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With his knees slightly bent and his arms hanging loosely at his sides, Bean stood motionless, as if content to ride the wave out. Only then did Kai realize that his friend was gradually getting ahead of the bowl. Suddenly Bean swung his arms and upper torso around in a huge, sweeping roundhouse cutback.

Kai had never seen Bean pull a move like it before. It seemed as if no one on the beach
even noticed. Kai glanced at the judges. All three were busy scribbling on their clipboards. Kai felt a smile grow on his face. At least the people who kept score had noticed.

Way to go, Bean
.

Winners wouldn't be announced until the awards ceremony at the end of the day, but Kai had no doubt who the men's long board champ would be.

The final air horn blew, and a few minutes later Bean walked up the beach with his board tucked under his arm. Jillian looked up from her conversation with Shauna. “How'd you do?” she asked.

“Okay,” Bean said, picking up a towel and drying his face.

“That last move was pretty nice,” Kai said.

“Thanks,” Bean said. “It felt good.”

The beach was emptier now. The sun had moved well past the midpoint of the day and many of the eliminated competitors had packed up and left. The mood among those who remained had changed. The lighthearted, what-the-hell feeling had been replaced with something grimmer and more serious. Kai was thirsty. He'd finished all his water and was angry at himself for not bringing more. He was
tempted to ask Jillian for some, but she was getting pretty low too.

“Know what's amazing?” Shauna said. “More than half the crowd's gone, but everyone in our group is still in the competition.”

The same, Kai noted to himself, was true of Lucas's crew. Sam and Lucas were still in the juniors, and Runt had made it to the semi-finals of the boys' division. Buzzy had also arrived. Apparently he'd been confident his son would make it through the earlier heats and hadn't bothered to watch. But now he was not only there, he had taken Lucas away from his friends, as if he felt his son needed to be less distracted and more focused on the competition. Lucas dutifully listened and nodded as his father spoke and pointed at the waves.

A guy carrying a clipboard and a large plastic bag strolled up to the blanket where Kai and his friends were sitting. He had black hair and was wearing khaki shorts and a green polo shirt that said “Bonzo Kreem” on it.

“Hey, dudes, talk to you for a second?” he said.

Kai and the others nodded.

“I'm Mark Curlin from Bonzo Kreem,” he said. “You ever hear of our product?”

Kai and the others shook their heads. Curlin reached into the plastic bag and took out a bunch of sample-size orange-and-green plastic tubes and tossed them around. “Bonzo Kreem is new on the market. A kind of all-in-one salve for your typical surf-related skin disorders. It works on chafing, wax rash, jock itch, fungus, and sunburn. It's waterproof and hypoallergenic, and if you leave it on for a couple of days, it produces a pheromone that drives the ladies wild.” Curlin grinned. “Naw, just kidding about the last part, but everything else I said is true and laboratory tested. So I hope you guys'll try these samples and keep us in mind. We're putting together the Bonzo Kreem Dream Team and we'll be watching the results of today's competition. Peace out, dudes.”

Curlin moved on to the next group of surfers.

“Do you realize what he just said?” Bean asked. “We could be on the Bonzo Kreem Dream Team, spreading waterproof jock itch cream to the far corners of the Earth.”

“Gee whiz, Mr. Bean, are you really a professionally sponsored surfer?” Shauna pretended to be surf groupie.

“You betcha,” Bean answered in a deep baritone. “Got a problem with chafing, young lady?”

“Well, not really, Mr. Bean,” Shauna answered.

“How about wax rash?”

Shauna shook her head.

“Jock itch?”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Bean.” Shauna pretended to be insulted.

“Well, then, perhaps it's sunburn we need to talk about.”

By now Shauna was pretending to look elsewhere. “Oh, look, there's the guys on the Deep Pit Surf Deodorant Team. See you later, Mr. Bonzo Kreem Bean.”

“But wait!” Bean pretended to call desperately. “We haven't talked about fungus!”

They were interrupted by the beach marshal on the megaphone. “For the semifinals of the juniors we'll have two four-man, twenty-minute heats. Two from each heat will go on to the finals. First semifinal heat will be Winthrop, Keller, Frank, and Herter.”

