested in her.

"Darling," Max Hensler said, sitting forward, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. "As you know, you had another bad dream last night, but did you know that makes the fourth one in a week?"

"We're worried about you, sweetie." Her mother settled gracefully in the chair beside Kaylee and took her hand. "We think there might be an underlying problem you're uncomfortable sharing with us. Perhaps something you would rather talk about with just one of us?"

Don't roll your eyes ... don't roll your eyes...

"God, Mom, no. I truly don't remember the dreams. When you wake me, I don't even know why you're waking me."

"Hmmm.... "Max leaned back in his chair, took off his glasses, and chewed thoughtfully on the end piece.

"Dad, c'mon, I'm not one of your patients, okay?"

"No," he said, "you aren't. But you are my daughter. If I was a medical doctor and you got sick, wouldn't I be just as interested in using my knowledge to relieve your suffering?"

"But I'm not suffering!" Kaylee stood up. She hated the way they looked at her, made her feel all weirded out inside. "Can't we just be normal? Why does everything I do have to have some sort of freaky label attached to it? Last time you thought I was all anti-social because I refused to hang out with Charlotte Dambrea."

Diane said, "That's not fair, honey. How were we supposed to know that girl was a pathological liar?"

"Now, we don't know that for sure," Max said. "We can't diagnose without direct interaction."

"I know." Diane smiled softly at her husband. "But it's a good descriptor." She turned back to Kaylee. "We're your parents. It's our job to worry."

"Duh! But that doesn't mean you've got to get all paranoid about it."

"Paranoia is a very severe accusation. It implies your mother and I are irrational, delusional. I'm not sure you understand the full concept of what you've just stated."

Don't roll your eyes ... Don't roll your eyes...

That tiny voice her father liked to call Reason yammered at her to stifle the wildly emotional reaction, to calm down. If she didn't, they'd keep harping about what amounted to nothing. Are you sure? Are you sure it's nothing?

"Okay, I'm sorry for using that word. But seriously, I know you're worried, and if I had any idea what I was dreaming about, I'd tell you. I promise."

They fell silent, exchanging a glance Kaylee couldn't read. Then her mother stood and smiled. "All right, honey. We'll hold you to that promise."

"Good." Her father held out his hand. "I expect a shake on that."

Kaylee shook his hand firmly, as he'd taught her. She really didn't have a problem telling him what the dreams were about--once she recalled what they were.

Running, always running, a looming darkness, unstoppable, incredibly huge, a thunder cloud presence, reaching ... reaching...

So vague, barely enough to articulate, the sensation left her a bit breathless. Acutely aware both her parents were staring at her, she worked up a grin and asked, "What's for dinner?"