On the field we met our three bike instructors. They wore colorful shirts and silver helmets.
One of them described the obstacle course we were going to practice in the morning, while the other instructors rode over it. They made it look easy. There were cones to ride around like a snake, a plank to ride like we were crossing a river, and a teeter-totter, just like the one Jonas had made. Except it wasn’t wide enough for training wheels. I stepped back from the class. The leader kept talking, but my ears were full of a whooshing sound coming from inside me, and I couldn’t understand anything he said.
Irma came to stand beside me. “Do you need to do some square breathing?”
I nodded. I closed my eyes and started breathing slowly.
“It’s my turn to do the obstacle course,” Irma whispered. “You can do this, I know it. Breathe another square.”
I did.
It didn’t help enough. The whooshing was still filling up my body. I closed my eyes and did some more square breathing.
I heard someone beside me. I tried to ignore them, but they didn’t go away. I opened my eyes. Jonas was standing beside me. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m a helper.”
“Oh.” I kept counting in and out for four seconds.
“Are you nervous?”
“I’m nervous and mad.” I held my breath for four seconds.
“Mad about what?”
I let my breath out. The words tumbled out of me like they were all attached together. “I-can’t-do-the-practice-loop-because-I-have-training-wheels-and-everyone-will-make-fun-of-me-and-I’m-not-brave-so-I-can’t-take-them-off-and-the-ramp-isn’t-wide-enough-for-me-to-ride-with-them-on.” I turned my back to him and took in another breath for four seconds.
He didn’t say anything for a second. Then he said, “I can teach you how to ride without training wheels.”
I shook my head so hard I thought my brains might fall out.
“Then maybe you need to think like a duck,” he said.
I spun around to look at him. “You mean I should quack? That’s not going to help.”
“My teacher says water doesn’t stick to ducks. It flows off them. When someone is teasing us, we should let the words flow off us, just like a duck.”
“Does it work for you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Sometimes. It helps when I have friends around.”
“Let me think about it,” I said.
I turned my bike around so I was facing the parking lot. I did some square breathing. Irma and Jonas wouldn’t make fun of me. Did it matter if Dan did?
I looked at the two third-grade classes. Dan was riding around the loop. He ran over one of the cones and he slipped off the teeter-totter. Then it was Ravi’s turn. He was so good that he rode over the plank with no hands. And then he did a wheelie!
“Show-off,” Dan said.
I waited for Ravi to yell at Dan, but he just rode over to the rest of the class and waited for another turn.
Irma rode around the loop with a big smile on her face, even though she missed two cones and needed help from an instructor on the plank. When she got to the end she waved and pedaled over to me. “Lauren, it’s fun. You should try it.”
“Dan will say mean things.”
Jonas walked over to us. He quacked and flapped his arms.
I laughed. But I kept my feet on the ground.
“Why are you quacking?” Irma asked.
“He’s telling me to act like a duck and let the mean words slide off my back.”
Irma waved her hand in front of her face. “Is that like going with the flow?”
I thought for a second. My friend Irma is so smart. “Yes, it is!”
Irma quacked. “Follow me. We’ll go for a paddle in the pond.” She rode back to the class.
I stood gripping the handlebars. Could I go with the flow? Could I be a duck? Could I be brave enough?
Chapter 12
I waggled my hand in front of my face. I imagined Dan’s words sliding off my back. I looked at my new friend Jonas, who was smiling at me. I thought about Ravi, who had ignored Dan. I looked at my best friend Irma, who was waving me toward her. I stepped on my pedal and pushed forward.
I rode my bike around the cones. My training wheels got stuck on a cone and tipped it over. I heard Dan snicker. My volcano started bubbling, but I imagined his words running off me like water off a duck.
Next was the river. As I rode across, my training wheels ground along the edges of the plank. Alyssa laughed. But I didn’t stop. Her giggles ran off my back, too.
I lined up for the teeter-totter. It wasn’t built for a mouse, like Jonas’. Or even a dog or a gorilla. It was built for a giraffe. Or a blue whale, if a whale had legs. And it was skinny. Too skinny for my training wheels.
Dan laughed. “You’ll never be able to get over that.”
The words stuck to me. They didn’t slide off my back, even when Ms. Allen told Dan to move away from the bike course. He was right. I couldn’t make it up the ramp. I wasn’t a duck paddling around a pond. I was just a girl with training wheels struggling on a stormy ocean.
Jonas and Irma rode toward me.
“You can do it,” Irma said.
“It’s just like at my house,” Jonas said.
I shook my head. “No it isn’t. My training wheels will hang off the side. I’m going to fall.”
Jonas eyed the teeter-totter, with his mouth twisted over to one side. “You know how to balance your bike so your training wheels don’t touch the ground. I’ve seen you do it.”
“You have?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yup. And if your wheels don’t touch the ground, they won’t get stuck on the ramp. Start far enough away from the ramp so you have time to get balanced.”
“Jonas and I will spot you, like at my house,” Irma said.
I thought about
