“Deputy Warren,” the voice said. “Who do I have on the phone?”
“Lucas Painter. From over on Deerskill Lane.”
“And what kinda trouble we talkin’ here, son?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s this lady. She’s by herself in the middle of nowhere. And she’s in bed like she’s asleep, but nothing wakes her up. Nothing.”
“Maybe she’s just a heavy sleeper,” Warren said, still apparently bored.
“I banged on her window like crazy. Nobody could sleep through the noise I was making. And her dogs are all upset. One of them is trying to dig through the door to get in to her.”
A silence on the line. Then I heard him sigh. Maybe because we had just crossed the border into his believing he might need to get up and do something.
“Okay, gimme her address. I’ll go look in on her. Check her welfare.”
“I don’t have an address.”
“That doesn’t help our situation, son.”
“Sorry. I don’t think there is one. She lives out in the middle of the woods. There’s no street. So how can there be an address?”
“Middle of the woods, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Log cabin? Tin roof?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right. I know it. That’s Zoe Dinsmore’s place. I figured it must be. If we have more than one lady living all by herself out in the middle of those woods, it’s news to me. Okay, son. I’ll go see what’s what with her.”
And he hung up the phone.
I looked up to see my mother leaning in the kitchen doorway, watching me with sleepy eyes.
“Everything okay?” she asked. But not like she really wanted to get too deeply into things.
“Yeah. Fine. I was just on my way to school.”
“In sweats?” she asked, looking down at the lower parts of me.
“Oh. No. I was going to go change first.”
I ran upstairs and did that.
When I got out onto the track for my 11:00 a.m. tryout, there were two other guys there. Juniors, I think. So, older. I didn’t really know them. I mean, I’d seen them. But why would juniors want to be anywhere near a mere freshman like me?
We took our places with one of them on either side of me, which felt vaguely intimidating. There were starting blocks in place, and I’d never used them before. They looked simple enough, but a guy isn’t born knowing how to brace his body to push off against a thing like that. Looking back, I know I should have asked. But I was too embarrassed.
One of the guys, the one on my left, was staring straight ahead down the track, perfectly focused. All serious intensity. The other guy was watching me struggle with the blocks and my starting position, snickering.
The coach made short work of that. He stepped up from behind us and whacked Snicker Boy on the back of the head with the flat of his open hand.
“Ow!” the guy said, and rubbed the spot where he’d been struck.
“Stop acting like you’re better than everybody else, and show him how to use the blocks.”
So I took a quick lesson while the coach loomed over us to be sure there would be no more trouble. I could actually see the great shadow of him falling over us the whole time. My mind kept straying back to the lady in the cabin, as it had all morning, but I had to push the image away just long enough to do my run and do it right.
We lined up, ready to go, but then the coach came around and adjusted my position some.
He stepped back and raised his starter’s pistol. Fired it.
The guys on either side of me launched down the track.
I stumbled badly.
I was a good twenty feet behind them, but I knew I could find more inside myself. It was just a matter of wanting it, I think, for me. I had to want it so badly that I just did it, whether I was really able to do it or not. Sounds weird, but that’s how it felt. And I wanted it that day. Enough. Not because I liked the way I felt running on a track. Not because I wanted a place on the team. Because the guys who were beating me would still be snickering when they beat me, if they beat me, but just on the inside where Coach couldn’t see or hear it. Which meant nobody could stop them.
As I came around the bend I pulled close enough to reach my hand out to where I needed to be. I mean, I could’ve. I’m not saying I did.
I barely made up the distance coming down the final stretch, running almost completely on heart.
I could see the tape coming up, and my chest was not the closest to it, so I put on an extra surge. I passed Focus Guy, who had lost a step, pulled an inch or two ahead of Snicker Boy, and hit the tape.
Then I slowed and stopped, and leaned on my knees, panting.
“Okay, Painter,” Coach Haskell said. He had crossed the infield and was standing beside us at the finish line, staring at his stopwatch. “You’re on the team.”
I straightened up and looked him right in the face. “I don’t want to be on the team,” I said. I was surprised to hear myself say it out loud. I tended to bow to authority at that age. But Connor was nowhere around to hurt. And I think it had not yet dawned on me that my tryout would be anything but a blessed flop.
“Too bad,” he said. “Because you already are.”
I shook my head and said no more about it. I knew it wouldn’t do any good. At least I had the whole summer to figure a way to wriggle out.
“How long you been training?” Coach added.
“Training? I’m not sure I really train. I just go out and run.”
This time both boys sneered
