I ran my eyes over the group. Some were waving me off, these were the best players, Danny’s friends most of them, who hoped I wouldn’t invite them into my group of likely losers. Others were trying to get my attention, such as Sarah, who hopped from foot to foot. Jake and a few others, used to rejection, slouched and toed the mats sullenly, sure they would be waiting for a long time before they heard their names called.
Out of the whole crowd, only Beth looked at me evenly and happily. She did not appear to be urging me to do anything. She was confident I would do the right thing.
“Connor?” asked Urdo.
I opened my mouth, planning to call out Beth’s name. But I stopped. “Jake,” I said finally.
Jake looked startled. Snickers and groans went up from the crowd. People rolled their eyes. They knew how it was going to be now. I would build a loser team of my own loser cronies. Or at least, that’s what they thought.
Jake came up and stood next to me. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Picking my team,” I said.
“Don’t make us lose just because I’m your friend. Get some good guys.”
“You are good, now shut up.”
Danny called out another pick. Another athletic friend of his named Jamie, who could turn into a badger, of all things.
On my next turn, I chose Sarah. At least no one groaned at that choice. She was considered a good player. Bird-types were often very effective. I took Beth next and then took the best of whoever was left.
When the choosing was over, I huddled up with my team. We all formed a circle and bent our heads together.
“Connor,” said Jake. “We’re going to be stomped.”
“This is a race, right?” asked Beth.
Some of the others realized how clueless she was and groaned aloud.
“Don’t worry people,” I told them all seriously. “I have a plan.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Who’s running first?” a boy named Eddie asked me. He was an eager sort, and I knew what he really wanted was the green light to go first. He could turn into a ram, and he was pretty good on his feet or hooves.
I nodded to him. It was time to make some fast decisions. We only had five minutes to talk, and then we were supposed to put our first player on the course.
I looked at the course, we couldn’t see most of it, naturally, that would make things too easy. You could only see the first part which was a balancing beam that sloped upward to a push-door. They always made the first part something that almost anyone could get past. But what was on the other side of that door? We would only find out when someone made it there. Usually, the first several players were surprised by what they found and failed when they got to new territory.
“Okay Eddie, you can go first and play scout,” I said.
Eddie beamed and a few others rolled their eyes.
“Great!” he said.
“He can’t beat my wings!” said Sarah. Her arms were crossed.
“How are you going to open that door if its heavy and you’re a five ounce bird?” asked Eddie.
“Sarah, Eddie’s going first,” I said. “Let’s not argue already, we only have a few minutes to set up.”
Eddie headed for the tiny black changing tent, pulling off his shirt as he went. White coarse hairs were already sprouting from his temples.
I followed him. “Maybe you should go with your upper half still human. Then you would have arms and be able to handle a surprise on the other side of that door.”
Eddie shook his head. “Balancing is harder on two hooves. I can race up that beam as a mountain ram. Faster than anything that doesn’t fly anyway, and fliers will have trouble with that door if it’s heavy. I can just ram that out of the way. I’ll get you two points for making it first, and then you’ll see what I can do in the next stage.”
I nodded, my lips cinched tightly. I could tell he wanted to be all ram, he liked it that way. Since we really didn’t know what was on the other side, he might be right or wrong.
“I don’t like it,” said Beth. She had trailed me. Eddie was in the tent now, changing. The sides of the tent bulged as his curved horns sprouted.
“It’s your first game!” I said, laughing. “You’re second-guessing already.”
She nodded and smiled. “What was that he said about points?”
“The scoring system is simple,” I said. “If you make it across an obstacle, you get one point. If you get past an obstacle before the other guy you are racing against you get two points. The only other rule is that if you make it all the way to the end, you double your whole score for the race. That’s the whole system, but there is strategy. Sometimes it’s better to blast through as many stages as you can super fast to beat the other guy and get two points for each obstacle until you fall. A player who takes it slowly might make it farther, but with only one point per obstacle. Going all the way to the end is rare, of course. “
“Ah,” said Beth, “Double points if you make it to the end? That must make things stay exciting.”
“Right, a spectacularly fast run all the way to the finish can score huge points. That happens more often when people know what to expect at each stage. Often, the winning team wins by surprise in the last few races. You never know for sure which side has won until the last race.”
A deep, throbbing horn blew. The basement walls reverberated with the heavy sound.
“What’s that?” asked Beth.
“An old hunting horn, I think. We have one minute until the race starts.”
Eddie burst out of the changing tent and trotted up to the starting line.
On the other side was Haley, a tall girl that had changed into an Ocelot, a small Amazonian member of the cat family. She looked like an overgrown housecat that had gone wild. Her fur was orange and sleek. She snicked her claws in and out and hunkered down at the starting line as if preparing to pounce on a mouse.
“She’s fast-looking,” said Beth.
“It will be a race to that first door, but if it’s heavy, Eddie should beat her through it.”
Before I knew it, everyone was shouting, “Huzzah!” in unison. The brick walls bounced back the cries and the noise was deafening. After the third Huzzah, the hunting horn blew again. The race was on.
Eddie charged up the beam, galloping nimbly. But the cat-shaped Haley was even faster. She sprang up the beam, hardly having to use her claws.
“He’s losing!” cried Beth.
“Wait,” I said.
They hit the door at almost the same moment, but Eddie was clearly second.
But the door proved to be a problem for little Haley. As a cat, she didn’t have much weight. The door didn’t open immediately. Instead, she nosed under it, like a cat coming in through a heavy dog door into the kitchen.
Eddie lowered his horns and burst right through.
A chime sounded and the old mechanical scoreboard on the far wall clicked. The blue numbers were our score. Danny’s team score showed in red. The score board clicked up a big numeral 2 in blue and a big numeral 1 in red. We were winning already, but it was far from over.
“We’re ahead!” squealed Beth in my ear.
I had to smile.
The black curtains dropped and revealed the next stage of the course. The crowd moved quickly, almost trotting, to see what the next obstacle was. My teeth clenched in dismay when I saw it, and before I could even shout advice to Eddie, it was all over.
The next obstacle was a four foot deep pool of water with a single tire swing hanging over it. The pool was
