by Julian North
At the end of an hour and a half of practice, my body ached from my efforts. But a smile had curled onto my lips: My first day as part of the Tuck track team had gone far better than I would’ve dared hope. Mona Lisa jostled me from behind as I stepped into the locker room, but even that I let pass. At least this time. She and Drake might fume, but I was a member of this pack now. And I intended to show every one of these highborn that I could help the team win. I think Mom would’ve been proud, but this was for me.
I remembered Nythan’s admonishment on stubbornness and neglect after I slid into my seat in Lit class the next day. Alexander gave me a curt chin nod. It was practically a hug, coming from him.
“T-R-U-C-E” I messaged to Alissa. I didn’t get a response. The back of her head didn’t budge. Alissa didn’t stick around after class either. I gritted my teeth. It wasn’t like I had done anything to her. Nythan be damned; I didn’t want to deal with crap like this. So I didn’t. I grabbed a roasted turkey sandwich from the kitchen and took it to lab to eat. Practice was going to cut into my study time, and I had plenty to do. The infamous Literature examination loomed like a well-forecast storm. But it was hard to focus on anything academic. I kept thinking about my first meet as part of the Tuck team.
Nythan shook his head when saw me in Script, the gesture of a disappointed mentor. That pale head kept moving like a bleached metronome as I walked over.
“I pinged her,” I protested. “She ignored me. I’m not going to play silly games. You might barely know me, but you should know me well enough to get that.”
“Just come to lunch tomorrow, okay?” Nythan asked. “Pretty please.”
I paused, bottom lip trapped in my teeth like a snared rabbit. “Okay.”
“You can be sure Lara will have a jab or two for you. With your joining forces with our pal Drake on the track team, it’s going to be hard to resist. Try to be icy tomorrow—don’t storm off.”
My face had gone to a dangerous blank as soon as I heard the bit about the track team. “Why do you care what team I run on? Or any of this for that matter?”
Something I hadn’t seen before flashed onto Nythan’s face. Maybe anger. Maybe annoyance. It was an emotion that was ill-suited to those milky, mocking features. Then it was gone. The Nythan I knew gave me an exaggerated eye roll, as if he could stare at the top of the inside of his skull.
“I’m trying to do good, for all the peoples of this fair land. Shall we not all go forth bravely together?”
“Wrong us, shall we not revenge?” I shot back.
“Ha, I know that line too. Did you read the play? Or did you watch Star Trek VI like me?”
I had gotten that line from Mateo. Mom used to say it, supposedly. “Huh?”
Eye roll again. “Try not to storm off again. We just need to get through this.”
Wednesday afternoon soon arrived. After I finished up in Trig, after taking my time cleaning my workspace and after doing a full power down of my digiBook, I trudged to the dining hall. For once, I wasn’t hungry. I had poured just about everything I had into track practice, and my remaining time and energy went to my studies. I hadn’t focused on whatever was bothering Alissa, and I didn’t want to do so now. But I’d told Nythan I’d be here, and that I’d keep cool. I was going to do it.
I put one heavy foot in front of the other and they carried me up to the third floor, into the controlled chaos of the dining hall. Students maneuvered with reckless abandon through alternating traffic flows; people jockeyed for position at the food counter while others searched for seats. Still another group wandered about making social rounds at various tables. I felt like a rock in navy blue rapids as students walked, ran, and jumped around me, their voices combining in a chorus of babble. Alissa sat with Lara in their usual spot. I considered getting this over with immediately, but I wanted Nythan there. So I got in line for food. I figured a sandwich would make it easy to walk away without abandoning my lunch if that became necessary. Once I had my food in hand, I steeled myself and headed over.
Nythan had arrived, but I didn’t have a clear view of his face. Alissa was staring at him and not speaking, so I suspected he was telling her something similar to what he had told me. She nodded, the way I did when Aba reminded me about truths I already knew.
I had thought of several things to say when I arrived, phrases tinged with my version of humor, or maybe just a simple “hi.” I chose none of those. I just sat. Nythan was to my left, Alissa and Lara across from me. I fixed my attention on Alissa. She stared back. For a long moment, I thought things would go badly. Nythan must’ve felt it also.
