I rolled myself along one pathway to follow him. I was pretty good on ice skates, and being on a skateboard felt like home some days more than my own two feet, but four wheels on boots like these was a mostly foreign feeling. Luckily, I wasn’t really worried about falling, which helped me move more confidently.

By the time I made my way out of the garage, Joe was crouching next to one of the shrubs on the lawn. He’d produced some gigantic shears from somewhere and clipped with precision at the plant’s leaves, his feet still dancing away in the grass. This guy.

I began pushing myself forward with longer strides, trying to envision Kat’s posture and style as I did. I crouched low to keep myself sturdy and thrust my legs out to the side. I was used to pushing straight out backward from skateboarding, but I’d noticed when I was watching the skaters last night that the right motion seemed to be back and out—just like ice skating.

The driveway was on a bit of a slant, rising up toward the sidewalk. I propelled myself up the incline, really focusing on using the muscles in my thighs, which I had plenty of.

The skates hugged my feet. Nothing dug in too much—my arches felt supported, my heels flush against the back of the boot. The wheels seemed a bit worn, though, a tick-tick-tick sound coming from my left boot and the right wheels moving as though through thick honey.

“Um, Joe, these boots feel pretty good, but the wheels are a little slow. Would you be able to fix that?”

He stopped clipping leaves immediately and whirled around to face me. “Can I fix that, she asks! Can I fix it!” He dropped the shears onto the lawn and bounced back into the garage, yelling, “Let! Me! Have! Those! Skates! My dear!”

I rolled to the bottom of the driveway, trying to use a toe stop as I did. I realized quickly that toe stops weren’t very helpful. I felt like I was going to tumble forward onto my face but caught myself with the garage wall. I made a mental note to figure out stops ASAP.

I rolled back to the stool and unlaced the boots. As soon as I’d yanked them off my feet, Joe swept them up and began to work on them.

“Bearings, my dear! Bearings! We’ll have you moving smoothly in no time!”

“Um, cool, thanks.” I didn’t really care how he fixed them, so long as they’d hold up when I threw my full body weight at people and those people did the same to me.

As Joe worked on the skates, humming something that sounded like “Thunderstruck,” I picked out some used protective gear and scanned the cork bulletin board hung on one of the walls. A bunch of photos and posters fanned out across its surface.