Odd Girl In

by Jo Whittemore

  “Hello to all of you!” she boomed. “And welcome to the fifth-annual Champs Championship!”

  The audience cheered and applauded.

  “In just a moment, we’ll be sending our first group into the obstacle course. There are ten obstacles, which I’ve personally run with my co-coordinator.” She nodded at Emily. “Therefore, I can tell you it’s possible to make it through in thirty-five minutes or less.”

  “Ten obstacles, thirty-five minutes,” whispered Parker. “Three and a half minutes per obstacle.”

  “There will be a course judge watching you at all times,” she continued. “And because I care about the well-being of my students, we’ve got trained EMTS standing by to treat injuries.” Ms. Success raised an eyebrow. “Real injuries, folks. Not boo-boos or owies.” Then she called out the team positions and members. After she read off our team, she lowered her clipboard.

  “Sadly, I can’t allow any of you to watch the other teams run the course until you’ve done so yourself,” she said. “But while you wait, I’ve set up a few shows for your viewing pleasure.” She pointed to a film projector and a large white sheet tied to some trees to make a movie screen.

  “What’s the first show?” asked Nick.

  Ms. Success tilted her head modestly. “A little something from my theater days. I was Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.”

  “Oh.” Nick smiled at her, then turned to us. “That combination of words means nothing to me.”

  “It’s a musical,” said Parker.

  “Ugh,” said Nick.

  “So without further ado,” continued Ms. Success, “let’s send our first group onto the course!”

  The audience cheered again and Team One headed for the starting line. As soon as they’d vanished into the forest, the crowd settled down to watch Ms. Success butcher a British accent.

  About forty-five minutes into the show, Team One re-emerged, red-faced and sweating. One of them, Tan Dan, had scraped up his legs, and the entire team was wet and muddy.

  “That doesn’t look promising,” said Parker.

  “Maybe you should have brought a shower cap,” said Nick.

  A woman in an EMT uniform pulled Dan aside while his teammates went back down to watch the next group.

  Ms. Success shook her head and pointed to the movie screen. “They’re going to miss a quality dance number.”

  My brothers and I struggled through the show while four more teams disappeared into the forest. When Team Six got up to take their turn, Nick, Parker, and I stepped away from the film to warm-up.

  “What’s the fastest time for the course?” I asked.

  “Thirty-six minutes,” said Parker, consulting the clipboard Ms. Success had left out. “By … surprise, surprise … Chloe, Trevor, and Shelly.”

  “Darn,” I said.

  Chloe had turned out to be a better leader than I’d hoped. My stomach started to fill with butterflies, and when Ms. Success called my name, I jumped with a start.

  “Alexis, Nick and Parker!” called Ms. Success. “Team Seven is up.”

  My brothers and I looked at each other.

  “Are we ready?” asked Parker, setting his watch.

  Nick let out a deep breath and nodded. “Alex?”

  I bent into a runner’s lunge. “Thirty-five minutes or bust.”

  Chapter 16

  Go!” shouted Ms. Success.

  My brothers and I sprinted away from the starting line while Dad shouted words of encouragement after us. The forest opened up around us until the air was rich with the scent of pine and much cooler from the shade of the trees.

  The first three obstacles were easy. We had to run through tires, cross some monkey bars, and climb a six-foot wall. Nick pretty much threw me and Parker over, and was able to shimmy up on his own.

  “Ninety seconds down,” said Parker as we raced for the fourth obstacle.

  When we reached it, however, we came to a dead stop.

  A wooden plank sat in the center of a huge circle of bricks. A thick mountain of rope was coiled up on the outside.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “What are we supposed to do?”

  “Look!” Parker pointed to a sheet of paper nailed to a tree beside the circle. He slipped the paper off the nail and the three of us read:

  Retrieve the board for use in the next obstacle.

  No person can touch the ground inside the

  circle, and the circle can’t be broken.

  “Okay,” said Parker, “so we’ll just lasso the board and pull it out.”

