Addy's Race

by Debby Waldman

  My legs felt twitchy. I wasn’t tired or sore. It was as if I hadn’t run at all. If Lucy hadn’t been there, I would have kept running.

  After we had walked a little way on the path, Miss Fielding looked at her watch. “Everyone will be coming back soon. Let’s head in.”

  “Do we have to run?” Lucy asked.

  “Not if you don’t want to,” Miss Fielding said.

  A look crossed Lucy’s face. I knew we were thinking the same thing: Stem was at the front of the pack. If they saw how slow we were on their way back, they’d never leave us alone.

  “I’ll try,” Lucy said. We had to stop a couple of times, but we reached the school before the rest of the club was even out of the river valley.

  Miss Fielding made us do more stretches. “Drink lots of liquids, both of you,” she said as we finished up and grabbed our backpacks. “See you at practice tomorrow.”

  We crossed the street and saw her jog up the block to meet everyone.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Lucy said, speeding up. “I don’t care if I get a cramp. I don’t want to see Stephanie and Emma again today.”

  Chapter 6

  At school the next morning, Lucy and I found notes in our cubbies with stick-figure drawings of two people wearing tracksuits and saying, “I’m tired” and, “Why is jogging so hard?” I looked up. Stem was pointing at us and giggling.

  “I can’t wait till we start getting homework so they’ll have something useful to do with their time,” I said to Lucy.

  “Who knew they were such awful artists?” Lucy folded the drawing into an airplane and put it on Stephanie’s desk. “You left your artwork in my cubby,” she said.

  “And you left yours in mine,” I said, dropping my note on Emma’s desk.

  We slipped into our seats as Mrs. Shewchuk came up the aisle. When she saw the airplane, she said, “Stephanie, I expect better from you. We don’t throw paper airplanes in grade six.” Stephanie tried to explain, but Mrs. Shewchuk balled up the paper, dropped it into the recycling box and told her to stop making excuses and get to work.

  I opened my desk and pretended to look for something so no one would see how hard I was laughing. When I had calmed down, I went to give my fm to Mrs. Shewchuk.

  “Thank you, Addy,” she said, as if I had done her a favor. She reached toward Sierra, who was behind me with her boom mic. “And thank you, Sierra.”

  I smiled, but Sierra didn’t make eye contact. She turned and was in her seat so fast you’d have thought she had pulled a Harry Potter and apparated into it.

  Emma sat behind her. She poked Sierra on the shoulder and tried to hand her a note. Sierra looked confused and turned back to her book. Emma poked her again.

  If you’re hard of hearing and someone is talking to you, you can pretend you can’t hear them. But nobody can ignore a poke. And Emma kept poking.

  Sierra started squirming. That’s when Mrs. Shewchuk noticed.

  “Emma, keep your hands to yourself,” she said.

  If it had been me, I’d have been embarrassed for the rest of the day, but not Emma. By the time novel study ended and current events began, she was back in suck-up mode.

  The current events topic was a newspaper story about a Saskatchewan town that had banned competitive teams. Nobody had to try out anymore; everybody got to play, no matter how skilled they were.

  “It’s supposed to make it fair, but it’s not,” Emma said. “Because if you’re really good, you should get to play with other really good kids. That’s how you get better.”

  I thought about the kids who weren’t really good. Didn’t they deserve to get better?

  “Addy?” Mrs. Shewchuk looked down at me. “You look as if you have something to say.”

  “I think Emma is right,” I said. “The only way you get better is if you’re challenged. Everybody should be challanged—so kids who aren’t as good should get to play with the ones who are, because they’ll learn more that way.”

  Emma went from looking pleased with herself to looking as if a thunderstorm was brewing under her skin. Her face turned red and her eyes got squinty.

  Mrs. Shewchuk called on Tyler.

  “I think…um, I think…” He was staring at me. He couldn’t remember my name.

  “Addy,” Mrs. Shewchuk said.

