Well, you were right. This story is longer. Might take me a little while, but I won't give up on it.

I think that italicized writing bit on the top might be the first time I've ever seen Ely indicate even a inkling of positive feeling towards Spencer. I'll take it as progress. Maybe sometime he'll even admit that they're friends.

Right out the gate, a few opening thoughts: Ely's not sure why he's agreed to the contest, and I'm not totally sure either. Maybe he thinks the tiny theoretical possibility of a cash reward is better than nothing. Or maybe he's doing it out of a sense of respect for Spencer. Or maybe (and this is what I'm leaning towards) he didn't have any other plans, and Spencer nudged him into it and he was too apathetic to say no.

Also, I never thought that Casey (of all people) would be on the ball with what's likely to come in this story. But I guess even he can see where this is going to go.

"One of the benefits of shoving your way through life." I like that line. Sums him up well.

It's an interesting touch with the posh red and brown squirrels versus the more ubiquitous gray squirrels. I can't speak for anyone else, but where I live, it's just gray squirrels everywhere. I've probably seen red squirrels in the wild maybe once or twice in my entire life. They don't happen much.

And here's Spencer. "Financerated"? I don't think this is the first time he's tried too hard to come up with a fancy word. ... Did Casey just get him to back down twice in the same dialogue exchange? "X." "No, not X." "Yeah, you're probably right." Here I've been worried about Ely breaking a bone while skating, and Spencer's spine is busted to shit.

Although he seems to be OK in the romance department. At least, as much as any teen can ever be. I'm sure everyone else is as happy to ignore that relationship as Ely is. (How does a shirt look like corned beef? I'm trying to envision that. I'm just imagining a reddish-pink shirt. Am I anywhere in the right ballpark for that?)

Casey: "I'm a loser? You dumbasses are barely out of your fucking diapers."
What the hare should say: "And you're over twenty. Don't you have a life?"

Aiden and Preston's rapport would be mildly amusing if it weren't for the fact that they're both arrogant jerks. Or, I mean, most of the characters in this story (so far, basically everyone except Ely, Spencer and possibly Spencer's girlfriend) are some variety of jerk. That's just the lay of the land.

So, we're off! ... Rachel's not skating? For some reason, I thought she'd be skating. Ah well.

Sometimes it's a little hard to keep up with all the skating terminology you throw down in the narration of the skate scenes, but part of that might be because I'm trying to actually envision every single move in my mind. I know most of it, at least. And you do a pretty good job of explaining the broad strokes of the moves -- like during the grinds, explaining which part of the skateboard is actually touching the rail. (On a related note, I'm pleased to see that Ely's darkslide worked on the skate park's rail after all. I seem to recall he was concerned the rail would give too much surface area.)

I like how nobody knows how to react to Ely showing them up at the grind. That said, I was a little surprised too, though not by Ely. The way you wrote it, it sounds like Spencer was third-best for technique, after Preston and the rat. He's better than I expected. Maybe hanging out with Ely has resulted in him getting to learn from some real talent.

Side note, Preston's showmanship made me want to puke.

This might be the first time I've read a narration from you describing vert skating. It's interesting stuff. I guess we're saving Ely for last, again. In the meantime we have more examination of Spencer's special relationship with Rachel. Heaven only knows what she sees in him.

And Preston bailed. "Wow" is right. If he were anyone else in the park, this would be the part where he lost the overall first-place position. But these geniuses are running a contest where Preston's biggest friend/fanboy and his lackeys are the judges. Maybe they'll just give him a solid 8 for that one. You know, for the good effort.

I guess we skipped most of Preston's free run. Presumably this means we weren't missing much.

Holy heck, Spencer finally pulled off the handstand! I feel like that must be his signature move or something. If it wasn't before, it is now. It's not very often that I feel proud of a fictional character for something, but this is one of those times.

A note about Spencer's relationship with Rachel: They don't seem like they're built to last. I'm not talking about the incongruity of an awkward dorky squirrel like Spencer having a girlfriend. If your significant other is rolling their eyes at anything you do, that's a big red flag. Rachel's not exactly making it a secret that she disapproves of the dorkiness. Unfortunately for her, that's part of the package.

"riding up with the walls of the blow" Amusing typo in the middle of Ely's free run.

OK. I know Ely's mother wants him to pursue his education, and I totally agree that that's an excellent idea. But he could probably make a few bucks on the side if he kept up the competitive skating. That last bit on the end was a technical judge's paradise. Spencer's move might've been straight out of a video game, but if Ely were in a video game too, he would've broken the combo meter with that. (Not that I expect it'll win him the contest. Even if he's wiped the floor with any three regular skaters in there combined.)

