Free Round Robin by Jennifer Chiaverini Page B

didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
    She would have been more impressed by his apology if he hadn’t waited until his friends were out of earshot. “You have no idea how much it hurts me to know you score points with your friends by ridiculing your brother. You, of all people, should defend him.” She snatched up the laundry basket and stormed from the room.
    Tim and Michael worked until dusk, and the next morning Diane woke to the sounds of hammers and saws outside her window. They worked all day, taking breaks only for meals and church. Michael tried to convince her to let them skip mass just that once, and Tim looked like he might agree, but Diane would have none of it. “With this thing in the backyard we’re going to need all the divine assistance we can get,” she said, herding father and son inside with orders to clean up and change within twenty minutes or she’d cancel construction for the day.
    Tim and Michael got back to work after church, and when Diane returned from welcoming a new group of quilt campers to Elm Creek Manor, they were still at it. By Sunday evening the skateboard ramp was finished. Diane and Todd joined Tim and Michael outside for the final inspection.
    Michael was holding his skateboard and grinning. “What do you think?”
    â€œUnbelievable,” Todd said, eyeing the structure, and Diane agreed. The U-shaped half-pipe nearly spanned the width of the yard and looked at least twelve feet high.
    â€œIt’s safe,” Michael assured her. “Really.”
    Diane circled the ramp, looking it over. When the supporting beams hid her from view, she seized the nearest one and threw her weight against it. It didn’t budge.
    â€œDad already tried that,” Michael called. “It’s sturdy.”
    Diane joined them in front. “It seems to be,” she admitted.
    Michael apparently took that as the signal to begin the test run, because he put on his helmet. He climbed up a ladder built into one side of the structure and moved onto a platform at the top of the U. He placed his skateboard at the edge, stepped on it, and scanned the length of the ramp.
    â€œI can’t watch,” Diane murmured, but she couldn’t look away, either.
    Then Michael launched himself forward, over the edge and down the slope. His momentum carried him up the opposite side, where he turned at the edge and raced back down again. He shot up the first slope, but this time he soared above the U, crouching down to grab the skateboard with one hand as he turned.
    â€œBig air,” Tim whooped as Michael rode down the slope again. “That’s what the kids say,” he added in an undertone.
    Diane nodded, her anxiety giving way to amazement as she watched Michael swoop down one side of the U and up the other. He was positively graceful.
    Finally he slowed and came to a stop at the bottom of the U. “What did you think?” he called, smiling with triumph and breathing hard from exertion. Somehow he tossed the skateboard into the air with his feet and caught it.
    Diane couldn’t speak for a moment. He looked so proud and happy. “I’m impressed,” she said. “I’m also terrified you’re going to break your neck.”
    Michael laughed. “It’s not as dangerous as it looks.”
    â€œThank God for that.”
    Michael rode a while longer, until Diane told him he had to go insideand do his homework. To her amazement, he obeyed without protest.
    â€œWhat happened to our kid?” she whispered to Tim.
    â€œI don’t know, but I’m not complaining.” He put an arm around her shoulders and they crossed the lawn side by side.
    The next day, Diane went to the manor earlier than usual to have lunch with the new campers and some of the Elm Creek Quilters. She had the whole group laughing with the story of how she and Tim had punished their wayward son by building him his own skateboard