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Will He? By Will
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Two days before the race I get everything ready, I can’t sleep. I keep going down to my basement and making sure I have everything all set. I keep looking to see if my socks and sock liners are dry (I wear socks and sock liners because every time I go skiing my feet get numb even with the socks and liners but we still put them on so it is not as numb). Two days later at 4:30AM I put my long underwear on, two shirts and two pants and the socks and sock liners. The meteorologists say it will be 0° degrees outside! After multiple hours of checking my gear it is 6:15 and my dad and I get in one of our cars and head out. After the 40 minute ride we unload our car and I put on more gear! As my race suit chokes me to death, I head over to the ski lift and wait forever to get on (the lift’s line is like 3 miles long). After a 15 minute ride on the lift, I reach the top of the mountain. I ski over to my coach and wait for the rest of the racers. I hide my head from the freakishly good U-14 racers (I am more scared of them than I am of my 15-year old brother) and they call me these annoying names. One keeps on saying, “Hey, Willy.” The other one keeps on shoving me over whenever I get on my skis and two poles. They zoom by in pads and race suits more awesome than my suit, (which is an awesome fading blue into white). Finally, the other U-12 in my group, Luke, JP, and Nick arrive and we go over to the course to inspect/ look and find out when to turn early and when to tuck. Then we get on the lift. Again we find ourselves the scary-good U-14’s. They just zoom by. The one that calls me Willy says, “ Hey, Willy!” When we reach the top we ski down to the start gates. Of course as soon as I get to the gates I get pelted by snowballs. I hear Frank laughing. He is a U-12 that is 9 years old and cannot race, but his dad is a race coach so he goes to the races (and pelts me with snowballs). I yell at him to stop (while he pelts me again). “Seriously?! Every race I tell you that this race suit is not the most thermal thing on the planet. It is hardly waterproof!” I yell.
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“48 and up get to the starting gate!” my coach yells. Since I’m number 51 in group C, I have to unzip the sides of my snow pants to reveal my great race suit. I take my jacket off and put my bib on. I ski over to starting gate in back of another person named Will from Jimminy Peak, one of Berkshire East’s enemy mountains. While all the other racers have snowball fights I am at the start gate and getting ready to push off. “Racer ready,” my coach says. “3” My heart pounds “2” My race helmet feels like it is the weight of my race boots (which is like 40 pounds). “1, GO!” I kick back some powder and zip down the hill and hit the gates like mad. Soon enough I am at the flat. I zip into a tuck and maintain my speed. I zip to the under gates and kill them. Next comes the tighter turns (in icier terrain). I slide a little but roll my edges and I don’t slide as much. I hit a bump and lose my balance and get close to falling but get back on the track and tuck to the finish and stop to wait for my time to be announced (shaking). “Will ...........K..o.nez..non..ys time...” I roll my eyes. The announcer always get my last name wrong. “One minute, six seconds,” the announcer announced One minute, six seconds. Not bad I think. I went to the lift to get the coat and snow pants I had left at the top of the mountain. Again I go on the second slowest ski lift on the planet. Once at the top I go over to the place where we dump our coats and snow pants and Frank pelts me with his stockpile of snowballs again. He has saved them just for me. This time I ignore him and get my coat and snow pants and ski down to the lodge. When I get there my mom takes a picture of me in my race suit and then I can have my lunch. So my mom takes a picture and we go into the lodge. I wolf my lunch down (I am
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starving). As I leave I hear one of the U-14s say; “Hey, Willy, I looked on the scoreboard and you did okay.” “Thanks,” I mutter (I was mad at him for calling me Willy). And stop calling me Willy, I thought.
The End