"uninterested in waiting for Aiden to learn to count" I chuckled. ... And apparently even Rachel disapproves of the names of the park regulars. Can't blame her.

Oh boy. Here it comes. Spencer's bubble's about to get a very rude popping. I almost feel worse for him than Ely. It's only almost, though. Spencer might be disappointed right now, but Ely's had the benefit of equal treatment taken from him his entire life. This isn't new.

This is one of the most uncomfortable conversations in the whole series. Aiden coming up with these half-assed excuses for why Preston won and Ely didn't. It's because Ely is a rat. Come on, guys, just say it.

I guess insulting Ely's mom is close enough to saying it. It's enough to make everything finally boil over. Finally.

Man. I know it was a foregone conclusion that Ely wouldn't win. But the reveal that he wasn't even on the score sheet? That just twists the knife. He never had a chance. And he might not care, but he should.

Oh, OK, additional reason why Spencer's relationship with Rachel is doomed: He went back home with Ely instead.

Nothing to bring these three together like mutual hatred of the stupid rich skater crowd, right? Even Casey's into it. That's a first. He never enjoys anything except selling drugs and feeling big.

That was a very sweet speech from Spencer. Even if it was disjointed and riddled with awkwardness. He made some important points, and it's hard to disagree with any of them. But that's par for the course from Spencer, now. I'll be honest, my take on him from the pilot had him being a much brattier person. But it feels like the experience of this contest -- of visiting Ely, getting him involved, and everything since -- has been showing something closer to his true colors.

What's really surprising is that Ely actually said anything in response. I expected him to just sit there.

So that's the ending of the contest. I recall hearing that this was a three-part story. So was the Breakfast story the first part? Or is there another installment after this? I'm not clear on that. But if there's more to this story, if there's some kind of follow-up to the whole thing, I absolutely want to read it.

Side note: I like how in Ely's monologue at the end, he doesn't refer to Spencer by name. It has the amusing implication that he hasn't kept track of what the squirrel's name is. Maybe those bushtails all look the same to him.

According to wordcounter.net, my comment up to this line was 1,439 words long. Oops.

That's a lot of comment. Thank you for that.

First of all, this IS the last part of the Contest storyline. Breakfast is considered the first part, and is called "Contest Part 1" in my personal files but for FA I gave it a title of its own. I'll throw up one of the stories that followed in due time.

I had a habit of making up words by garnishing currently existing words so I gave that to Spencer. It's not that he doesn't know the proper word, he just likes to make up new ones. Also, I imagine Rachael sees kind of a sweetness in Spencer's dorkiness but might find it a bit tiring at the same time. I never really saw them as being built to last, just a couple of high school sweethearts for the time being.

Fun fact, "Mackenzie" is the name of a friend's boyfriend, I threw it in there as a joke for her because she was the only one reading it but ironically, never ended up reading this part or any of the ones to follow. Guess she lost interest.

I worried about some of the skating seeming unrealistically skillful. Ely's is alright because he spends all of his time on his skateboard, and doing basically nothing else. Spencer doing the handstand seemed a bit over the top but I tried to imply that being a squirrel, a rather acrobatic creature as is, made him more able to do it than most.

When I am not entirely comfortable with people I don't refer to them by name, and that's kind of the idea behind Ely never calling Spencer by his name. Him doing it during the contest results was very abnormal.

And finally...yes, insulting Ely's mother is an automatic punch to the face.

Thanks for all the comments, I've been very much looing forward to them.

No doubt, this story will provide us some interesting conversation material moving forward. So, with that in mind, one little note while I'm thinking of it:

The skill level of the characters seemed completely reasonable. They weren't switching between four different slides on the rail, they weren't pumping out 720 grabs on the vert run -- you get the idea. For the most part, I thought their moves were pretty restrained and, as a result, realistic.

Spencer's handstand felt like a combination of practice, adrenaline and luck all paying off at the same time, which was just awesome. If he's a squirrel, too, then... so much the better, I suppose. It'd explain his fixation on that trick in the first place. Ely's street skating has impeccable form and tons of style, which makes me feel like he could honestly be future pro skater material, but that's fine for a protagonist whose entire life is about skating. But Spencer was pretty cautious for the most part in his runs, and even Ely had a portion he wasn't amazing at (for lack of practice, and also maybe inclination). So there's that.

Oh, and Preston did just fine, too. It's worth saying. He did have a very unlucky bail, which served to demonstrate that -- no, the judges weren't choosing him over Ely because of the latter's rather weak vert performance. (It was because Ely's a rat. Simple as that.) But besides that, he did about as well as I'd expect for the guy whose glory is behind the contest in the first place. Everyone did reasonably for their position.

All I can really say is...I felt angry on Ely's behalf. That's all I want to say about that.