Read Online Qualify by Vera Nazarian - Free Book Online Page A

and subdued, and she keeps grabbing my hand, then letting go.
    “Oh man! Oh no! Look!” George’s bud Eddie says, and we all stare as Archer Richards, an older boy from our school, my year, suddenly slips and ends up hanging off the board with both hands. . . .
    Just wow.
    Archer is hanging by his hands then arms, hugging the board, and he cries out, “Stop!” The board freezes eight feet up in the air, just a few feet away from the stage. All Archer needs to do is just let go and he’ll be standing on the mat. It’s only a few inches to the floor from where he is hanging.
    But somehow Archer Richards knows. If he lets go now, he fails the stupid hoverboard test.
    And so everyone holds their breath and watches as Archer grunts and switches his grip with both hands, and then suddenly he pulls himself up and lies on his stomach on top of the board.
    There are whispers of relief.
    Archer lies there for a few seconds. He’s a short, stocky guy with powerful arms that look like he works out regularly, and obviously it has helped. He then carefully stands up and resumes the movement of the board, finishing his pass without further mishap. When he gets off, everyone claps and hoots. And apparently the Atlantean in the back has noticed too, and looks well pleased as he scans Archer’s token.
    “I bet that guy just Qualified,” says Gordie, as we take another few steps closer to the stage.
    And then, a few minutes later, just as it looks like it can’t get any more heartbreaking, I look up on stage and there’s a kid in a wheelchair.
     

 
    Chapter 4
     
    “O h, no, just no! ” Gracie mutters, staring with great big eyes at the student in the wheelchair, who has been somehow lifted up onto the stage. It’s a dark-haired boy I’ve never seen before, probably from another school, and he looks frail.
    “Poor guy. . . .” George frowns. “This must really blow for him.”
    “It’s really unfair.” I stare, while a weird numbing sense fills me. Regret or pity, or I don’t know what. Maybe this is what resigned despair feels like. Whatever it is, it makes my gut cold.
    The auditorium has once again grown really quiet.
    Principal Marksen stands looking at the disabled boy, and for the first time his tough face has cracked and he looks really uncomfortable.
    A woman teacher comes up to the wheelchair, leans forward gently and speaks something to the boy. After a pause the boy nods. The teacher then reaches into the box and hands a blank token to the Principal who frowns, then encodes the ID data.
    The Principal leans down and hands the token to the boy.
    The kid looks up, and I watch his skinny neck move, and the tightening of his lips. He takes the button and pins it to the front of his sweatshirt.
    The teacher then pushes the wheelchair closer to the hoverboard.
    I hold my breath as the boy lifts himself off the wheelchair with his hands and arms, and then drags himself along the floor. Then he pulls himself up with unexpected strength, lifting his body onto the hoverboard, lies there on his stomach for a few seconds, then manually pulls up his legs, adjusting them to lie along the length of the board.
    “Wow! No way!” Gordie opens his mouth.
    Everyone else is making noise too.
    “Go!” says the kid without the use of his legs. His voice is calm, he is holding on with both hands, while lying on his stomach, and the board sails forward over the stage. He soon moves into a smooth descent and finishes at the end of the run with a confident “Stop!”
    Here, he lifts himself onto the linoleum near the edge of the mat, and ends in a sitting position on the floor. He commands the board to return.
    As the board is flying back, the teacher who had assisted him on the stage has picked up the wheelchair and is hurrying it down the stairs with the help of someone, and then pushing it through the auditorium in a hurry.
    As the kid waits for the chair to be brought to him, the Atlantean in the back leaves his desk