  He put the note back and picked up the rope. After creating a loop in one end, he tossed the rope at the board and maneuvered himself around the circle, trying to slip the loop over the wood.

  “That’s not going to work,” said Nick. “The board’s flat against the ground and the rope’s too thick.” He glanced up at the tree. “Give it here.”

  Parker did as he was told, and Nick tossed the looped end of the rope over one of the tree’s bigger branches. It came down on the other side and Nick held it out to me.

  “Put this around your waist,” he said, tying another loop on the opposite end.

  “A rope-and-pulley system!” Parker smacked himself in the forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I shimmied into the loop and Nick did the same on his end. Then, he started to back away, clutching the rope in front of him with both hands. I slowly started to lift off the ground, swinging back and forth.

  “Parker, push her toward the center of the circle,” grunted Nick, leaning back with all his weight and digging his heels into the ground. “Then come help me.”

  “I don’t weigh that much!” I said, as Parker pointed me in the direction of the board and gave a hearty shove. I soared to the opposite end of the circle, but my fingers were inches away from the board.

  “Lower me a bit,” I said.

  Even with Parker’s help, I knew Nick was having trouble keeping my height steady and that there was a very real chance he’d drop me straight to the ground.

  “Easy does it,” grunted Parker, and I felt the rope slip a few inches.

  I tried again and gripped the edge of the board with my fingers. Straining my entire arm, I pulled the board to a vertical position. Unfortunately, it was too heavy for me to throw outside the circle, and my momentum had stopped so I was stranded in the center.

  “Use the board like an oar,” called Nick. “Row yourself to the edge.”

  He made it sound way easier than it actually was. After what felt like a thousand lifetimes, I finally got close enough for Parker to take the board from me.

  “Later, sucker!” he said as soon as he had it.

  “Hey!”

  “Just kidding.” He tossed the board aside and took my hands. Looking back at Nick, he yelled, “Ready?”

  Nick let the slack out of the rope at the same time Parker pulled me toward him with all his strength. We fell to the ground in an unceremonious heap, but my entire body avoided the inner circle.

  “Good job, guys!” said Nick, running over to join us. “Parker, time?”

  Parker winced at his watch. “We’re at six minutes.”

  “Then we’d better get going.” Nick slapped him on the shoulder and sprinted with the board under one arm toward the next obstacle.

  Again, we came to a dead stop, this time at a pond. It was only about fifty feet across, but it was too deep to wade. Two rain barrels stood just beneath a tree with another note tacked to it. I picked it up and read, “Use the board and the barrels to cross the pond. Your upper body cannot touch the water.”

  I put down the note and studied the barrels, prying the lids off of them.

  “Hey! Whoa!” both my brothers cried.

  “What?” I fought to keep the exasperation out of my voice. “There’s no other way to get into the barrels.”

  Nick goggled at me. “You want to ride inside them?”

  “No, I want you guys to ride inside them. I’ll balance on to
p of each one and roll it to the opposite shore.” I stood on top of one and demonstrated. “I saw a lumberjack do it with a log once.”

  Parker rubbed his forehead. “There are several problems with that plan, the most obvious being that you are not a lumberjack.”

  “But I’ve got great balance,” I said. “You’ve seen.”

  Parker stared at me in amazement. “It doesn’t mean I want to climb inside a sealed container and let you push it to the center of a lake!”

  “A pond,” I corrected.

  “I’m with Parker,” said Nick. “We need to be on the outside of the barrels…. Maybe moving ourselves along with the plank?”

  Parker chewed his lip and walked around the objects a few times. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  Following his instructions, we resealed the barrels and tilted them on their sides, Parker climbing on one and I on the other. Then we propped the plank between them and sat on either end, while Nick rested his upper body on the plank’s center. He kicked his feet in the water and steered our makeshift raft to the opposite shore.

  “Time?” he asked.

  “We’re at twelve minutes,” said Parker.

