“On the girls’ side, for the vets we have Myisha Cherry, Brit-Brat Williams, Melissa Jordan, Dee Dee Gross, Krystal Speed . . .” Any girl with the last name Speed had to be fast. Kinda like any dude with the last name Bolt. Coach continued, “Deja Bullock, Lynn Tate, Kondra Fulmer, Nicky McNair.” He paused and motioned toward the last girl. “And our newbie for the girls, Patina—but she told me a few minutes ago that she goes by Patty—Jones.” Everybody clapped. “Patty, I got high hopes for you, young lady. Let’s make it happen.”
Then he started calling out the boys’ names. First, the vets. “Eric Daye, Curron Outlaw, Aaron Holmes, Mikey Farrar, Freddy Hayes, Josh ‘J.J.’ Jerome, and Chris Myers. You boys better look out for our newbies, Lu Richardson, Sunny Lancaster . . .” And this was when Coach turned to me. “And as of yesterday, this kid. Castle Cran—”
“Ghost,” I cut him off before he could even get the shaw out. “Just call me Ghost.”
Coach gave me a look. Actually, everybody gave me a look. Probably because I didn’t have no shirt on, and my pants were rolled to my knees, and my belt was yanked so tight that it made the denim bunch around my waist like genie pants. But whatever.
“I was gonna tell them that, son,” Coach said. Then he turned back to the rest of the team. “Lastly, this is your assistant coach, Coach Whit.” Coach Whit was the woman with the braids. She also had chubby cheeks, and like I said, she looked too old to be on the team, but she definitely didn’t look old enough to be nobody’s coach. Then she pulled a whistle from underneath her sweatshirt, so that pretty much meant she was.
“Give it up for your squad,” Coach told us, slapping his hands together. “This is gonna be a great season!” Everybody cheered and clapped for maybe ten seconds before Coach shut it down and told us it was time to get to work.
He divided everyone up into whatever their specialty was. Because most of the other kids had been running track for, like, forever, Coach knew who was a sprinter, who ran long stuff, and who ran all the junk in the middle. As far as the newbies were concerned, Sunny was a long runner and Patty ran the in-between. Me and Lu were the sprinters. (I never even knew I was a sprinter!) So guess what we were doing for practice? Sprinting. And guess who had just finished sprinting and didn’t get to take a break? Me.
“Today is Wednesday, and Mikey, why don’t you inform our newbies about what sprinters do on Wednesdays,” Coach said. Mikey was a vet sprinter. A light-skinned kid with braces and a rock face. The kind of guy who you didn’t really say too much to, because you just assumed he wouldn’t say nothing back. Except to Coach, of course.
“Ladders,” Mikey grumbled.
“That’s right.” Coach paced back and forth. “Four, three, two, one, one, two, three, four.” Every time Coach called a number, he clapped his hands together like a cheerleader.
Okay. Let me explain what Coach was talking about, because I didn’t have a clue at first either. All those numbers, the fours and the threes and all that, yeah, add a “hundred” on the end, and then add a “meters” on the end of that. So four hundred meters, three hundred meters, two hundred meters, and so on. We had to run those. Down the ladder to one hundred, then back up to four. I didn’t think the day that started kind of bad, then got good, then got bad, then got better, then got bad again, could get worse until Coach told me, Lu, Mikey, and Aaron—the four sprinters on the boys’ side—to get on the line, four words I was already sick and tired of hearing.
The whistle blew, and . . . well . . . Lu, Mikey, and Aaron blew me away.
Back on the line, this time for the three hundred. Toasted.
Back on the line, now, the two hundred. Roasted.
Back on the line for the one hundred. Dusted.
“Five-minute break,” Coach said. “Grab some water.” He came over to me, put his hand on my shoulder. I was literally folded in half, trying to catch my breath. My eyes were watering, but I knew better than to cry. I ain’t no crybaby. Especially not over no running.
“You all right?” Coach asked. I couldn’t get the words out. Every time I tried to speak, the sound was shoved back in my throat by a sharp inhale. So I just nodded. Then Coach squeezed my shoulder and pulled me up so that I was standing straight. “Remember what I told you. Stand tall.” I put my hands on my head, wove my fingers together. “Now hustle up and get some water.” Coach nudged me. “You only got three minutes.”
Here’s the other thing that I didn’t really know about being on a team. There are rules to drinking water. I mean, I guess it might be different on different kinds of teams, but on this team, everybody had their own water bottle that they had brought with them. So when I went over to the bench with the other sprinters, I just sat down. Didn’t ask nobody for a swig or nothing because . . . I don’t know . . . it just didn’t seem like something I should do. The only feel I had for these guys was that Lu was cocky, and Mikey seemed way too serious to share, and Aaron . . . well, I couldn’t get a read on him at all yet. So I figured, three minutes to catch my breath was just as good as water. It would have to be.
“Where’s your water, newbie?” Aaron asked, looking down the row.
“I . . . forgot it . . . ,” I replied, the fire in my chest finally cooling down.
“Here.” Aaron held his bottle out. “Take some. And don’t put your mouth on it either.”
Lu leaned back so I could grab Aaron’s bottle. I held it above my head and squeezed the bottle until the water shot through the nozzle like a jet stream, splashing me in the face, some even getting in my nose. Eventually I hit the target—my mouth, which was when I realized I was wrong. Water was way better than just catching your breath. Way, way better. After I handed the bottle back to Aaron, Lu finally had something to say.
“Yo, what you doing here?” he asked. The way he said it made it seem like the words had been bubbling up inside him.
“What you mean?” I replied. “I’m doing the same thing you doing. Running.”
Lu looked at me like I was speaking a different language. “Is that what you call that?” he jabbed. “I mean, yesterday you were big and bad, and today you just . . . bad. Plus, we all had to try out to prove we belong here, and you just walk on our track like you one of us?” Lu was giving me a stink-eyed stare, and I was looking to see if Aaron or Mikey agreed with him, but neither of them showed any sign of hate. I got the feeling Mikey never showed any sign of anything. Ever. Dude was a blank slate.
I tried to keep my cool, because I was all the way clear on what the punishment would be if I did something stupid. Plus, he was just talking trash. And it was just a little bit of trash. He wasn’t gonna do nothing to me. I knew that for sure.