The policeman holding my gun moved up beside us. He sniffed the air.
“You step in something, Frankie?” he asked his partner.
The policeman behind me sniffed the air. “I hope not,” he answered. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him lift his left foot and look at the bottom of his shoe. Then he checked the right shoe.
I sniffed. I smelled it too.
A girl stepped out of the crowd. She had long, straight, brown hair and she wore a red shirt and jeans. She was a little shorter than me but probably about my age. She flashed me a small smile.
“Excuse me, officers,” she said. “I go to McKinley High. He's telling the truth. It really was his first day in school. I sat two rows behind him in math class.”
One of the policemen sighed. “Frankie,” he said, “maybe we should give this kid a break. On account of he's new in town. Besidesâyou feel like doing two hours of paperwork on this?”
“Over a water pistol? You kidding? The guys wouldn't let us forget about this for a long time.”
Frankie sniffed again. He grinned. “Plus, this kid's got enough problems.”
“Yeah,” his partner agreed. “Too bad this sort of stuff doesn't happen to the perps who deserve it.”
I watched as the officer uncuffed my wrists. I turned around, rubbing them one at a time.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Forget it,” Frankie said. “Just pay attention from now on. You're lucky we didn't shoot when we saw you running down the street waving that pistol around.”
They began to get into their car.
“What about the money?” I asked. I counted it quickly. It was mostly one-dollar bills. “There's twelve dollars here.”
Frankie's partner shrugged. “You don't know much about this area, do you?”
I shook my head no.
“Let me put it this way,” Frankie said. “Someone sees a gun and gives you money that fast, he's probably got a guilty conscience.”
“Oh,” I said, not really understanding.
“What's your name?” Frankie asked. “Your phone number?”
“David Calvin,” I answered. I thought hard about my phone number. I'd only learned it this morning. When I remembered, I gave it to him. He wrote my name and number in his notepad.
“Tell you what,” he said. “If that other kid calls in a report about an armed robbery, we'll get in touch with you. In the meantime, keep the money. You'll need it for dry cleaning.”
Dry cleaning?
He laughed and shut the car door. The car backed onto the street. Its lights stopped flashing as it pulled away.
“Thanks,” I said to the girl. “I think you just saved me a lot of trouble.”
I sniffed the air again. I didn't like what I smelled. But I was talking to this pretty girl, and I didn't dare look around.
“It was selfish,” she said. “I watched you chase that kid. I saw how fast you guys were running.”
I didn't get it. What did running fast have to do with anything?
“Anyway,” she said. “I'm glad Dad called off practice today because of a teacher conference. Otherwise I wouldn't have seen how fast you can run.”
I must have looked as confused as I felt.
“My name is Jennifer Lewis,” she explained. “My dad's the high school track coach. I hoped if I did you a favor, you might do one for me. Would you try out for the track team? We sure could use your help.”
“Um, sure,” I said. I hadn't thought much about track. I'd always been fast, but in Canada I'd played hockey.
“Come out tomorrow after school,” she said. “We meet in the gym. I'll look for you there.”
“Um, sure,” I said again.
She giggled. “But maybe you should find another shirt before tomorrow.”
She pointed at the front of my shirt.
I looked down. My shirt was smudged with dirt and grass from when I had rolled and smacked into the bush.
And then I saw something elseâsomething that explained the smell. Something
that looked like peanut butter. But wasn't.
I groaned. If I'd wondered how my first full day in Florida could get any worse, this was the answer.
“I hope your shirt isn't ruined,” Jennifer said. “People who don't clean up after their dogs are real jerks.”
After my last class the next afternoon, I followed the dim hallways of the school to the gym. McKinley High was a two-story stone building, built in the 1930s. I knew that because it said so on a sign near the front doors. The sign also explained that the school had been named after William McKinley. He had been president of the United States from 1897 to 1901. Someone had spray-painted
WHO CARES
over the
sign, along with a number of things I'd get in trouble for repeating at home.
