At school they’re always telling us about how we can be anything. What they mean is girls. Girls can be anything. But there are still things boys aren’t supposed to do. Boys play drums or trumpet. They don’t play flute or violin. Boys are doctors, not nurses; principals, not kindergarten teachers. If that old movie Kindergarten Cop couldn’t change that, it’s going to take a lot more than Elvis What’s-his-name playing hockey to make it okay for me to figure skate. Just ask Jason.
***
Star hockey player Ben Bradley wants to learn to jump and spin while his sister Denise is hoping to go to hockey camp and become the first girl on the Rum River High School varsity team. If the guys find out, Ben will never hear the end of it. And Ben doesn’t even want to think about what his former-hockey-star father would say.
About Writing Crossovers
How long does it take to write a novel? A month? A year?
Sometime in the mid1990s an image of a boy with an infectious grin, standing victorious on the podium of a skating competition, started me writing. I had to know who he was and how he got there. I thought about him; I scratched notes; and eventually I borrowed a book about how to write and publish fiction and wrote practice exercises that were scenes from Ben’s life. But that’s what it was—practice writing. The 200-page manuscript sat in a drawer while I wrote The Wooden Ox and Between Two Worlds. As I was finishing Glastonbury Tor, I began to realize what was the real story within those pages of fantasy skating scenes. I sent GT to my agent and sat down and wrote Crossovers in a month, but it had already been ten years in the making.
Ben Bradley is also responsible for my addiction to skating. I had to do research, didn’t I? I checked a book on figure skating out of the library and propped it on a snowdrift beside the flooded middle school playground while I practiced stroking and crossovers. By then I was hooked. I went on to group lessons and then private. The first time I competed, I took notes so I would remember what Ben would experience and how he might feel. I have now passed my Adult Bronze level tests and dream of going to Adult Nationals.
Writing Tip
Have patience. When you have incorporated the advice of your critique group, and rewritten your story, it still may not be right. Let it sit while you work on something else. Your story will ‘simmer’ like a pot on the back of the stove. As your skills improve, you may well discover the key that will give that manuscript the magic you always knew it would have.
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Things to Talk About
1. What was Ben afraid of? Do you think his fears were justified? Why or why not?
2. Why was it so hard for Ben to tell his parents what he was doing?
3. The Bradleys had a system where the kids paid half of their sports expenses. Mom said it was “so you will learn to spend money responsibly.” Do you think that is a good system? Why or why not?
4. Ben says, “At school they were always telling us about how we could be anything. What they meant was girls. Girls could be anything. But there were still things boys weren’t supposed to do.” Do you think that is true of people you know?
5. In your school, what are boys “expected” to do?
What are they expected not to do?
What about girls?
What would your friends think of a girl who plays hockey or a boy who figure skates?
6. “God is the Creator,” Mr. Bradley tells Ben. “He thought up the whole idea of beauty—and God is not a sissy.” How might that help Ben to think about his own artistic side?
7. What kept Ben from being friendly to Skag in the first place? Why was he able to change his mind at the end?
