Ultra

by Carroll David

  Suddenly I heard stones clattering right behind me. Something was huffing and puffing. I jerked my body to a stop.

  The bear was shaggy and monstrous and boy did it stink! A swarm of deer flies buzzed around its head.

  I clenched my butt cheeks to keep my guts from spilling out. I expected the bear to charge, but instead it dropped onto all fours. It rubbed its head against a rock and made a snuffling noise with its nose. Its smell was truly awful. It stank like wet dog.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: Please tell me that you got away from that bear.

  QUINN: I didn’t. Because there’s one little detail I haven’t mentioned. The bear was wearing camouflage pants.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: Camouflage pants again? So the bear was another hallucination?

  QUINN: Exactly. Number two, in case you’re counting.

  There is nothing quite as hilarious as a bear wearing pants. I stifled a giggle. It’s Winnie the Pants, I thought.

  The bear shook its head and took a few steps backward. Then it lay down on its back and rolled around in the dirt. Its snout was pebbled with raspberry seeds, and its eyes drooled like a sea lion’s. Did I mention that it was huge? Way bigger than a fridge! More like the size of an SUV.

  “Where’d you get those pants, Mister Bear?” I asked.

  The bear rolled over and shook out its fur like a puppy that’s been swimming. It raised a paw to its snout. “Shhhh,” it said. Then it rose up on its hind legs and placed its front paws on my shoulders, as if it were about to give me some fatherly advice. It leaned way down, until its black snout was a centimetre from my forehead. It took three deep sniffs and let out an epic sneeze.

  “Thanks for that,” I spluttered. “I needed a shower anyway.”

  I wiped the bear snot off my face while Winnie the Pants dropped back onto its four paws.

  “Um,” I said. “Where are you going now?”

  The bear twitched its ears and made a chuffing noise. Then it made a movement with its paw, as if to say, “Follow me.”

  I decided to follow. I mean, c’mon! How often do you get to hang out with a bear in tight pants?

  We went down a narrow path and dropped beneath the cliff. Hither Lake, far below us, glinted like shiny nickels.

  The path turned, and I saw a curtain of water. The bear glanced back at me. It held out its paw.

  It took me a minute to see what it was pointing at, but eventually I noticed the hole in the rock. For a moment, I forgot that I was running a race, and tore down the path to check out the cave. The mist from the waterfall fogged up my sunglasses. I yanked them off and stuffed them in my pocket.

  The first thing I noticed about the cave was the cold. It felt like someone had left a freezer door open! The ground was uneven, and the rock walls were covered in moss. A gap in the rocks let in a grimy pool of sunlight.

  I walked inside. In the dim light, I saw a very strange thing. A grey female turtle was sitting in a shallow hole. I know it was female because it was laying an egg.

  “Whoa,” I said. “That’s gotta hurt.”

  The turtle’s eyes bulged. It didn’t seem to care that I was there. Twelve fist-sized eggs were glistening in the hole. As I watched, a thirteenth egg rolled to the bottom of the pit. It was grey and coated with stringy slime.

  “Hey, that’s amazing!” I said, looking down.

  The turtle looked exhausted. Its eyes were prehistoric. It scratched the ground with its foot and flipped some dirt over its eggs.

  “Careful,” I whispered. “You’ll get them dirty.”

  The turtle tilted its head up at me and glared. Then it blinked its eyes and turned back to its eggs, nudging them into a circle in the bottom of the nest. They sat on a blanket of spongy leaves and branches. I could see shreds of plastic bag and swatches of fabric in there too.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’s that?”

  I pointed at a yellowed scrap of paper. The turtle nudged it with its beak-like jaw, and I reached down and grabbed it.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The turtle crawled up the side of its hole and began kicking at the dirt again.

  “Hey!” I said. “What are you doing?”

  It flung the earth with powerful back legs, which were shaped a bit like shovels. “Those are your eggs,” I said. “You’re getting them dirty.”

  Snapping turtles, I found out later, bury their eggs. But at the time I thought this one was just being stupid.

