Rev Girl (25 page)

Afterwards, as Clover and Sydney took a break from browsing the shops at the mall, to grab a cinnamon bun, their conversation turned to Dallas; Sydney said that she hadn't seen him for ages. Apparently he'd been at hockey camps and training a lot. Sydney also said that she'd heard Travis had agreed not to press assault charges after the fight, but only after Dale had offered to help with money for a plastic surgeon to fix Travis's face.

For a fleeting moment Clover considered calling Dallas. But she decided against it what would talking to him achieve, anyway?

She would feel fine, she told herself, once she got home and could get on her bike.

Just
a week until the World's,
she told herself.
Only one week until
I take flight.

The Boeing 747 broke through a soft wall of cloud, gliding out into skies too bright, too crystal blue to comprehend. Clover's chest expanded as she inhaled deeply, and closed her eyes.

The last few days before her departure had been super hectic packing, farewelling friends and family and last minute race preparations, including tyre changing practice and bike maintenance lessons with Ernie out in the garage. Keeping her mind off Dallas had been relatively easily.

Now, however, as Clover eased back into her seat, loneliness and feelings that her life was no longer complete threatened to creep in and consume her. It didn't help that she already missed her friends; she didn't know how she was going to go three weeks without talking to Sydney or Sera.

She hadn't spoken to Dallas since their altercation on the first day of school, even though she hadn't been able to stop herself from turning her phone back on just a few hours after she'd sent him the message. When she did, she found only a brief reply. One word: ‘
Fine
.' He hadn't tried to call or see her since. Clover wasn't sure which had hurt most, having to break up with him, or the fact that he hadn't even tried to change her mind. All she hoped now, as the plane took her far away, was that it would be easier overseas, to forget.

Beside her, Ernie had nodded off. His head was on her shoulder, mouth open, glasses lifted off his face. She giggled, before easing his head carefully back into his own seat. Leslie had volunteered to sit on the aisle. She'd been on her phone all the way to the airport, but at least she hadn't backed out. Her nose was now stuck in the duty free catalogue but she was excited to be with them, Clover could tell, and not that she'd admit it to anyone Clover was thrilled to have both of her parents with her, too. Leslie had used up all of her holidays for the trip, and even flown her younger sister to stay with Jazz while they were away.

Clover relaxed and tried to stretch her legs as far as they would go under the seat in front. The plane was mostly quiet, except for the constant rumbling of the engines, a few people chatting and the muted sound spilling from earphones plugged in to the in-flight entertainment system. Clover exhaled, fidgeting with the corners of the blanket she'd found under her seat, and then glanced at her watch. They'd only been in the air for two hours, only six and a half left, a short stop-over in Frankfurt, and then another hour to Prague. Prague, it sounded so exciting. And terrifying. It wouldn't be long now until Clover would learn if leaving Dallas had been the right move. If flying all the way across the North Atlantic, to race through the mountains of the Czech Republic, had really been the right choice for her life.

Clover was struck by the gothic beauty of the city of Prague. The black-stained stone buildings, turreted churches centuries older than any building she'd ever seen before. The city had such a romantic, fairy-tale feel, complete with cobblestone streets. Ernie was yelling at Leslie within minutes of picking up the rental car at the airport, as the map and her directions hardly matched up, and in what seemed like no time at all, they were lost in the shadows of the beautiful buildings.

Clover snatched the map from her mother, tried to advise a few turns, but really had no idea where they were or where they needed to go. Ernie had to pull over, study the map, and navigate his own way out of the city.

Soon they were on the highway to the northeast, towards Jablonec. Clover hoped her bearings would kick in soon not that it would matter much for the race. One thing she did know how to do was follow arrows along the racetrack.
As long as the arrows here aren't different from the ones back home?

The road wound upwards from Jablonec, straight into the tree-covered mountains, with sharp inclines and hairpin corners. Quaint little towns, radiating old-world charm, nestled into the picturesque valleys and plateaus.

‘The map was right; this road is friggin' windy,' Clover said, tasting bile as their car careered around a sharp bend. Ernie only slowed when the bitumen highway narrowed between the box-like white houses of another small mountain village.

‘Not my fault your mother hired a rocket ship!' Ernie shifted up a gear, then another, and shot out the other side of the ten-house town.

Clover pressed the window button on the armrest of her door, but pulled frantically at the lever as freezing air whipped her face. ‘I thought you said it wasn't gonna be cold here?'

‘Well.' Leslie turned from the passenger seat. ‘According to the website, it's fall here and it's supposed to be rather nice. But the forecast was for unseasonably cold weather, and even though these mountains aren't quite as high in altitude as the ones back home, we are still headed a long way above sea level.'

‘Right
.
' Clover rolled her eyes. ‘Thanks for the geography lesson.'

‘Clover!' Ernie said sternly into the rear-view mirror. ‘Apologise to your mother.'

‘Sorry, Mom,' she said.

‘That's okay,' Leslie said. ‘We're all a little cranky that many hours on an airplane will do that to a person.'

Clover watched her mother clean her glasses with the front of her classy collared shirt, then pick up the mess of a map off the floor, and fold it into a more manageable size.

‘Just leave it, dear,' Ernie said. ‘All you have to do is look at that thing and you get us lost. Really, how hard can it be to '

‘Ernie.' She held up a hand. ‘You get me flustered, yelling like you do, it really doesn't help.'

