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    Riley Park
    Riley Park
    Riley Park
    Ebook70 pages54 minutes

    Riley Park

    By Diane Tullson

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Seventeen-year-old Corbin plays hockey and is known as a scrapper on and off the ice. Fighting makes him feel strong. Corbin's friend, Darius, is socially adept and popular, and Darius's reckless risk-taking makes Corbin feel alive. With Rubee, a girl both boys like, Darius crosses a line, and after a party at Riley Park, Darius and Corbin are attacked. Darius is killed; Corbin is seriously injured. Corbin fights his clouded memory—he can't identify the assailants. He fights his weakened body—he can no longer play hockey. He fights the loss of his friend. But when he gives up the fight, he finds strength in acceptance.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2009
    ISBN9781554697014
    Riley Park
    Author

    Diane Tullson

    Diane Tullson has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and is a trained technical writer. She is a member of the Canadian Children's Book Centre, the Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable, Children's Writers and Illustrators of British Columbia and the Writers Union of Canada. Diane has been nominated for many awards, including the Stellar Award and the Arthur Ellis Award. Diane lives near Vancouver, British Columbia. For more information, visit www.dianetullson.com.

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    • 4/5
      Corbin and his friend Darius are at a party at Riley Park. Corbin drinks too much and passes out. Darius hangs out, waiting to drive him home. They are attacked by 3 men. When Corbin comes to, he is with a cop in the hospital.
    • 4/5
      Corbin and his friend Darius are at a party at Riley Park. Corbin drinks too much and passes out. Darius hangs out, waiting to drive him home. They are attacked by 3 men. When Corbin comes to, he is with a cop in the hospital.

    Book preview

    Riley Park - Diane Tullson

    always.

    Chapter One

    In the Safeway parking lot, I drop two flats of beer into the back of my car. I leave the hatch open and wait for Darius to arrive with the hotdog stuff. I notice a girl getting off the bus across the parking lot at the bus stop. I’d recognize her from a mile away: Rubee.

    Rubee is wearing her Safeway shirt and she’s walking fast, like maybe she’s late for work. Her dark hair is loose on her shoulders.

    Darius shows up and slings the grocery bags into the car, fitting them around the beer and my hockey bag.

    As Rubee walks, she combs her hair back with her fingers and catches it into a thick ponytail.

    Darius says, She is so hot.

    Darius is watching her too.

    I say, Hot, yes. But Rubee is beautiful.

    Rubee is a senior like Darius and me, but she goes to a different school. I’ve never seen Rubee anywhere but here, at Safeway. We always choose Rubee’s checkout line, even if hers is twice as long as the others. Rubee is worth the wait.

    Darius says, Weird that she took the bus. Her boyfriend always drops her off.

    I’ve never seen her boyfriend, but Rubee wears a guy’s ring on her thumb. Plus, a couple of months ago, she rejected Darius when he asked her out. Go figure—he asked her if she’d like to spend the night with a wild man.

    I say, You’ve seen Rubee’s boyfriend?

    Darius nods. He has a nice car.

    I glance at my Civic. One fender is a different color and the left taillight is covered with a red plastic bag.

    I say, Maybe it’s her brother.

    No. Darius turns to me. It was her boyfriend. But she took the bus today, so that means he isn’t her boyfriend anymore.

    Maybe he had to work or something.

    Darius says, From the car he drives, he makes way more money than a regular job.

    You think he sells drugs or something? I watch as Rubee enters the Safeway. She wouldn’t go out with a guy like that.

    Darius looks at me. And you would know?

    Yes. She’s too sweet.

    He says, Sweet girls fall the hardest.

    I say, How can you be sure they broke up?

    Let’s just run with it, Darius says. You think she’s too sweet for you?

    My face grows hot. No.

    So go ask her out.

    No.

    He laughs again, and I’m getting pissed off.

    I say, Not today. I’ll ask her out sometime when I’m wearing my team jacket. A hockey jacket makes a busted nose look tough. Instead of ugly. And I’ll wear my ring, my junior hockey championship ring.

    Darius says, If you don’t ask her out right now, I will.

    My hands curl into fists. Like she’d go out with you, Wildman.

    He shrugs. Only one way to find out. He slams down the hatch on my car and strides toward the store.

    I catch up with him. We’ve got everything we need. Let’s go.

    But he’s in the store and in Rubee’s line.

    Ahead of us, an old woman in sweatpants smacks coins onto the counter. She is ranting to Rubee about an expired coupon. She doesn’t have much on the conveyor: bananas, toilet paper—the cheap stuff—and some liquid meal replacement old people drink. The cans of meal replacement have a red clearance sticker. They must be close to the best-before date. Maybe they’ve expired.

    Rubee speaks quietly to the woman as she pushes several coins back to her. The woman grins, gathers the coins, grabs her bag of groceries and scuttles out of the store. The guy in front of us shovels the rest of his stuff onto the conveyor. Rubee counts the old woman’s coins into the cash drawer. She looks up and sees me. She smiles.

    I look at her hand. She’s not wearing the ring.

    I watch her scan the guy’s groceries. She’s wearing a black cord bracelet with a round red stone. The stone slides back and forth on her wrist as she works. But she’s not wearing the ring. She smiled at me, she’s not wearing the ring and we’re standing in her line with nothing to buy.

    I grab a pack of gum and toss it in a shopping basket.

    Darius laughs. Corbin, if you’re asking her out, you’ll need more time than it takes to ring in one pack of gum. He turns and snags a half-filled cart someone has left unattended. He pushes the cart into Rubee’s line.

    I say

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