The Good Son by Carolyn Mills (best novels for teenagers .txt) 📕

the game away; instead, he strutted from the room with a satisfied smirk on his face. I gathered up the cards and the little plastic pawns, silently cursing my cruel brother.

As the months rolled by, and my inaugural Dunford Classic loomed on the horizon, I became increasingly excited. I couldn’t stop daydreaming about crossing the finish line to the cheers of my family. Ricky was uncharacteristically enthusiastic about my first race as well and he promised to help me with my kart. Over our March Break we dug through the shed in the backyard, pulling out anything we thought might be useful. Ricky found a set of wheels from one of his old karts, but he said they were too small to be any good so we ended up dismantling the red Radio Flyer wagon and using those wheels.

We dragged everything we had collected to the basement, where our dad’s tools were still neatly stored at his workbench, and Ricky brought down his ghetto blaster. We spent whole days down there, listening to Def Leppard while tinkering with the design of my go-kart, which Ricky had dubbed the “Zo-kart.” Those hours in the dusty basement with my brother were magical. Even now, whenever I hear the song “Bringin’ On the Heartbreak,” I feel like that little girl again, brimming with enthusiasm and hope.

Darius would stop by occasionally while we were working and Ricky would toss out a series of instructions for me before the two of them took off. Darius had just got his licence, so they’d clamber into his dad’s light blue Thunderbird and head to Boelen or Leeville or Port Sitsworth. Anywhere that wasn’t Dunford.

I didn’t have a name then for the bad feeling that crept up on me whenever I saw Darius and Ricky together, but looking back, I think it was simple distrust. Watching Ricky climb into that car reminded me of the time the two of them had taken it without permission and run over the dog on Old Canal Road. (It had been Darius that day, just like I’d thought.) For some reason, Darius always squealed the tires as they rounded the corner at the end of our street and the sound of the rubber screeching made me cringe. I didn’t know what they were trying to prove, if anything, but when they were together, I could feel my stomach tighten.

By the end of March Break, my go-kart was almost done. The steering was a little wobbly, but Ricky said he could fix it and I believed him. I imagined us continuing to work side-by-side in the basement until the kart was completely finished, at which point we would emerge triumphantly to present the Zo-kart to Mom. Together.

That didn’t happen. Ricky’s interest in the project evaporated as soon as we were back at school. He went out almost every night, leaving me to work on my Zo-kart alone. I didn’t do much. I sat in the basement, toying with it, not making any real changes, listening to Ricky’s Def Leppard cassette.

Then, only two days before the Dunford Classic, Ricky announced it was time to test the kart.

“Dad showed me the best place to practise,” he said. “The path that runs down to the ravine from the overpass has the perfect slope. Come on, let’s go.”

I pushed my kart to the end of our street where it abutted the ravine, then followed Ricky along the narrow path that led to the overpass.

“Steering is the most important thing,” Ricky warned me. “If you can’t steer, you’ll wind up driving off the course. Trust me, half the kids won’t be able to steer. It doesn’t matter how fast your kart goes. What matters is that you can keep it in a straight line and make it to the finish line.”

As stupid as it seems to me now, that day I wanted so badly to make Ricky proud. My legs shook as I climbed into the kart. I was worried about the wobbly steering since Ricky never did get around to helping me fix it, and when he gave my kart a gentle shove, I gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles hurt. I concentrated on keeping the kart in a straight line, knowing that the second my wheels hit the grass on either side of the path, I would roll to a stop.

I could hear Ricky yelling behind me, “Keep it straight. Keep it straight!”

As the ground levelled out at the bottom of the ravine, I slowed to a natural stop and turned to find Ricky grinning at me. He ran up to me and slapped my hand in a high-five. I forgave him in that moment for everything — all the fights with Mom, all the times he ignored me, even killing the dog — all of it.

It felt so good to bask in his approval.

A GROUP OF KIDS WERE skipping rope when we got back to our street. “I love coffee, I love tea,” they chanted as the long rope turned and turned. “I love the boys, and the boys love me.” One of our neighbours, a little girl named Amy, was jumping alongside a redhead from a few blocks over. Their matching pigtails bounced up and down. A young boy stood on the sidewalk waving a bubble wand back and forth in front of his face, sending cascades of glistening bubbles into the air.

“I can take the kart home if you want to play,” Ricky said.

I shook my head. “They’re all little kids.” I reached out my index finger and popped a bubble as it drifted past.

Ricky laughed. “If you say so. You’re like, what, two years older than them?”

I shrugged, and as we continued down the street, the words of their silly song echoed behind us. “Yes, no, maybe so.” Their childish voices, along with all those shimmering bubbles, drifted up and away.

THE MORNING OF MY FIRST Dunford Classic dawned clear and bright, with just a hint of a breeze rippling through