Kook - Chris Vick

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      “What?” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about.

      “The Mellow’s better in my humble, but most dudes go for the bang-you-into-a-coma gear. God knows why. Its proper name is Cheese or something, but I call it Mind-fuck, so no one says I didn’t warn them.”

      Then I twigged. He was talking about weed. Rag dealt drugs.

      “I don’t want any weed.” I said.

      “Then why are we talking?”

      “I want to surf. I was thinking you could help me.”

      “I ain’t got the time, man.” He took his arm off me. “Sure you don’t want any weed?”

      I shook my head. “I know you won’t teach me but… some tips?”

      He scratched his stubbly chin.

      “Sure. Don’t do it. It’s bastard hard, and distracts you from other stuff you should do. Like live your life.” He raised an eyebrow, looking serious, like he was thinking about some deep subject. “On the other hand, it’s the best thing you can ever do. Better than girls and spliff and… other stuff I can’t think of right now. That’s just my opinion. But it’s also a fact. Any surfer will tell you the same, or they’re lying. I haven’t even got it that bad, but every idiot I know who stuck at it has. Does that help, Sam? How much were you thinking of paying me anyway?”

      I tried not to look too hacked off.

      “Okay, forget I asked,” he said.

      “How am I supposed to learn?”

      “There’s only one teacher.”

      “What does that even mean, Rag?”

      “You’ll see. Need a board?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Come round Saturday morning. My bro’s got some stuff too shagged to sell to the shops. He’ll give it you cheap.” He gave me the address, and said I’d find it easy.

      

      I WAS DEAD PLEASED Rag was going to help me. But even if he hadn’t, I’d have found a way.

      I had a lot to prove. To myself. But to Jade too. Even though I had no idea how she’d react. Would she be pleased? Or would she just piss herself laughing? There was no point worrying about it. I’d decided.

      Rag lived on a council estate on the moor side of a small village called Lanust. All the houses were dull and granite and square. Rag’s house stuck out because of the choice artwork above the garage door. It was a graffiti-style spray job, about four feet high, showing a grown-up, sexy Red Riding Hood. She had a basket full of spray cans instead of apples, and with one in her hand had scrawled a message next to her, in spiky red letters, two feet high:

      

      A thumping rap tune was blasting out of the window. It took a lot of knocking before the door was answered.

      Rag took me to the garage to meet his brother, who was exactly like Rag only older, about eighteen, and perfecting the stoner look even more than Rag, with scraggy, thatched hair, a wispy beard and glazed, bloodshot eyes. There was no sign of any kind of Responsible Adult.

      If Aladdin had been a surfer, his cave would have looked something like Rag’s brother’s garage. At one end was a workshop with a bench, with a half-finished board on it, and a shelf with masks and sanders. The floor was covered with a snowfall of ground white foam. Next to the bench was a line of clean, white, new boards in a rail. In the middle of the garage there were more rails, with more boards. New, old, long, short, wide, thin, white and stainless, yellow with age, smooth and pristine, dinged and knackered. Boards with single fins, boards with three fins, boards with pointed noses and pinpoint tails, longboards with blunt noses, boards with ends shaped like fish tails. At the back there were no rails. It was just a messed up mountain of boards and suits.

      All round, Aladdin’s surf cave.

      Seeing all this made the whole ‘me surfing’ thing very real, and not just about Jade. I thought riding one of those things might feel good. And going out in the sea and not almost-drowning might feel pretty good too.

      “Ned buys and sells, fixes and shapes,” Rag explained. “Good to make a crust doing what you love, right?”

      “What do you like to ride?” said Rag’s brother. “If I don’t have it, I can get it.”

      I reckoned that, dopey as they looked, Rag and his “bro” might just be canny little business heads, and would probably buy or sell anything. If the price was right. And especially if what you were buying or selling was exotic herbs or surf kit.

      “He’s a virgin,” said Rag, slapping me on the back. I waited for the piss-take, but it didn’t come. Instead Ned was friendly, but kind of serious.

      “Okay.” He leant back, eyeing me up and down, measuring me up.

      “Weight, age, fitness, how much fat on you, how much muscle, how good at swimming are you, how many press-ups can you do, how flexible are you?”

      I gave him the answers, and I didn’t lie.

      “I’d say foam or pop out usually,” said Ned. “Starter boards with soft tops or a factory-made shape, but they don’t do you favours in the long run. I got a custom that might be good for you.”

      “Custom boards are hand crafted, Sam,” said Rag, waving his arm around the garage. “Every one is different, made for riders with different weights and abilities and for different types of surfing.”

      I had to admire the sales rap. I put a nervy hand in my pocket. Seventy quid. My life’s savings. Plus a tenner ‘borrowed’ from Tegan’s piggy bank.

      “You gonna do this, proper like?” said Rag. I nodded. “Then you need something that’s big and stable, but which still goes nice. Know what I’m saying?”

      A board had already caught my eye, a long one, sun-red, about eight, maybe nine feet long, pointed and thin, like a rocket, but thick.

      “How about that one?” I said.

      They smiled like I was a five-year-old asking to drive his dad’s new Porsche. Rag ran a finger up the board’s rail, with a dreamy look in his eyes. I’d seen Jade do the same thing with a board, the day I met her, and it seemed strange to me.

      “This, my friend, is a gun. A big wave board. This board is more than ten years old. It gets taken out twice a year, by Ned. If that. Put in a few years, hope you’re not busy when the storm hits, maybe you’ll get to ride a board like this one. There’s a few of these in sheds and garages round here, gathering dust, waiting for the day.” He snapped out of his daydream and got back to the business of selling.

      “How about Old Faithful?” Rag said to Ned.

      “That’s what I was already thinking,” said Ned. They got busy in the messy heap of boards and suits at the scrappy end of the garage. The board they pulled out was about a foot taller than me, yellow, wide, thick with three fins at the back. It was fatter, older and more battered than any other board in the place. Covered in dents and patches of fibreglass, where it had been dinged, and fixed.

      I could feel the sting of being ripped off already, but Ned looked at it like it was a work of art, something he really cared about.

      “We used to keep it under the lifeguard hut at Gwynsand. Anyone could use it. It’s good for small, good for big, good for learning, with enough rocker to be forgiving,

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