“That's us!” Spazzy jumped to his feet and grabbed his board. “Come on, Kai.”

By now the competitors didn't have to be
briefed on what to do. They went to the tent to get their jerseys. Kai and Lucas arrived at the table at the same time.

“Not bad for a guy who says he hates to compete,” Lucas said as he accepted the black jersey.

“You talking about me or you?” Kai asked as he took the white jersey.

Lucas frowned.

A moment later they were paddling out. Spazzy had gotten the green jersey and the kid named Keller had the red. The second Lucas got outside, he turned his board around, caught a decent, but not great, wave, and ripped. It appeared to Kai that Buzzy had given his son a new strategy—put pressure on the other surfers. Get out ahead as soon as possible and make the others nervous. Force them to play catch-up. Kai understood the strategy. A nervous, anxious surfer was more likely to pick a bad wave, or try something too difficult on a good one.

The logical response was to take your time and wait.

A decent set came in and both Spazzy and the guy named Keller took off on the same wave. Spazzy was farther inside and up first,
but had to bail when Keller popped in front of him. Kai doubted Keller dropped in on him on purpose. More likely the guy was feeling the pressure from Lucas, saw a good wave, and went for it without looking. But it didn't matter. A whistle blew and the beach marshal called red in. Keller had been disqualified.

That left Lucas, Kai, and Spazzy. Lucas got another short, but half-decent ride. Of the three surfers now left in the heat, he was the only one who'd even scored a point. While Lucas paddled out, Spazzy and Kai waited for the next good wave. A set came in, and Kai saw instantly that it was out of Spazzy's reach. It was Kai's wave if he wanted it. He turned and paddled.

The wave jacked up under him and Kai felt as if he'd stepped into an elevator and been boosted up a floor higher than he'd expected. He suddenly found himself on the lip of the thing, looking straight down the face into a deep blue trough. It was like sitting on top of a high wall. Had he sat back on his board, the wave would have rolled right under him.

But Kai had no intention of sitting back. Only a few times in his life had he popped up
on his board and found himself airborne on the way down. The board hit water and Kai did a sharp bottom turn and headed back up, easily getting vertical and doing an off-the-lip before it even felt like the ride had begun. What happened from that point on was strictly unconscious. Kai would later swear it felt as if the board simply did whatever it wanted to. Cutback, method, floater … It almost felt like the wave was having too much fun with him to want to stop.

Kai could hear the cheers and hoots before the ride even ended. There'd definitely been luck involved. Somehow he'd found himself on a wave that didn't want to quit. But he'd also taken advantage of what it had to offer.

When he paddled back out, Kai wasn't surprised to see the glum expression on Lucas's face. The guy knew he'd been completely out-surfed. What did surprise Kai was when Lucas nodded and grudgingly said, “Nice ride.”

Kai paddled up over the next wave. There was Spazzy, sitting on his board, shoulders hunched, looking even more bummed than Lucas.

Only then did Kai realize what he'd done.

“
G
reat ride,” Spazzy said.

Kai could tell he meant it, but that he was also devastated. Kai thought he knew what had happened. Spazzy had come to Fairport that day without expectations. He only had those crazy fantasies all kids had about miracle rides and being declared the champ. The kind of fantasies you know never come true, but you cling to anyway. Then Spazzy made it through the first two rounds and found himself in the semifinals. A place he'd never expected to be. Just one round from the finals and the possible championship. Suddenly the impossible seemed possible. After all, in any given heat anything could happen. Your opponent could break his
board. You could find yourself on the wave of the day. Who knew?

And so somehow, between the last round and this round, Spazzy had begun to think that maybe winning the event wasn't a total fantasy. That it was within his grasp. And the truth was, at the beginning of the semifinal heat, that had been the case. Spazzy, Lucas, Keller, and Kai had paddled as equals. But things had quickly changed. Keller was disqualified, Lucas had turned in two solid rides, and Kai had just come off a monster rip. As a result, Spazzy's fantasies, hopes, and dreams were crashing down like the waves they were supposed to be riding.