  “Yeah. I think Addy is right, everyone should have a chance to play with more skilled kids. But I think Emma had a point—”

  He remembered Emma’s name and not mine?

  He looked at Emma. “If you play with kids who aren’t very good, you get worse,” he said.

  Actually, that wasn’t what Emma had said. But either she had a worse memory than Tyler or she didn’t want to tell him he was wrong, because she didn’t say anything. It was Mrs. Shewchuk who corrected him. Then Tyler said he still thought good kids should play with good kids and bad kids— that’s what he said, bad kids—should play with bad kids, which made me decide he wasn’t so cute after all.

  Mrs. Shewchuk interrupted him before he had a chance to say “bad kids” again. She told him to use the term “less skilled,” which now everybody would know was teacher-talk for “bad.”

  After that, Henry said everyone should have a chance to play because that was more fair, and Kelsey and Miranda agreed with Henry. He beamed as if he’d won the Stanley Cup. Lucy said competing took the fun out of everything, and then the bell rang and it was time for recess.

  The first thing I noticed when Lucy and I got to the playground was Emma and Stephanie hanging around Sierra. They were talking with their hands and smiling big— and what was that? Was Stephanie stroking Sierra’s hair?

  “What is she doing?” Lucy asked.

  “Touching her hair.”

  “That is weird,” Lucy said. “I don’t even think Stephanie and Emma touch each other’s hair.”

  Then Sierra began stroking her own hair. When she stopped, Stephanie and Emma looked at her hand. What was going on?

  “She’s showing them her implant,” Miranda announced. She had come up behind me just as I realized it wasn’t Sierra’s hair Stephanie was touching, it was the transmitter. Sierra must have taken it off so they could touch it. I wondered what it felt like. And could Sierra hear? Probably not, because in a second it was back on her head.

  “Did you know implants cost as much as a house?” Miranda said.

  “What?” Lucy and I asked at the same time.

  “I heard Sierra telling Stephanie and Emma how much her implant cost.”

  “Why?” I asked. Was she trying to impress them? Make them think she was important because she had expensive stuff inside and outside her deaf head? Did she think she was better than everyone because her head was worth as much as a house? Who even knew how much a house cost? Who cared?

  “How much do your hearing aids cost?” Miranda asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t pay for them. And I’ll bet she doesn’t know how much her implant costs either. She was asleep when she got it.”

  “Really?” Miranda looked surprised.

  “You have to have an operation to get an implant. They can’t cut your head open when you’re awake.”

  “They cut her head open?” Miranda was shocked.

  “How else do you think they get it in?”

  “That sounds scary,” Miranda said. “I think you’re better off.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  Our next running club practice on Thursday started out slightly better than the first one. Stephanie and Emma were in such a hurry to be first, they didn’t pay attention to Lucy and me.

  I thought maybe we could keep up with them. But two blocks after we started, Lucy looked like she was going to have a heart attack. She was huffing like my grandparents’ neighbor who has emphysema and is permanently attached to an oxygen tank.

  I wanted to say something encouraging, but what can you tell your best friend when she is torturing herself other than, “Stop that! Now!�
� which I didn’t think would be helpful.

  Miss Fielding had a better idea. She put her arm around Lucy’s shoulder. “Let’s walk a little.”

  Lucy shook her head. Sweat dripped off her face.

  “It’s good to take a break,” Miss Fielding said. “We’ll run again when you’re ready.”

  That worked. Lucy bent over, sweaty and panting. I wished we could keep going.

  “Why don’t you catch up with the rest,” Miss Fielding said to me, pointing off in the distance to where the running club was heading into the river valley.

  Could she see inside my head too, like Mrs. Shewchuk? I looked at Lucy again. Her hair was matted to her forehead and cheeks. “I’ll stay,” I said. “Friends stick together.”

  When I said “friends,” Lucy gave me a pained, wheezy smile. “You should go,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m so slow.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said. “I probably couldn’t keep up anyway.”