“‘Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt…’” Nythan announced with understated drama.
“Slaughterhouse-Five,” Alissa and I both replied simultaneously.
“Shall we all again live in that beautiful time?” Nythan asked. “Let us all unite, my silly high-Aptitude-Tier friends.”
“Vonnegut meant it ironically,” I started.
Nythan flapped his eyelids like a butterfly. “Did he?”
I realized I had fallen into his trap. Reluctant hints of a smile appeared on Alissa’s face. The ice had been broken.
“I’m dying slogging through Vonnegut’s stuff,” Alissa declared. “He’s so unfocused.”
An easier conversation followed, and I joined in. It was always easy to complain about school-work. Nothing like a common enemy to unite people. Nythan kept a close eye on us all. I wanted to question Alissa about Marie-Ann, but the place and time was wrong.
“Do you even have time to study, Daniela?” Lara asked in her cutting voice. “It must be hard with all the time you spend with the track team now they let you on as a special favor?”
Nythan’s forewarning made it easier for me not to rise to the provocation. Instead, I forced a grin I didn’t feel and hurled it at her. “You should’ve seen Drake’s face on that first day. It’d be worth failing Lit, just to have seen that.”
Nythan laughed at the image, and Alissa smiled wide enough that I could see white.
“I’m glad you got what you wanted, Daniela,” she said, low and cautious. I knew the “but” was coming. “But, look, it may seem they have included you. That you can belong with the highborn. Just be careful.”
“Aren’t you the people who keep telling me to give this place a chance?”
“Tuck can help you. But the track team—that’s for them. Or at least that’s the way the highborn see it.”
Nythan’s leg tapped mine under the table. I got the message.
“I just want to run.”
Lara went to speak, but Alissa put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Then we’ll be there to see it. Race on Saturday, right?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Why don’t you stay over at my place afterwards?” Alissa suggested. “My parents are out of town at some conference. We’ll have the place to ourselves. We can get ready for next Friday’s Lit test together.”
I opened my mouth to decline. I didn’t want to spend any more time in the world where I didn’t belong than I had to. I didn’t want to get used to Manhattan water and farm-raised meat. I searched for the right excuse. Nythan’s knee found mine again: This was a peace offering. Slapping it away would be like walking away from the café. At least that was what Nythan was trying to tell me. I tried not to grind my teeth.
“Sure, thanks.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
The team was supposed to meet at school at nine o’clock in the morning to go over to the Armory together, as one unit. I arrived so early I wasn’t even sure anyone would be there, but Tuck security was bright-eyed and waiting for me, wand scanner and everything. No Authority backup on the weekends, though. After a cursory scan, the guard waved me through.
“Good luck at the meet,” he said. “I-It’s nice to see you getting a chance. Good luck.”
I bowed my head, highborn style, then stopped. I looked at the rent-a-cop whom I recognized but hadn’t paid
much attention to before. He had a doughy face, with thick leathery brows. He was not old by any means—no more than thirty, I guessed. But deep creases crossed his face and his hands looked worn, as if scraped by sandpaper.
“Thank you,” I said, not knowing why I whispered.
The school was dark, quiet. I went downstairs to the locker room. Before I made it through the heavy door leading inside, I heard voices, muffled but agitated. I stopped, considering. It was none of my business, except who else would be here at this hour? I crept down the hall, my shoes squeaking on the buffed floor. The noise was coming from just around the corner. I got closer, close enough to discover where the conversation was coming from: Coach Nessmier’s office. One of the voices filtered through the closed door. The agitated one. Apparently, the coach’s voice got even more nasal when he was upset.
The other speaker didn’t yell; I couldn’t make out any of the words spoken by that voice. But I could hear Coach Nessmier.
“I thought you’d be pleased…now…gave…wanted,” Nessmier declared, exasperated.
More talking, the deeper voice, under control.
“You don’t have that right!” the coach yelled. “I can’t do anything about it!”
