Cracks in the Cone by Coco Simon

Author:Coco Simon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Spotlight

CHAPTER EIGHT

TUESDAY TROUBLES

My ponytail swung back and forth as I ran down the wooded path, being chased by twelve other girls.

They will never catch me! I told myself as I pressed on, running faster and faster.

No, I was not starring in a horror movie. It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was running a race as a member of the MLK cross-country team.

Do not get the wrong idea. I never used to love running. I didn’t even like it very much. My favorite sport was softball—duh. But softball season didn’t start until April, and if I were to sit around all fall, waiting for the season to start, I’d never be able to steal bases or run to catch pop-up balls.

Most athletes would just go to the gym. But like I said earlier, I hated the gym showers. No one was going to drag me into one of those. My mom ran, so I had started going on runs with her. There were two problems with that. First, she talked when she ran, which was annoying. The second was that she ran insanely early in the morning. Sometimes we ran together on the weekends, but I’d decided to join the cross-country team, which ran at a more reasonable hour after school.

I heard shoes crunching on the path behind me. A girl with blond hair in braids passed me—Grace Riley. We’d never had anything in common until I’d joined the team. She nodded to me as she passed. I didn’t mind so much because at least she was on the MLK team. I wasn’t super-competitive, but I never liked it when girls from the opposing team passed me.

I picked up my pace a little bit, but I couldn’t catch up to Grace. I heard more footsteps behind me and turned to see three girls, one from MLK and two from the Branchton Middle School team.

I pushed myself even faster. One of the Branchton girls passed me, but I kept the other two at bay.

Finally the finish line was in sight. I could see five runners ahead of me, which would put me in sixth place. Not bad, out of seventeen girls.

I crossed the line and then bent over, hands on my knees.

“Yay, Tamiko!”

“You did it, Tamiko!”

I looked up to see my dad and Kai, cheering me on. I hadn’t been expecting to see either of them there. Dad and Mom both worked at the college a few towns away, so they sometimes had off in the afternoon, depending on their class schedules. Kai’s lone after-school activity was the business club. He’d never been into sports.

I walked up to them, sweating and panting.

“Hey,” I said.

“Nice job, Tamiko,” Dad said. “I’m very proud of you. You put a lot of effort into that final stretch.”

“Yeah, well, sixth place,” I said with a shrug.

“But MLK also got first, second, and fourth place,” Kai added. “So I’m guessing that your team probably won.”

“We can take you home, so you don’t have to ride the bus,” Dad said.

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