“Ahhh.” Mr. Charles flashed a huge smile. He grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds off the wall. “Then take these for good luck. Pretend they’re power pills,” he said, which I thought was funny because for me, they kinda were. At least in my head.
“Thanks, Mr. Charles. I’ll tell you how it goes,” I said, reaching out for his hand.
“Yes, yes, please do, son,” he practically shouted, squeezing my hand. “Now, get out of here. You can’t be great if you’re late!”
After four or five more minutes, my mother, my aunt, and my cousin and me came up on the park. I was used to seeing it sprinkled with only a few parents—mainly Lu’s mom and a few others—and us, the runners on the track. But on race day, there were people everywhere. From the street, you could hear the buzz of the crowd and the sounds of whistles and you could see snack vendors and all the different-color jerseys as coaches had their teams stretching and warming up. Once we got closer, I found my squad, that electric blue standing out.
“Ghost!” a voice came from behind me. It was Sunny.
“Sunny! Wassup, man?” We dapped. “This is my mom, and my aunt, and my cousin, King.” Sunny shook everybody’s hand, then told me to come get stretched and warmed up. My family lined up along the fence with who I guessed were the parents of the rest of my teammates. I saw Sunny’s father, Mr. Lancaster, still dressed up in a suit, but with sunglasses on. Patty’s (white) mother, holding her little sister, Maddy, up on her shoulders. Lu’s mom was there holding pom-poms, of course, and next to her was a man who looked just like Goose, the flashy dope man who hangs out at the basketball court. But it wasn’t. At least I didn’t think it was. Couldn’t have been.
When Sunny and I got to where the rest of the team was, everyone was sitting down with their legs out in front of them, holding the tips of their feet and pulling. It hurts like crazy, but Coach said it was good for us. The team looked at me as I sat down. They all noticed the uniform. And the silver bullets. I was dressed. I was a Defender. I was ready.
“Okay,” Coach said, needing to speak much louder than usual so that we could hear him over the noise. “I’ve got the lineup. Let’s start with the distance race. Running the mile, we have Sunny for the guys. Lynn for the girls. For the eight hundred, Mikey, you’re taking Chris’s place. Outlaw, you’re second heat. For the girls, Patty, you got this. Deja, you got second heat.” When Coach got to the two hundred meter, he looked at me and Lu. Then he looked down at his clipboard. Then back at us.
“Lu, you’re gonna take the two hundred,” Coach said. “And the one hundred.” Lu held back a smile and nodded. Coach got me. I thought he was going to let me run, but I guess this was the real last part of my punishment. I tried not to act disappointed. I looked over at my family. King and Aunt Sophie holding the sign, waiting to lift it into the air and scream like maniacs. And Ma. Standing there so proud of me.
“And Ghost,” Coach said, glancing over at Coach Whit, then back at me. I snapped out of my trance. “You think you can handle the one hundred too?”
I grinned, and I couldn’t get “yes” out of my mouth. Such a short, easy word, but I couldn’t spit it out. So I just nodded, and swallowed the yes, hoping it might go down my throat, through my stomach guts, and down into my legs.
“We’re not gonna run any relays or hurdles yet,” Coach said. “This is the first meet, and we’ve got some work to do. But I’m watching every one of you, so let’s get out there and burn.”
We all went to the side of the track and waited for our races. Everyone was so hype, jumping around, trying to stay loose. Lu’s mother came over and gave us a container full of orange slices, which I thought was super nice. But I didn’t want any oranges. And I met Coach’s wife, Mrs. Margo, and his baby son, Tyrone. The crazy thing was, even though Coach was an Otis and a chipped-tooth turtle face, Mrs. Margo was pretty. And so nice. She passed out Gatorades to everybody, but when she got to me, she thanked me for cleaning out Coach’s cab. That made me feel real special. But I didn’t really want no oranges or no Gatorade. I had my power pills. My sunflower seeds. I ran over to my mother, who had them tucked in her purse. She handed me the bag, then grabbed me and hugged me. Again.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said. Then she caught me slipping and added, “Ghost.” She must’ve heard Sunny say it or somebody, but she now knew my nickname—the name I gave myself—and judging from her bright smile, I think she liked it. I had no idea that being on a team would make her so lovey-dovey, but it was cool. It reminded me of how it used to be, back when we slept in our rooms and there was family pictures on the wall.
Back with the rest of the Defenders, I ate the sunflower seeds, one by one, waiting for my race. My chance. The first race was a relay. The boys 4x800. I got to just sit and watch to see how races really went down, since we weren’t running relays. Runners from eight different teams all lined up in their lines, staggered at different starting points. The Bruisers, the Wings, and a bunch of other silly names that were nowhere near as dope as the Defenders. Everybody put one foot forward, just barely touching the line. They leaned in, some wiggling their fingers. Then—and this caught me totally off guard—there’s a gunshot, which is the thing that tells you to go. I’ll tell you one thing, it made me feel a little weird, but whoever invented track got the whole gun means go thing right.
The crowd started screaming as the boys burned the track up. One of the teams, I think they were called the Assassins, dropped the baton. It made a clinking sound, which in a nutshell, is what losing sounded like. It’s hard to come back from that.
After the boys were the girls. Patty came over to me and told me how she felt like she could pretty much smoke all the girls out there. I believed her. Patty was definitely going to be a problem.
Next was the boys one-hundred-meter hurdle, which was the most exciting thing I had ever seen. It was crazy! I asked Coach if we were ever going to run hurdles, and he told me that we would, but that it takes some real work. He said the kids who left the team and went to high school—the kids whose spots we filled—were amazing hurdlers. Then he said he used to run hurdles, while tapping his hand on his chest, his secret tattooed Olympic medal. I told him I wanted to do it. He told me to focus on today.
Then came the girls’ hurdles, which the crowd seemed to be into even more than the boys. Patty was jumping up and down screaming, because one of her friends was running. The girl didn’t win first, but she did come in second, which wasn’t bad.
And then came the one-hundred-meter dash.
“Lu, Ghost,” Coach called out. “Y’all ready?” Me and Lu nodded, and Coach said what he always said, this time with a returned nod. “On the line.”