The other man replied. Nessmier answered. Calmer. Mollified. Or perhaps beaten.
My spider-sense told me to get away from there. But I didn’t. I wanted to know the identity of the other speaker. Someone who could threaten Coach Nessmier. Someone who’d come down here early to berate him, or to order him to do something, or not do something. It had to be someone from the school, or they wouldn’t have been able to get inside.
The urge to run grew. It was a tugging at my legs, a voice yelling inside my head. I willed myself to stay put. Just a few more seconds. The door moved, ever so slightly. Go now! The ringing was so loud it ached. My feet felt like I had ants crawling over them. The door opened slowly. I saw an arm. I bolted, opting for speed over stealth.
I was inside the girl’s locker room in seconds, panting behind the metal door. I pressed my ear to its cold surface. The throbbing in my head had stopped, but I could only hear the beating of my heart. I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to hear footsteps over the thumping. It didn’t matter. I was pretty certain he wouldn’t come in here, even if he had heard me.
My throat was dry, my breathing unsteady. It had only been an arm, but that was enough. With the other pieces—the deep, steady voice, and the person being able to access the school—seeing that arm was enough to know. It probably would’ve been enough without hearing the voice. The other man in Coach Nessmier’s office was Headmaster Havelock.
I sat on a bench in the locker room in lonely silence. Each word I had overheard replayed in my head. They had been arguing about what the headmaster wanted, about the extent of his authority. I didn’t want that conversation to be about me. I didn’t want anyone discussing what I could and could not do. I had wanted to earn a spot on the team and run. But I was certain it had been about me.
When I started at Tuck, Havelock had forced Coach Nessmier to reopen tryouts for me. But Nessmier had found a way to keep me off the team. I could see why that would’ve led to conflict between them. But the coach had taken me on now. He had given me a slot running the fifteen hundred meters. I thought that had been Alexander’s doing, although he had never really said one way or the other. Perhaps Havelock had a hand in it as well? But why the fight now, when I was on the team, preparing for my first meet? I didn’t get it. I definitely didn’t like it. I was good enough to run with any of them, highborn or not. I just wanted a fair chance to prove it.
I took a Tuck athletic skin from my locker, looking down upon its almost glassy surface. It was a single piece of cloth, no seams, no threads. I yanked at the manufactured fabric, silky light but strong. I couldn’t rip it, no matter how I tried. I hurled the skin into the row of lockers facing me and kicked the nearest door. The thud was dull and unsatisfying.
The team began to arrive in a trickle, then a stream. There were twenty-one students on the Tuck team; I was one of four girls. My luck being what it was, Mona Lisa was the first of my teammates to enter the girl’s locker room.
“You look green, nope girl,” she said, looming with contempt. “There’s nothing to it, even for the likes of you. Just follow Alexander until he tells you to stop. Same as always.”
I should have gotten angry, but I had used up a lot of emotion already that morning, on top of a nearly sleepless night. Instead, I cast a pair of weary eyes upon her.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
Her eyes narrowed. “There is an order to things, girl. A way the world is supposed to be, needs to be. For everyone. Or else there is chaos. And you don’t fit into that order. You think the world should make exceptions for you, that you can do whatever you want. I believe in prosperity through order.”
“I can help you win meets. Even you must know that.”
“If we need a nope to win, we’ve won nothing,” she hissed back.
I grabbed my bag and stormed off. The rest of the team was gathering on the front steps of the school. A minibus painted in Tuck colors with our logo on the side was parked on the street outside the school entrance. Alexander stood next to it, speaking with Anise Titan-Wind, a wiry chestnut-haired girl who seem to float rather than run along the track. Her limbs reminded me of chopsticks, thin and pointy, but she could fly like a hawk. She specialized in sprints—the two hundred meter was her primary event, but she was effective in the four hundred meter. If I had developed anything close to a friend on the team over the past week, it would be Anise. She occasionally spoke to me and I hadn’t heard her insult me yet.
I maneuvered my way through the crowd to them. Alexander looked, if not happy to see me, at least not unhappy. Anise graced me with half a smirk. From a couple of highborn, it was like a welcome parade.