It wasn't hard to believe that the school building was that old. The floors had yellowed under dull wax. The lights in the hallway flickered as air conditioners kicked on. The air conditioners rattled like a truck full of empty pop cans. The paint on the gray walls was peeling away.
So I wasn't surprised that the gym had scarred wood floors and an ancient scoreboard that hung above a stage at one end.
I saw a small group of kids at the far end.
I walked over slowly. I wasn't sure I wanted to be here, being new to the school and all. It would have been easier to go straight home and do my homework. Not that I like homework. Back in Wawa, I could have found a hundred different things to do. Here...
Here...I was just paying someone back for keeping me out of trouble.
I put a smile on my face as Jennifer looked up from the group of kids.
A man wearing a red hat concentrated on
something written on his clipboard. His hat looked like the one Elmer Fudd wore in the Bugs Bunny cartoons. In fact, the man kind of looked like Elmer Fudd. Elmer Fudd with a whistle.
“Hello,” he said when he noticed me. “You must be David. Jennifer told me about you. She says you could be an all-state runner.”
“All-state?” I said. “I don't think so.”
“Me neither,” a guy beside Jennifer said. He had wavy black hair. He looked like a magazine model: the kind who thinks it's cool to look down his nose at the camera while modeling the type of designer suit that you'd only wear if you liked ballet more than hockey. He turned to Jennifer. “You probably just asked him to join the team because you think he's cute.”
“Don't be such a jerk, Jason,” she said. “Just because I won't go out with youâ”
“That's enough,” Coach Fudd said. I corrected that in my head. Coach Lewis. “You two will destroy our team's unity. It's important that you all get along.”
Jason turned his head so Coach Lewis couldn't see him. He dramatically rolled his eyes.
“Besides,” Coach continued, “we need Jason. Not only is he our fastest runner, but he also helps keep my computer running. That machine's so complicated, I'd be in trouble without him.”
Jason seemed to like the coach's compliment. He stopped rolling his eyes and said in a nicer voice, “Hey, Coach? I have an idea. Why don't we run an indoor sprint? That way we can all see exactly how the new guy runs.” He shot me a challenging smirk.
I hadn't brought my gym bag with me. I'd actually been thinking about telling Jennifer that I wasn't interested in the track team. It wasn't hockey. But now, of course, I had something to prove.
I gave Jason a big grin. “Sounds like a good idea.”
“But you don't have any gear with you,” Coach Lewis said to me. “And everybody else has stretched and warmed up.”
“That's all right,” I said. I just wanted to wipe that smug look off Jason's face. “I'm good to go.”
Coach Lewis lined seven of us up at one end of the gym. The other six, including Jason, wore gym shorts and T-shirts. I was sure I looked out of place, standing there beside them in my jeans. I suddenly felt self-conscious. Especially with all the girls, including Jennifer, watching us.
What was I doing here? I was about to race six kids I didn't know in a high school I'd attended for only two days. I was doing
it because of stupid pride, because some guy had dared me.
Worse, I knew I was a hockey player. That's the only sport I've ever cared about. I wasn't into track. Why did I think I could run against guys who actually competed in track events?
The guys beside me dropped to a crouch. They each placed one heel against the wall behind us.
Huh?
“David,” Coach Lewis said. “Get set.”
“I am set,” I said, feeling more out of place. I decided that even if these guys smeared me, I was going to do my best. But I wished I knew what the coach was talking about.
“In the blocks, set,” he said.
“Um, blocks?” I said.
Jason laughed, which instantly made me feel mad again. Now I understood why I had decided to race him.
“You'll get a better jump from a crouched position,” Coach Lewis said. “Use the wall behind you in place of starting blocks.”
Starting blocks? I guess I should have
known. But my school in Wawa wasn't big on track. And I'd never watched it on television.
“I'm okay this way,” I said. Coach Lewis was probably right. But I'd never used blocks before, let alone a wall. I didn't think this was a good time to risk trying something that could cost me time.
