Teen Angst? Naaah ... by Ned Vizzini Page B

to slide to a stop, when you slid, would you put your right or left foot forward?” Luckily, Owen and I had been sliding around on ice as his dad parked, so I remembered it was my … left foot.
    â€œThat’s goofy,” said the clerk.
    He went to the back of the store and returned with a size twelve goofy-footed snowboard and my special boots. I put them on and negotiated the board’s buckles, which were like plastic bear traps. Finally, I managed to get both feet in and stand up. I couldn’t move, though. Snowboards are made of fiberglass and weigh a good ten pounds; all I could do was jump up and down and make big
fwaping
noises.
    â€œAll right!” I slapped Owen’s open palm. He had gotten on his board, too.
    The next order of business was buying lift tickets. Owen explained that Montage’s ski lifts were overseen by beady-eyed security freaks who checked everyone for these tiny stickers that went on your jacket. The lift tickets were advertised at thirty-three dollars, but they cost us thirty-eight because of someholiday loophole. I sighed and paid up. At last, we were ready to snowboard.
    We headed for the bunny hill. Owen said I had to do the bunny hill three or four times before I could progress to higher levels like “White Lightning.”
    And here I learned the sick truth about snowboarding—the
shambling
. Once you’re strapped onto a snowboard, you’re not going anywhere. A board doesn’t let you wiggle around on level ground like skis do. So in order to get to a lift, you have to unbuckle one foot and “walk” with one leg on the snowboard and one leg off. Everyone at Montage was doing this, shuffling around like crippled grizzlies. You never see that on ESPN2.
    Owen and I shambled over to the lift, waiting behind a legion of bad snowboarders and skiers—most of them yappy little kids. We got in our seats and rode up the bunny hill, which was forty or fifty feet high. At the top, we restrapped our feet onto our boards and managed, by sliding and crawling, to pull ourselves to the slope’s edge. I stood up and looked over at Owen, ready to say something monumental like, “Here we go, dude.” He was already heading downhill.
    I pulled my weight over the lip of the hill and snowboarded. I don’t know how this sport became associated with raucous music; I felt peaceful, pensive. There was a quiet sound of sifting snow, asoft rush of wind. I didn’t even feel like I was moving fast, except when I glanced at the trees.
    The problem was stopping. As I approached the bottom of the hill, I realized I had no clue how to end my ride. I knew how the pros did it—they turned their boards sideways—but that was out of the question. My board had no friction; if I turned sideways, I’d hit that many more people as I skidded along into the parking lot. I decided to fall down carefully, easing my butt into contact with the ground, like an old man getting in a bathtub. As soon as I touched snow, though, I spun out—landing facedown in front of a parked snowmobile. I pulled my board out from under me and adjusted my pants.
    â€œNice job!” Owen yelled. We went up again.
    After two or three shots at the bunny hill, we decided to hit the next step—Montage’s beginner track, “Cannonball.” Cannonball was an entirely different class of slope, thirty or forty times longer than the bunny hill, with a ten-minute trip up the ski lift. Owen was happy. I knew I was going to die.
    We reached the top, shook hands, agreed to a manly race, and started off. About a hundred feet down, I realized I wasn’t goofy-footed. I mean, that alone would explain my board’s tendency to turn right, as if gravitating toward the ski lift’s metal support pillars. If I bent my back, I could sort of staystraight—but not without crossing the paths of good snowboarders, who yelled at me as they whizzed by. I was going