When my twin brother Alex and I were in the fifth grade, our next–door neighbor got a huge skateboard ramp installed on the side of the house closest to us. Alex was friends with Jeremy, the boy who lived there and before long, Alex was over at his house skateboarding practically every day. I was already plenty busy with my other hobbies to take up a new one, so I did not share my brother's passion for skateboarding.

The bizarre thing is that Alex did an awful lot of complaining about skateboarding. Usually after an hour or so of being on the skateboard ramp, he would storm home, toss his skateboard to the side, and nurse his latest wound, saying he was "done with skateboarding." I admit I thought he might have been exaggerating—trying to get attention. It got on my nerves. Then again, maybe I was just jealous he was spending so much time with the neighbor. In any case, one day I told him I was tired of hearing about how difficult skateboarding was. I probably should have kept my mouth closed after that, but I made the mistake of saying too much—things I later regretted.

Alex was so mad at me that he chose to ignore me as punishment. Not having Alex around to talk to was torturous; it was even worse than him spending so much time with Jeremy (and hardly enough time with me). A few days later, Alex broke his rule of ignoring me to tell me he and Jeremy had organized a neighborhood skateboarding competition. He said that since I was "such an expert on skateboarding," I should go check it out. I will admit I still thought, "How hard could skateboarding be?"

Well, I am telling you now that skateboarding is harder than it looks. The Saturday of the skateboarding competition, I got there early to help Alex and Jeremy set up three rows of chairs they had gathered from our two houses to put around the skateboard ramp. With some time to spare, I grabbed a skateboard to ride on the nice flat driveway. I immediately felt wobbly and was instantly worried I was going to fall. Somehow, though, I managed to make it appear I knew what I was doing—for a few minutes anyway.

Then Alex and Jeremy called me over to the skateboard ramp and told me to give it a try. Having never ridden a skateboard on a ramp before, I was hesitant. Alex and Jeremy did not hesitate to practically force me onto the ramp with their constant chiding. "Just do what we do," they said. They climbed the stairs to the top of one side of the skateboard ramp, dropped in, and started zooming up and down the sides of the half–pipe ramp. They even did a couple of tricks—once flipping the skateboard around to head in another direction, once flying off the high edge of the ramp only to twist and zoom back down. I never knew they were that good at skateboarding.

Fearfully, I climbed the stairs, stuck the tip of my skateboard over the edge of the ramp, and looked down the steep vertical drop. It was even more petrifying when I looked up and saw a bunch of neighbor kids approaching the seats. Jeremy and Alex yelled out at me to "just go." So, finally, I dropped my skateboard in, and though I made it down one side in about one second flat, I suddenly lost my footing and fell right into the ramp I was supposed to be going up. Where did my skateboard go? I sat there bewildered looking around for my skateboard. When I heard people laughing, my face turned several shades of red. It was so humiliating. I got out of there fast.

As I watched the skateboard competition from my bedroom window that day, I gained a new appreciation for how talented of a skateboarder my brother was and how hard he must have worked to get so good. I made sure to tell him when he came home that day—and that I was sorry. He smiled and said, "I told you skateboarding was hard." The high–five meant all was forgiven.