CHAPTER 1

ADVENTURE AWAITS

When your dad is the lead inventor for SpyZoom Technologies and your best friend is a skateboarding daredevil, there is no time to lead a boring life. And who’d want that anyway? The way I see it, adventure is all around us—we just have to go out and find it.

For example, just last year Lin and I helped my dad test out his new antigravity sleeping bag. Sure, we woke up on the roof of my neighbor’s garage, but that was way more exciting than waking up in the same old bed every day for nine years.

And then there was the time Lin wanted to be a magician. She learned how to saw me in half without leaving a scratch, and she even learned how to make things disappear. Okay, we never found Lin’s little sister’s Wubby-Bunny, but still—it beat sitting around eating Cheezie-Poofs and watching Electric Knight reruns on TV.

But every year on July 18, our adventuring kicks up to a whole new level. That’s when our hometown transforms from a quiet little place in the middle of nowhere to the loudest party on planet Earth.

Overnight the place fills up with skateboarders, news cameras, freestyle BMX riders, and fried-food trucks. Tourists show up to take selfies with the world-famous Ramp-O-Saurus, the tallest and greenest skate ramp in the western United States.

Fans don’t just show up for the churros and corn dogs, although that is a pretty good reason. They come for the Under 12 X-treme Games. But this year was special, because the crowd favorite was my best friend, Lin Song.

It was Lin’s second year competing in the U12X Games, but it was my first. Okay, so I wasn’t actually competing. Ripping a 720 Heel Flip off a concrete half-pipe isn’t really my thing. So I found better ways to get involved. For the past twelve months I helped Lin work on her nutrition, mostly by cutting down on gummy bears. I made her a practice schedule that included watching documentaries about flying squirrels, the best long-distance gliders in the animal kingdom. And I helped her beef up her chances with advanced technology and better science. Which totally makes me part of Team Lin. Sure, I’m listed as her coach, but let’s face it, I’m way more than just a coach.

I’m Lin’s secret weapon.

Copyright © 2017 by Dustin Hansen