  “They’re your babies,” I said. “Don’t you care about your babies?”

  Apparently not, since it kept shovelling the dirt.

  Feeling depressed, I walked back to the mouth of the cave. The bear had ambled in behind me and was sitting on its rump. It stuck out its tongue and licked its black lips. Then it snuffled the air and made a popping sound with its jaw.

  I sat down on the ground and looked at the newspaper clipping. The headline said: Local Runners Hit the Wall. There was a black-and-white picture of a kid with skinny legs. “Wait a second,” I said, “that’s me!”

  It was a story about the Seawall Shuffle, a 10-kilometre race they hold every year by the ocean. My dad and I ran that race last summer, but the course was super crowded, and we lost each other while we ran. Dad crossed the finish line 20 minutes after me, which is an eternity in a 10-kilometre race.

  “Boy, are you ever slow!” I told him.

  “Not my fault!” said Dad. “Didn’t you see the whale?”

  He claimed that he’d seen a blue whale from the seawall. He even showed me pictures he’d taken. “It’s right there,” he insisted. “That dark line, can’t you see it?”

  I could see the dark line, but it didn’t look like a whale. So I never knew if he was telling the truth.

  “Why would I lie about a whale?” Dad asked.

  “Because you’re embarrassed about running so slow,” I said.

  Now I knew the truth. The newspaper story mentioned the whale, which swam close to the seawall and caused a lot of excitement. “Hundreds of runners stopped to take pictures,” the article said, “rather than chase after a personal best.”

  The bear grunted and popped its jaw. Then it walked to the edge of the cave and rubbed its forehead against a mossy rock.

  I looked at the picture in the centre of the story. Me and my dad are holding up our finishers’ medals, and grinning.

  My watch beeped. It was 7 p.m. now. I stuffed the article into my pocket.

  I walked to the back of the cave. The turtle had filled up its hole and was tamping down the dirt.

  “You really did it,” I said. “You buried your eggs. You buried the things you love the most.”

  The turtle stopped moving. Its eyes were shiny and wet.

  “That’s a pretty weird thing to do,” I said.

  Golden sunlight streamed into the cave, lighting up dozens of spiderwebs. They were everywhere, strung up between the cave’s craggy pillars. In the centre of each one, I could see a big, fat spider. The spiders sat hunched in their webs like greasy black fists. A cloud passed in front of the sun and the webs all disappeared.

  The turtle lay down on the ground and closed its eyes. I realized I was intruding. So I disappeared too.

  SUNSET AT RATJAW

  Mile 61

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: So how were you feeling, after that experience?

  QUINN: Pretty freaked out, I have to say! I kept reminding myself that the bear and turtle were just hallucinations. By the time I got back to the main trail, I’d calmed down a bit.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: And what about your superpowers? How were they holding up?

  QUINN: My muscles were sore, but I wasn’t out of breath. And I was still running pretty fast. I knocked off the next 10 miles in 2 hours.

  SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: Is that what they call being “in the zone”?

  QUINN: Yeah. Everything felt perfect. But it didn’t last long.

  I rolled into the Ratjaw rest stop sooner than I expected. It’s near the tip of Catfish P
oint, at Mile 61. I crossed the highway and picked up the trail on the other side. I could see the parked cars and picnic tables at Ratjaw, a hundred metres down the path.

  Then I heard the air brakes.

  An eighteen-wheeler was cruising down the highway. The driver geared down as he rounded the curve. I thought the truck would keep going, but it didn’t. Instead, it slowed down and pulled over to the shoulder. The driver stuck his arm out of the window and waved. “You’re not running in the hundred-miler, are you?” he shouted.

  I nodded.

  He shook his head. “How far have you come?”

  “Sixty-one miles,” I called back.

  The passenger door opened and clapped shut. Someone hopped out on the other side.

  The truck driver grinned. “You’re awesome!” he said. “I can’t even run to the corner store!”

  He waved again and threw the truck into gear. The tires kicked up a cloud of dust.