“Ready?” Alexander inquired without preamble. “Proper nutrition loading?”
I didn’t know what that was, but I had forgotten about breakfast. My stomach hadn’t been up to it. Rookie mistake, to say the least. Alexander saw my chagrin.
“These aren’t a bunch of Bronx City kids,” he said. “Redwell won last year’s championship—as a team. Not my event, of course.”
Of course, I wanted to echo, but I bit it back. I didn’t want any more battles today. I didn’t want Alexander as my enemy.
He reached into his bag, withdrawing a crispy silver package that he placed in my hand. The label said “Customized nutrition for Alexander Foster-Rose-Hart” in dark, bold letters.
“Will this turn me into you? Please?” I just couldn’t resist.
Not even a blink. “Don’t take your competition lightly. Not in this league. These will be the best runners you’ve ever faced. Anise and I were just discussing the Redwell team; they might be as good as us since we don’t have Augie anymore. Their two-hundred-meter champ beat Anise last year. The other school, Legacy Academy, isn’t quite in Redwell’s class, but their fifteen-hundred runners are good, their sprinters are even better. One of them placed second in the city last year.”
“Daniela, there’s never been anyone who joined the team like you did,” Anise said, not unkindly. “Alexander, he took a risk—”
“I won’t let you down,” I promised. “I won’t let the team down.”
Coach Nessmier’s golden whistle sounded. “On the bus. Everyone on the bus. It’s time for business.” He herded everyone towards the vehicle’s open door. I turned to board as well. I took two steps then I felt a hand on my arm. Clawish, icky. I spun, alarmed.
“Change of plan, Machado,” Coach Nessmier said, looking at the bus, not me. “You’ll run the conditioned fifteen hundred meter today. Anise will take your spot in the standard fifteen hundred. And I’m pulling you from the five thousand meter. Alexander will switch places with you. Just one event for you today. We’ll see how you manage it.”
“A conditioned event, in my first meet?” I asked, dumbfounded
. I’d never run a conditioned event, and hadn’t practiced them all week. We were stacked with talent there. They didn’t need me.
“You run in the events I tell you, or not at all. You want to be on this team or not?”
I swallowed pain and outrage in equal measures.
“The conditioned fifteen hundred meter. Got it. No problem.”
I hoped the Alexander the Great nutrition bar tasted better than this crap.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
Coach wanted me off the team. Something had gone on between Havelock and Coach Nessmier; the result was that I was now slated in the conditioned fifteen hundred meter against Drake, as well as a clutch of great athletes from competing schools—I was being set up to fail. Nessmier intended to show that I didn’t belong on the team, or get me to quit. Neither was going to happen. I tore into Alexander’s bar wishing it was Coach’s throat.
I seethed on the bus ride from Tuck. If anyone noticed my silent rage or wondered at Coach’s decision, they didn’t care enough to walk a few rows back to find out more. It was the sight of the Armory that finally yanked me from my stupor. I’d first seen it on the net, during the Olympic Trials that took place in the massive, glass-topped, John Masterman National Track Stadium. The arching silver dome looked like some kind of alien spaceship that had descended on the far smaller, red brick castle-style building that had given the original structure its name, back from the time it had served as headquarters for the New York militia. The soaring coliseum on top held fifty thousand souls and could simulate any condition or obstacle. The proving ground of champions.
Those men and women fighting for spots on the United States Olympic team had seemed like giants to me, years ago, every movement one of discipline and strength. Crowds screamed at the conclusion of each race, as if the winner of the race would somehow change the plight of the people watching. But it was the eyes of one woman, Moko Die, that stuck with me long after the netcast ended. She had won the traditional and conditioned fifteen hundred, setting national records in each. Fans cheered, flowers rained down on her after each victory, but the look in her eyes never changed. I wasn’t sure she heard or even saw the mayhem that erupted in her honor. She just wanted to race. Her gaze held no sign of triumph or satisfaction. Instead, there was peace that could only come when racing. I dragged Mateo to the elementary school track the next day.
