Free Skateboard Renegade by Matt Christopher

addition to the family room. Mom always complains about
     all that scrap lumber, but she sure loves the finished project when it's done!”
    “Scrap lumber?” An idea suddenly came to him. “Hey, Benny, do you think I could use some of this plywood and those tools to
     make a skateboarding ramp for my driveway?”
    “Well, this stuff isn't mine,” Benny pointed out. “It's my dad's. And my dad doesn't let anybody work without supervision.”
    “Oh,” Zach said, disappointed.
    “Of course, if I asked him nicely, he'd probably come down and help us.”
    “Really?” Zach asked, his jaw dropping.
    “Nope,” Benny said with a smile. “He just loves to work with wood. It's what he does for a hobby, and he loves it when I do
     it with him. Kind of like a father-and-son thing.”
    “That's phat. Oh, man, I hope he says yes. A ramp in the driveway would be so cool!” Zach mused. He told Benny about the cones
     he'd put out. “It would make my skateboarding course complete.”
    Benny turned to the computer and logged on tothe Internet. “Let's just see if we can download some building plans for a ramp and go find Dad!”
    Three hours later, when his mom came to pick him up, Zach was standing in Benny's driveway. Next to him was a curved wooden
     ramp made out of plywood. “Hi, Mom!” He waved to her.
    “What's this, Zachary?” she asked him, getting out of the car.
    “Benny's dad's giving me this ramp,” he told her. “It's for skateboarding tricks in the driveway.”
    “Well, isn't that nice of him!” his mom said with a smile. “I'm so glad you're making such nice new friends at Amherst.” Then
     she cleared her throat. “Of course, Zoey is not to go anywhere near that thing, do you understand?”
    “Of course not, Mom!” Zach said, rolling his eyes. “Do I look that stupid?”
    “All right, all right,” she said. “Come on, let's get this thing in the back.”
    They managed to lift the ramp between them. It just fit in the back of the station wagon. As they drove off toward home, his
     mom asked, “So what did you two boys come up with?”
    “Uh, nothing,” Zach said lamely.
    His mother's mouth grew tight. “What do you mean, nothing? I drove you over here so you could work on your project. Did you
     do any work at all?”
    “We tried, Mom,” Zach explained defensively. “But neither of us could think of anything good.”
    “I'm sure,” his mother said, making a face. “You probably just played video games or watched TV.”
    “Whatever you say, Mom.” Zach stared out the window. He sure wasn't going to volunteer the information that they'd spent their
     homework time building a skateboarding ramp.
    “Look, young man,” she said, pulling into their driveway and stopping the car, “you are still officially grounded until you
     work off your debt to your sister. Since you're obviously taking advantage of our good nature, next time you and your partner
     can work on your project here at our house.”
    Zach clucked his tongue and got out of the car without answering her. What was the use, anyway?
    As he came into the house, the phone rang. Zach picked up the extension. “Hello?” he said.
    “Zach? It's your uncle Skeeter, dude!”
    “Oh, hey, Skeeter,” Zach said grudgingly. “You want to talk to Mom again?”
    “Actually, I called to talk to you, partner,” Skeeter said, in that hippie twang of his. Skeeter had once been an actual hippie—living
     on a commune in northern California for two years after dropping out of college. Later he'd gotten work harvesting giant sequoia
     and redwood pinecones by climbing hundreds of feet up into the great old trees. On one of those climbs, he'd taken a fall
     of over a hundred feet and broken nearly every bone in his body.
    Skeeter had recovered much better than anyone could have hoped, but he never got back to having what Zach's parents would
     have called a “normal life.” He now lived in Venice, California, in a little house just off