  I had never lied to Lucy before. I wondered if she could tell, but she was grimacing again and I was pretty sure it was because her lungs hurt, or whatever it is that hurts when you run more than you want, or can.

  Dried leaves covered the path, which was wide enough so we could run side by side. The sun washed through the canopy of trees. A light breeze cooled the air.

  “Do you want to keep going?” I asked, hopefully.

  Lucy nodded. “I just don’t know for how long. My chest still hurts.” She took a deep breath and squeezed out two more words. “Let’s go.”

  We headed into the river valley, but the rest of the club was out of sight. I meant to stay with Lucy and Miss Fielding, but it was as if I forgot where I was and who I was with. I glided down the path and couldn’t hear anything except my feet on the packed dirt and dead leaves.

  The first cross-country meet was next Wednesday, one week away. The farthest I had run without stopping was four hundred meters. Miss Fielding told us the race at Laurier Park would be twelve hundred meters.

  I wondered if I should practice on the weekend, but with who? Mom didn’t like to exercise. Dad worked all weekend. There was no way I’d ask Lucy.

  I wondered if Stephanie and Emma practiced together. They wouldn’t call it practice though. They would call it training. Training was important. Everything they did was important. Being friends with Sierra was one more important thing. Because everyone knew cochlear implants were more important than hearing aids.

  What I didn’t get was why Sierra wanted to be friends with them. If I had been her, the new deaf kid in a school full of hearing kids, and there was a girl with hearing aids, especially a nice, friendly girl, I’d want to talk to her. We would be friends because we had something important in common.

  Birds of a feather flock together. That was another of my grandmother’s sayings. I guess Sierra had never heard it.

  I was starting to get hot and a little tired, but I wanted to run at least to the bridge at the end of the path. Then I could turn back without having to see Stem. It would be bad enough watching them zip past me at Wednesday’s race. At least today I could get back to the school before them and pretend I was better, even if it meant sort of cheating by turning back early.

  The wind sounded strange. It seemed to be wailing, even though there was only a slight breeze. Then I realized it was a siren. I couldn’t tell if it was an ambulance, fire truck or police car. It never occurred to me the wailing could be a person.

  Then I saw some teenagers running toward me, and I realized Lucy and Miss Fielding weren’t behind me. I turned around and around, but all I saw were the teenagers passing me as if I were invisible. Where was Lucy? Where was Miss Fielding?

  I ran as fast as I could back up the path. That’s when I saw Lucy, flat on the ground surrounded by Miss Fielding, two strangers and a yapping, out-of-control dog. One of the strangers turned out to be a medical student on her afternoon run. The other was an old bald man whose crazy dog had run into Lucy, knocking her over and twisting her ankle. If I had a dog, I’d keep it on a leash. A short leash.

  Lucy was trying not to cry. The bald man was wagging his finger at the dog, yelling, “Bad, bad Custard!” If Lucy hadn’t looked so awful, I would have laughed. Custard. What kind of name was that?

  The medical student was looking at Lucy’s ankle. “It’s probably just a sprain, but to be sure you should take her to a clinic,” she said to Miss Fielding.

  I crouched next to Lucy. “Does it hurt?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  I squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry. I guess I was running too fast,” I said.

  She looked at Custard, who was jumping around so wildly I was surprised he hadn’t pulled the bald man over. “I should probably thank him.”

  “Don’t look too happy,” I said. “Your mother may think you fell on purpose.”

  She sniffled loudly and wiped her nose. “Oww,” she moaned. “It really hurts.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “You fooled me. Can you get up?”

  “I’m not kidding,” she said. “It really does hurt. Almost as much as running.”

  Lucy stayed home from school the next day. The medical student was right—she had a slight sprain. Lucy’s doctor said she shouldn’t stand on it for at least two days. By Sunday it wasn’t nearly as swollen, but it still hurt and she needed crutches. Joanne wanted her to buck up, run through the pain. That’s what Joanne would have done.