  “We’re barely keeping on time.” Nick gritted his teeth. “The next ones had better be easy.”

  Thankfully, obstacle six was a rope climb with a platform at the top leading to obstacle seven. Although my legs still hurt from earlier that week, my brothers and I mastered the ropes in a minute flat. Once we reached the platform, Parker read the note taped to a pole beside it.

  “To get to obstacle seven, cross the mud pit.”

  We all looked down at the long stretch of brown sludge that spread between us and the next obstacle.

  “Nooo,” said Parker.

  “That explains the muddy kids,” I said.

  Nick pointed at the note. “There are two ways across. Traverse the mud, or solve the riddles and free the flying foxes.”

  “Augh!” Parker dropped the note and jumped back.

  “What? What’s going on?” Nick and I bumped into each other, twirling around to see what had startled Parker.

  “Flying foxes!” he said. “Those furry demons have mastered flight?!”

  Nick and I stopped moving and laughed.

  “A flying fox isn’t an animal,” I said. “It’s a little set of handlebars that run on … that.”

  I pointed to a cable above us, roughly thirty feet off the ground. It slanted down to a platform on the opposite side of the mud pit.

  “Oh.” Parker looked sheepish.

  “And I’m guessing the foxes are in there.” Nick pointed to a long box resting along the edge of the platform.

  We stepped closer and saw three combination locks securing the box lid. Each lock had five rotating dials, but instead of numbers, the dials held letters.

  I groaned. “There’s got to be like a hundred possible combinations on each lock!”

  “A hundred thousand,” corrected Parker, inspecting the dials. “But there’s also got to be a clue here somewhere.” He lifted the box and pointed. “Ha!”

  On the bottom were written three lines:

  Instead of jumping into action, my brothers and I just stared at the box.

  “I think we were better off without the clues,” I said. “What do you call a group of lions?”

  Nick shrugged. “Dangerous?”

  I scratched my head. “So all Champs should be dangerous?”

  “No,” said Parker. “All Champs should be like the sun.”

  Nick stepped away to glance down at the mud. “Do you want to carry Parker, or should I?”

  I joined him. “You’re training to be his servant, right? I think this would be good practice.”

  “Maybe he can walk if we promise to keep his hair dry,” said Nick.

  Behind us, Parker, fiddled with the locks. “Not likely.”

  “Besides, how would we do that?” I asked. “Did you bring a shower cap?”

  “No, but the Swiss Army knife might have one. It’s got everything.”

  There was a loud thump behind us, and Nick and I glanced at Parker, who was grinning triumphantly.

  “Shall we?” he asked, holding up a flying fox.

  Nick and I stared open-mouthed at him.

  “You did it!” I said. “How?”

  Parker tapped his head. “I used my mental computer.”

  “Ohhh,” said Nick and I.

  “All Champs should use their brains,” said Nick. “What were the other two?”

  “A group of lions is a pride, and the sun is a …” He pointed to the star on his chest.

  I applauded Parker, and Nick gave him a fist bump. “Nice one! I knew we kept you around for a reason.”

  Parker blushed and smiled even wider. “How does this thing work anyway?” He held the flying fox out and I took it, attaching it to the overhead wire.

  “It works like this.” I lifted my legs off the platform and tucked them in to my chest. The wire sagged a little under my weight, but the flying fox propelled me forward and down to the other platform. When I was steady on both feet again, I gave a thumbs-up and Parker soared down on his flying fox, followed by Nick.

  “We’re at nineteen minutes,” said Parker before Nick could even ask. “The next obstacle takes us back to the ground.”

  He pointed to an enormous net that angled downward from the ledge of the platform to obstacle nine. “We’ll have to carefully—”

  “No, we won’t,” said Nick. Then folding his arms over his chest, he rolled off the ledge and all the way down the net, hitting the ground with a small cloud of dust. “Quick and almost painless,” he called up, rubbing his backside.