  As the truck pulled away, I saw someone standing in the dust. He was wearing a black T-shirt and neon socks.

  The Dirt Eater! He was back in the race! But he hadn’t run here; he’d hitched a ride!

  He crossed the highway, acting totally innocent. No way was I going to let that happen!

  “Hey there!” I called out. “How’s it going?”

  His eyes were flamethrowers. “Going fine,” he sneered.

  He walked right past me, limping slightly.

  “Have fun, riding in that truck?” I asked. “Was there a sleeper in the cab? Did you take a nap?”

  I was being what my mom would call a brat. The Dirt Eater didn’t answer. What could he say?

  “I’d love to take a nap,” I went on. “Oh, wait — I can’t — I’ve still got thirty-nine miles to run.”

  The Dirt Eater spun around. “Do me a favour,” he snarled, “and shut your yap.”

  He glared at me for about 30 seconds. Then he said, “You’ve got more lip than sense.”

  While I tried to figure out what to say next, the Dirt Eater loosened the drawstring on his shorts.

  Whoa! Time out! Very bad form!

  You do not pee in the middle of the trail! Not when another runner is right behind you! You walk a few metres into the forest to do it. If that’s not an official rule in ultra running, then it should be, starting now.

  I was about to say something especially snotty, but I figured I’d already made him mad enough. So I ploughed through a patch of waist-high grass, making a wide arc around the Dirt Eater and his pee.

  “That’s right, Monkey Boy,” he said. “Leave the angry old man alone.”

  Creepy, I thought. And I started to jog. I wanted to get far, far away from that guy.

  The volunteers cheered when they saw me coming. “Number Thirteen!” someone shouted. “Way to go!”

  A thin woman led me to a folding chair.

  “Sixty-one miles in fourteen hours,” she said. “Not too shabby.”

  I sat down and sipped from my hydration pack. I thought about reporting the Dirt Eater, telling the volunteers how I’d seen him climb out of a truck, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. I was here to run a race, not to be a rat. If he wanted to cheat, then that was his problem. Besides, the volunteers were writing down when each runner came and went from every rest stop. If anyone checked, they’d see that the Dirt Eater’s times didn’t add up. You didn’t have to be a math genius to figure that one out.

  “You look good,” the woman said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not so good, to be honest.”

  I hadn’t noticed any pain while I’d been running, but now that I’d stopped, I could feel it kicking in.

  “What hurts?” the woman asked.

  “Everything,” I said. “My stomach sort of sucks. My shoulders are brutal. And my feet are really giving me hell.”

  “They’re giving you what?”

  I looked up at the woman. Realized who she was. “Heck,” I said. “They’re giving me heck.”

  “That’s better,” said Mom.

  I teetered forward and gave her a hug. A stinky, sweaty hug that no one else would have taken.

  “Let me see those feet,” she said.

  “Nah, they’re okay,” I said. “I was just kidding.”

  A total lie. My feet felt like they’d been dipped in gasoline and set on fire. I hated to think what they must look like.

  “It wasn’t a request,” said Mom. “Let me see them — now.”

  Just then the Dirt Eater jogged into the rest stop. The same people who’d cheered for me now cheered for him.

  “Where’s Ollie?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Down at the lake with Kneecap,” said Mom.

  She was still looking at my feet. I needed to distract her.

  “I want to thank you,” I said.

  “For what?” she said.

  “For your genes,” I said.

  “My genes?”

  Mosquitoes dive-bombed my ankles and shins. I rifled through my pack for the bug dope I’d packed. “I inherited your good bones,” I said. “I wouldn’t still be standing after sixty-one miles if I didn’t.”

  “Is that so?” said Mom.

  “That’s so,” I said.

  I was laying it on thick, but I didn’t care. She seemed to have forgotten about my feet.

  “You got some of your dad’s genes too,” she said. “You definitely inherited his determination. But he was a plodder — terrible form. You’re different. You run with such grace — like a springbok.”

  A springbok is an African version of a deer. I didn’t know that then, but I pretended that I did.