A mediocre wave came in. Five minutes ago, no one would have taken it. But feeling the pressure, Spazzy took off on it.

“So now what do you do?”

Kai turned and found Lucas paddling close to him.

“Right now you and I are a lock for the next round,” Lucas said, as if Kai didn't already know. “Of course, that means your buddy's finished.”

“There's still time,” Kai replied.

Lucas gave him a “Yeah, right” look, but said nothing more.

A lull in the waves followed. Nothing worth riding was coming in or even visible on the horizon. Lucas and Kai sat on their boards waiting and watching. It wasn't long before Spazzy joined them.

No one said a word. No one had to.

The air horn blared. The green flag went down and the yellow went up. Five minutes to go and Spazzy hadn't had anything that even approached a decent ride. Kai spied the peak of a wave out beyond the others. A new set was coming in.

“Hey, Lucas,” he said. “Why not let Spazzy get one of these. It won't make any difference to your score. You've already got enough points to move on to the finals.”

Lucas tilted his head as if considering it. “Maybe I do. But you don't.”

“Maybe I don't care,” Kai answered.

“Forget it, guys,” Spazzy said. “I don't want any handouts.”

“It's not a handout,” Kai said. “It's just a chance to show what you've got. Besides, if Lucas and I agree, what difference does it make?”

Lucas gazed out at the approaching set. “Suppose we do it this way: I get the first good
one, and then you can give Spazzy the next?”

“As long as you agree to take the first or second wave in the set,” Kai said.

“Deal,” said Lucas.

The set came in and, as agreed, Lucas took off first.

Kai turned to Spazzy. “Get the next one, dude. It's all yours.”

“Thanks, Kai.” Spazzy paddled into the next wave. From Kai's viewpoint behind, everything looked good. He expected to see Spazzy's head and shoulders pop up. It didn't happen. A second later Spazzy's board pin-wheeled into the air. The leash went tight and the board hurtled back down.

Kai checked his watch. Three minutes left.

Spazzy had missed what was probably his last shot.

With two minutes left, Lucas paddled back out.

“Looks like your plan didn't work,” he said.

Kai watched Spazzy paddle toward them through the waves, trying to get out in time for one last ride. The kid had a desperate, fearful look on his face—as if he just didn't want it to end like this. Kai looked back out to see
if anything decent was coming in. There were some dark wave crests out there rising above the others, but nothing particularly big or impressive. Probably nothing that would give Spazzy the kind of platform he needed to get a really stellar ride.

“Hey, look at it this way,” Lucas said. “Your friend had a good run.”

He had, and Kai was glad for him. This meant something to Spazzy. It wasn't just about competing. It was about showing people what a kid with a disability could do. But what did it mean to Kai? Why should he care whether he got to the finals or not? Wasn't this what he hated about surfing? The competition. Here for a trophy. There for a sponsorship, and in most places, just for another wave. If this competition didn't mean anything to him, but meant so much to Spazzy, what was Kai doing out there?

The next set was coming. The one neither Kai nor Lucas needed to get into the finals. The one that simply didn't have enough juice to help Spazzy get a decent ride.

“Might as well get a few extra points for the ride in,” Lucas said, and started to paddle.

Suddenly Kai had an idea.

K
ai proned out on his board and started to paddle as hard as he could. There was no way he was going to catch the wave, but that wasn't what he was trying to do. Just a few feet from him, Lucas was also paddling. But those few feet were the difference between catching it and not catching it. Kai was counting on Lucas to turn and look back at the wave. And when he did, he was in for a surprise.

Lucas looked back over his shoulder. When he saw Kai just behind and to his right, his eyes widened. He had to know that if they both kept going, there was a good chance Kai would hit him.

Lucas pulled up into a stall and let the wave
pass. Kai kept going and caught it, then purposefully allowed himself to bite it in the trough. When his head came up out of the soup, he could hear the shrilled tremolo of the air horn. He'd just managed to get himself disqualified.

Lucas was paddling toward him with an angry look on his face. “What the fuck was that?” he yelled.

Kai just smiled and held on to his board. “I don't know what I was thinking, Lucas. Guess I won't be seeing you in the finals after all.”