Addy's Race (4 page)

If only Lucy and I could do something better than them, something public and that counted, like rescuing orphans from a fire or solving global warming.

“It’s just a few days a week,” I whispered back. “And it’ll be finished by October.”

“I might not last that long.”

“Or maybe you’ll be really good at it!”

She gave me a you’re-crazy look.

Miss Fielding was talking about stretching. “We better pay attention,” I whispered as I tried to reach my toes, but they seemed very far away.

“Why?” Lucy replied. “I’ll be dead before any of this happens. I can’t even run half a block.”

“We’ll do a short warm-up run today,” Miss Fielding announced. “We have some volunteers to help out, so if you have to walk that’s fine. A volunteer will make sure you’re not alone.”

The volunteers were junior high kids. Miranda and Kelsey’s sister, Jackie, was one of them.

“I’ll run with the back of the group,” Miss Fielding said. She turned to a tall, strong-looking junior high girl, Sasha, and asked her to run up front. Then she said, “Stephanie and Emma, you run with Sasha.”

Stem took off as if they’d been shot from a cannon. If I didn’t hate them so much, I’d have been impressed. Tyler, a bunch of grade five and four kids, and Miranda and Kelsey followed.

Miss Fielding was encouraging to me and Lucy. She patted Lucy on the shoulder and said, “Good job.” To me she said, “You have a nice ride.”

“A nice ride?” I said.

“Stride,” she said, more loudly. “You have a long stride.”

Was I supposed to say thank you?

“Jim Ryun wears hearing aids,” she said.

Again, I had no idea what she was talking about. “Who?”

“Jim Ryun. First American high school student to run a mile in under four minutes. In 1964.”

Was she telling me I could run fast because I had hearing aids?

“He lost his hearing when he was a kid,” she went on. “Measles.”

“I was born this way,” I said. I guess that meant I wouldn’t be running a mile in under four minutes.

Miss Fielding looked like she was going to say something more, but Lucy didn’t give her a chance. “I. Have. To. Stop,” she said. Her face was so red, I could practically feel the heat radiating off it. “My chest hurts,” she panted. “And my legs feel like logs.”

“Let’s stretch,” Miss Fielding said. She bent Lucy over so her arms dangled near her feet like a rag doll’s.

“I hate this,” she said, crumpling to the ground. “I can’t do it. I hate my mother.”

“It’s okay, Lucy,” I said, helping her up. “We don’t have to run the whole way, remember?”

“It takes time to build endurance,” Miss Fielding said. “In a month you will amaze yourself.”

“But the first race is next week,” Lucy said.

“Don’t put pressure on yourself,” Miss Fielding said. “You don’t have to do the race.”

“I do,” Lucy said. It was hard to tell whether her body was heaving because she was fighting back sobs or if she was still out of breath. “My mother said so.”

“If you’re not ready, I’ll talk to your mom,” Miss Fielding said. “But let’s keep walking so your muscles don’t get stiff.”

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.