  “Did you know the week before I was to run in my first triathlon I tripped over your tricycle in the front hall and sprained my ankle?” she said as she hovered over us. We were in Lucy’s family room, watching ABC Kids.

  “Yes, you told me on the way home from the clinic, remember?” Lucy said.

  Joanne’s eyes were all sparkly. “Well, I didn’t tell Addy.” She looked awfully happy for someone who was about to tell a story about how she was almost crippled on the eve of her debut as a champion triathlete.

  “Mom, I’ve heard it a million times,” Lucy said. “I can tell Addy. Later. Right now we’re watching tv.”

  When she left, Lucy rolled her eyes and asked if I’d go to the garage and find the tricycle so she could trip over it and reinjure herself, at least until running club was over.

  “Do you want to run in the race?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  “I think you should,” she said. “I won’t be there, so you can go as fast as you want.”

  “I’m not that fast,” I said.

  “You’re faster than me,” she pointed out. And then she laughed and said, “Everybody is faster than me.”

  Joanne came back carrying a brand-new water bottle with CamelBak stamped across the bottom in white letters. It looked expensive.

  “I bought this for Lucy, for the race, but since she won’t be running, I thought I’d give it to you for luck.”

  “You should save it. She’ll be better by next week.”

  I tried to make Lucy take the bottle, but she pushed it back at me. “Besides, I don’t know if I’m going to run. Maybe I’ll wait so we can run together.”

  “Of course you should compete!” Joanne said.

  “You’ve been training.”

  “For two days,” I said. “I don’t think that counts.”

  I held out the bottle, but Joanne pushed it back at me like Lucy had.

  “I’ll buy Lucy another one,” she said. “It’s nice to have something new for a race—as long as it’s not new runners. Did I tell you what happened when I tried to wear new runners in my first half marathon?”

  “You got a blister so bad you couldn’t wear shoes for three weeks,” Lucy said.

  “Oh, I guess I did tell you,” Joanne said.

  If I repeated myself as much as she did, I’d be embarrassed.

  “Sorry about that,” Lucy said when her mother went back to the kitchen. “You don’t have to run just because she gave you a water bottle, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “But if you do, I’ll come
and watch.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course,” she said. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even be in the running club. It’s the least I can do.”

  Chapter 8

  Have you ever seen pictures of factory farms, where all the chickens are squashed together in cages, pinned in by other baby chickens and completely, thoroughly unable to move? That’s how I felt at the Laurier Park starting line. Except it wasn’t future Kentucky Fried dinners surrounding me, it was grade six girls— hundreds of them pressed together.

  Facing us, about twenty meters from the starting line, was a man in a blue Adidas tracksuit. Miss Fielding explained that he was the starter. When he said ready, set, go, the twelve-hundred-meter race would begin.

  I had never seen so many runners together. What if I got knocked over? Would I be able to get up? Or would the other girls run right over me?

  Running in a race without Lucy was a bad idea. I should have waited until she got better. We could have been smushed and crushed together. If you’re going to go down, better to go with a friend. That sounds like one of my grandmother’s sayings, but I made it up. Just now.

  I tipped my head toward the sky and leaned back, as if I was going to do a backbend. If I could look at the sky, maybe I wouldn’t feel so—what was the word? Claus, clausto—claustrophobic. Fear of small spaces. Just as the word popped into my head, I felt a hand on my back.

  “Stand straight and face front, Addy,” Miss Fielding said. “The race is about to begin.”

  Ahead of me, the backs of Stephanie’s and Emma’s heads were so close I could feel the air shift every time their ponytails swung back and forth. They moved in unison, like windshield wipers in a rainstorm. Like perfect windshield wipers that wouldn’t be trampled because, of course, they were in the front row. They could run away from everybody before they got knocked to the ground.

  When Miss Fielding had lined us up, she had said, “Fastest in front. There’s not enough room for everyone to stand side by side.” Then she pushed Stem ahead of everyone else.