Clover groaned as the car accelerated sharply up a steep bit of road, the force sending her head hard against the back of her seat.

‘Ernie!' Leslie screamed. The map crumpled against her face as she dramatically threw herself forward, clutching the dashboard. ‘Could you slow down a bit, please?'

Ernie grinned, but dropped down a gear. The RPM fell as Ernie shifted back up and the road continued skywards. Clover rubbed her gritty eyes and watched as the forest cleared and gave way to views of a deep valley stretched out below them, highlighted by shards of light breaking through the cloud cover. ‘Looks like there should be some good riding 'round here,' Ernie said.

She looked up.

Ernie's grey eyes were fixed on her in the rear-view mirror, despite the sharp turn fast approaching.

‘Watch the road, for God's sake!' she said. ‘You're gonna crash us.'

Ernie chuckled, and turned his attention back to driving the car, just in time to whip around the bend.

‘You should really let me drive.'

‘I told you, Clover,' Leslie said. ‘You have to be twenty-five to drive this rental car. We went over this, you wouldn't be '

‘I know, I know. Covered by insurance yes, Mom! I was just kidding. Geez.'

Outside, the valley had been replaced by dark forest, a tangle of trunks and branches. Suddenly, the fear of having to navigate her bike through all those trees, up and over the mountain peaks, hit her. It wasn't just beautiful anymore.

The Kassedy family missed two turns trying to find the hotel, even though it was located, at the top of the ski resort town of Kerrachev, set in a bowl near the summit of the Giant Mountains.

Clover stared at the white nametag pinned to the administration girl's T-shirt, struggling to focus. She felt like she was still travelling at hundreds of kilometres an hour.

The letters finally fell into line:
Do-bro-mi-ra.

The girl's eyes flicked up from the old-fashioned computer screen and raised her eyebrows. ‘You here with the Canadians, yes?'

Leslie leant across the counter. ‘Yes, that's right. Our last name is Kassedy. We're here with the Canadian team, but we live in Colorado.'

The girl stared at her blankly.

‘Mom,' Clover said under her breath.

‘What? Just being friendly.' She smiled broadly at the receptionist.

‘Room four-one-five, at the top of those stairs, and down the hall. Lift broken. Just stairs.' The girl jerked her arm to their left. ‘Internet there, tokens here.' Clover looked over at the box-back computer, in the far corner of the room.
Phew
, she thought,
I
can keep in touch with Syd and Sera without having to borrow Mom's phone!

‘Beer there,' the girl said.

A sign hung above a narrow walkway, halfway down the corridor, with the word ‘BEER' carved and painted yellow.

‘Food, here.' She gestured to the next doorway along, with a matching sign: ‘FOOD'.

‘Pool and spa, down there. Have nice stay.' The girl offered her first and only smile as she thrust a large key into Leslie's hand.

‘Bit different to the River Ranch, hey, Dad?' Clover said quietly as they shuffled across the cold, stone floor. She insisted on wheeling her own gear bag. Ernie took the suitcases, none of which had wheels. ‘How are we going to get all this up all those stairs?' Leslie asked. She paused, set the backpacks and camera cases down on the floor, and eyed the BEER sign longingly.

‘Multiple trips.' Ernie nudged her gently with the front of one of the suitcases as he dragged it past. ‘Come on, girls. They aren't going to carry themselves.'

But before Clover and Leslie followed, a loud wail came from inside the bar, snaring their attention.

A gangly guy with bright orange hair had another fellow in a headlock over the pool table. A row of stools around it were full of fit, tanned guys, all in green and gold track suits, laughing at the fighters. The bar was full, with more attractive guys in shiny tracksuits. Clover saw one girl with tight golden curls who was perched on the lap of one of the hottest guys. He had a tanned face with eyes so blue she could see them from where she was standing. He looked like he had fun. A lot of it. Like a sexy surfer.

‘Are you two planning on spending the night down here?' Ernie yelled at them from the stairs. ‘Might be a touch cold … '

Clover tore her eyes from the guys, and looked at Leslie, who was smiling.

‘Well,' Leslie said, as she gathered up her bags. ‘It seems we'll be sharing the hotel with the Australians.'

Australia's flag was the first Clover saw when they turned in the front gate of Parc Ferme the next morning. Canada's flag was next in the row. Its prominent, red maple leaf flapped lightly in the breeze.

She grabbed her new, REV GIRL backpack and hopped out of the car. Beyond the car park lay Parc Ferme, a colourful patchwork quilt of everything motorcycle hundreds of quick shades, race vans and semi-trailers, all displaying flags and logos of every leading brand of racing products. The first flag in the row was white, red and blue: the Czech flag.

‘And there's Poland,' Ernie said, pointing to the next one along. ‘Then Slovakia, Spain, Italy, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland … ' The Australian, Canadian and American flags were at the far end, nearest the road. In total, Clover counted about forty-five flags all the countries that had sent individual riders and senior and junior trophy teams to compete in the ‘Olympics of Motorcycling'.

A shiver of nerves ran down Clover's spine, as the reality of where she was really struck her. She was about to enter the epicentre of Enduro, about to try her hand at the toughest bike race in the world, against the fastest competition on the planet.