  “You heard the man,” I said, giving Parker a gentle nudge. Unfortunately, I caught him off guard and he toppled face-first into the net, bouncing wildly all the way down.

  “Augh … augh … augh!” he cried with each bounce.

  “Sorry!” I shouted, sliding down after him.

  Parker’s nose was planted in the ground when I touched down, but he groaned and held up his watch arm.

  “We’ve got fifteen minutes left,” I said.

  Nick and I helped Parker to his feet, and the three of us hurried over to a low crawl under a series of crisscrossing ropes. We all suffered a few cuts and bruises but made it to the other side in two minutes. We now had thirteen minutes left to tackle the final obstacle and make it back to the starting line.

  But obstacle ten didn’t look to be an easy task. It required running along a series of narrow beams that led to a springboard. On the other side of the board stood a six-foot padded platform that was wedged between two trees. From one of the tree’s branches hung three gold stars.

  Nick grabbed a note off a nearby tree. “Cross all the beams, make it to the top of the platform, and grab a star. If you fall off a beam, you must start over.”

  “Great,” said Parker. “Who wants to unleash their inner gymnast first?”

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  “Take it slow,” said Nick. “You don’t want to get careless and fall off.”

  “Got it,” I said. Then I turned and sprinted across the planks full speed.

  “Alex!” he shouted.

  But I ignored him. At my height and strength, if I was going to make it to the platform, I’d have to reach the springboard at a run. Since the beams were laying on the ground and hadn’t been secured to anything, they wobbled a bit, but I expertly crossed three of them. The fourth shifted slightly in a direction that I didn’t anticipate, and my foot slipped and hit the dirt.

  “Darn it,” I muttered.

  “I told you!” said Nick.

  “Let me try again!” I ran to the start and jumped onto the first beam. My brothers stood quietly behind me, as if any sound might knock me off balance. With just a few wobbly steps, I reached the edge of the final beam and jumped with both feet onto the springboard.

  It had more bounce to it than I expected, and launched me high enough fo
r my upper body to connect with the platform. I clung to it for dear life and pulled myself up. Once I was back on my feet, I grabbed one of the stars from the tree.

  “Nothing to it!” I called to Nick and Parker.

  And with those words, I jinxed my brothers.

  Parker went next but kept falling off about halfway through.

  “Try not running,” said Nick.

  “If Alex can do it, I can do it!” he panted.

  After his fourth failed attempt, Parker walked the beams and turned to the obstacle course judge. “The note says I just have to get across the beams and onto the platform. It doesn’t say how, right?”

  “Correct,” said the judge.

  Parker stepped onto solid ground and, without so much as a glance at the springboard, shimmied up one of the trees beside the platform. He grabbed his own star from the tree branch and avoided my disapproving gaze.

  “I prefer to blaze my own trail,” he said with a haughty sniff.

  Nick struggled to make it to the end of the beams. He was waving his arms madly and tipping back and forth. If we hadn’t been under a time crunch, I would have laughed. Nick reached the last beam with eight minutes left. All he had to do now was get up to the platform.

  Nick jumped onto the springboard with both feet, but since he weighed a significant amount more than me, it sank and only propelled him a foot or so into the air.

  “That’s no good,” said Parker. “Go up one of the trees.”

  Nick just stared at him. “That’s like asking a rhino to climb a ladder. It’s not gonna happen.”

  “Run across the beams and jump onto the springboard,” I suggested, and Nick directed his incredulous gaze at me. “No, okay, bad idea.”

  “How can you be so athletic and unable to do this?” Parker asked his twin.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Nick’s words dripped with sarcasm. “You want me to leap tall buildings in a single bound?”

  “Not tall buildings. A six-foot wall!” cried Parker. “Evel Knievel could do it with his eyes closed.”

  “Evel Knievel had a motorcycle!” Nick shot back. “And a—” He stopped short, his eyes wide with revelation, and spun to face the course judge. “Can I move the beams after everyone’s across?”