“Your choice,” Coach Lewis said.
He looked at the others. “To the end of the basketball court,” he said. “Any questions?”
No one had questions.
Coach Lewis nodded. He brought his arm up.
“Take your mark...”
I felt the adrenaline start to pump.
“Set...”
A fraction of a second later, Model Guy was pushing off from the wall.
“Go!”
Coach dropped his arm as he shouted. Jason had jumped out ahead of the rest of us. This was no time, though, to stop and point out that Jason had cheated. Instead I
focused on my legs, which were pumping as fast as they could.
A quarter of the way across the gym floor, I felt this wonderful balloon of excitement growing inside me. The thunder of shoes on the hardwood only added to the thrill. The weirdest part of all was that I didn't feel my own feet on the floor. I was in full motion, and it felt like I was breaking free of gravity.
I pulled ahead of three guys.
Halfway across, I pulled ahead of two more.
The only person ahead of me was Jason. The other end of the gym seemed to rush toward me.
I still felt totally free, almost outside of my body in the joy of racing hard.
I pushed myself, loving the rhythm of my legs and arms and the feeling of speed. And just like that, I passed Jason. Then I crossed the line at the end of the basketball court.
Cheering and applause broke into my little zone of concentration. Time slowed down. And there I was, hands on my knees,
gasping for breath as Coach Lewis walked toward me. He had a huge grin on his face.
“Wow,” he said. “Do you have any idea how fast you are?”
I shook my head. I was a hockey player.
“Let me put it this way,” he said. “We need you on this team. Will you join?”
We need you
. That sounded nice, being new to the school and all. It wasn't like I had any other plans; all my friends were a couple of thousand miles to the north.
“Sure,” I said to Coach Lewis. “I'd be happy to.”
“Good,” he said. “We practice after school every day but Friday. Our first track meet is Saturday. Can you make it?”
“I'll have to check with my manager and booking agent,” I joked.
“Huh?” he said. The way his face wrinkled, he looked even more like Elmer Fudd than before.
“Nothing,” I said. “Dumb joke. There's nothing to stop me from being there.”
Or so I thought at the time.
I spent a lot of time and energy learning how to use starting blocks at my first practice. Afterward, Jennifer caught up to me in the hallway.
“Where're you going?” she asked, smiling. We were alone, walking past empty classrooms.
“Home,” I answered. Our big old house was half a mile from the school. It wasn't much to look at, but Mom was into interior design. She planned to fix the house up
and make it look like something from the 1920s.
“I wanted to ask you about that,” she said. “Your home, I mean. There's something I don't understand.”
“What's that?” I asked.
“It just seems strange...” She looked at her feet and then back at me. She had a nice smile. “Maybe it's none of my business, but can I ask you a kind of personal question?”
“I guess so.”
“Well,” she said, “this isn't the nicest neighborhood. Or the nicest school. You've probably figured that out.”
I nodded.
The school, for example, had a metal detector at the main entrance. The kind used at airports to make sure people don't take guns or knives onto airplanes. Security guards made sure all students walked through the metal detector. It didn't take much to figure out this place wasn't exactly kindergarten.
All the houses in the neighborhood were really old. Most of them were falling apart. I knew from listening to Mom and Dad that
many of these big old houses held four or five families.
“So,” Jennifer said, “your family moved down here from Canada. That must have cost your folks a lot of money.”
“Probably,” I said. “We flew down and hired movers to bring our furniture by truck.”
“That's what seems strange to me,” she said. “Anybody with any kind of money wouldn't choose to live in this neighborhood or go to this school. So why...?”
“Why am I here? Why did my family move here?”
It was her turn to nod.
“I ask my Mom and Dad that every day.” I grinned to show her I wasn't totally serious. Actually I had stopped asking why after they had sold our house in Canada. By then, no amount of arguing could have changed their minds, so I had given up.