  “You’re doing very well, you know,” Mom said. “At this rate, you might even beat your dad’s record.”

  The bald guy in the kilt was walking toward us. I had to think hard to remember his name.

  “Hey, Quinn!” he said. “How’s that bladder working?”

  Bruce. That was his name — Bruce.

  “It’s great,” I said. “I’m drinking a ton! My pee is so clear! Want to see?”

  That made him grin. “No thanks,” he said. “Come on over. It’s time for your weigh-in. You know the drill.”

  I climbed up on the scale. The screen lit up.

  “You’ve dropped two more pounds,” Bruce said.

  “Two more?” said my mom.

  Bruce shrugged. “He’s only lost three, which is average. There was a fella in here earlier who was down eleven. I had to pull him out of the race.”

  I thought to myself: I was in sixth place before. But if Bruce pulled one of the leaders, that meant I was …

  FIFTH!

  “Still,” said Mom. “Three pounds, that can’t be good.”

  The volunteers began clapping. The Dirt Eater started running down the trail. Now he was ahead of me, in fifth place, and I was back to being sixth.

  “Wow,” said Bruce. “He made a good recovery.”

  I stepped down off the scale and said nothing. I’d show them who owned fifth place.

  * * *

  You probably think you’ve seen some nice sunsets. But this sunset was amazing. This sunset was on steroids!

  Half of the sky was the colour of ripe watermelon, and the rest blazed orange, like a melting scoop of sherbet.

  On the downside, the bugs were launching an attack. The volunteers pulled on hoodies and long pants and lit citronella candles.

  I walked down to the lake, stinking of bug dope. Kneecap was skipping stones. Ollie knelt beside a bush.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  “Shhhh,” said Ollie.

  Kneecap smiled at me. “He’s frog hunting,” she whispered.

  A blood-red sunbeam shot through the clouds and stained the cedar trees a dark shade of purple.

  “Is it a bullfrog?” I asked Kneecap.

  “A leopard frog, I think.”

  “No,” said Ollie, “it’s a Bufo americanus. And if you don’t keep quiet, he’ll never come back up.”

&nbs
p; The three of us stared at the black water. A light breeze blew across the lake.

  “They’re calling for rain tonight,” Kneecap said.

  “Great,” I said. “Bring it on.”

  Kneecap looked at the clouds on the horizon. Then she said, “I bet the Dirt Eater is in bed by now.”

  “No, he’s not,” I said. “He just ran through here.”

  “Not possible,” she said. “He was hours behind you.”

  I told her about the truck on the highway. Her eyes went wide. She had dog-dish eyes.

  “WHAT?” she said. “You saw him climb out of a truck? He must’ve hitchhiked from Silver Valley. What is wrong with that guy?”

  Two eyeballs appeared on the water’s surface. Then a tiny nose and two webbed feet. The frog paddled slowly toward the shore. All at once, Ollie sprang into action.

  “Gotcha!” he cried, dropping his hands over the frog. He lifted it up so we could take a look.

  “He doesn’t look too happy,” I said, peeking between my brother’s thumbs.

  “I’ll let him go in a minute,” said Ollie.

  The frog scowled like an indignant king, angry at having his schedule interrupted.

  Kneecap slapped a mosquito on my neck. “How do you feel about running in the dark now?” she asked.

  “I’m a bit spooked,” I said. I was terrified, actually.

  “Me and Quinn ran in the dark together once,” Ollie said.

  “Really?” said Kneecap.

  “You bet,” I said, winking at Ollie. “We’re a team.”

  The sun dipped below the horizon. The sky looked as if it had been smudged with charcoal. Ollie set the frog down on a mossy rock. It hopped back into the water with a splash.

  “I wrote another verse for the UHL anthem,” I told Kneecap.

  Kneecap’s face lit up. “Sing it for me!”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Our school is proud and strong

  Especially the second-floor john

  That’s where we belong.

  Our teams are bold and free!

  With streams so extraordinary!

  Number one and unsanitary!

  God save our league!