Ghost (Track #1)(22)

Coach didn’t tell us how far we would be running or anything. All he said was follow Whit.

“Where you going?” I asked as Coach started walking toward his car. But he didn’t say nothing back. That’s when Aaron told me what was going on.

“He’s getting in the Chase Mobile, or as he calls it, the Motivation Mobile,” Aaron said, patting me on the shoulder. “You’ll see.” He ran in place for a few seconds. I copied him and did a few high kicks. I felt like a gump doing it, but all that went out the window when Aaron said, “Nice shoes, man.” I was gonna tell him that I called them the silver bullets but decided that probably would’ve been too much. Plus, there was no more time for talk. Coach was honking his horn, which I guessed was the signal for the run to begin.

Coach Whit took off, and we all ran behind her off the track and out onto the sidewalk as if we were some kind of running mob of obstacle-course contestants, dodging people and car doors, ducking under store awnings and jumping over random bicycles. The pace wasn’t anything too crazy. A little more than a jog, but definitely nowhere close to a sprint. And, honestly, I was surprised at how I kept up for at least ten minutes before starting to drop back. Had to be the shoes. Sunny was up front with some of the other distance runners, like Lynn, Brit-Brat, whose real name was Brittany, and J.J. Patty was in the middle, keeping pace with Deja and Krystal Speed. She seemed to be doing okay too. In the back were the sprinters, which made sense. The new shoes were definitely helping me out, but there was only so much they could do. At about twenty-five minutes, which was longer than I had ever run, I eventually fell behind the other sprinters, putting me in last place. And that’s when I learned what the Motivation Mobile was.

First it was just a honk. One short toot. I turned around and there Coach was in his cab, his emergency blinkers on. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He was trailing us!

Then came the long honk. Then the megaphone. Coach rolled his window down and started screaming at us—well, really just me—through it.

“Pick it up, Ghost! Pick it up!” he screeched, his voice loud and crackly. I won’t lie: knowing that he was on my heels like that, watching every step I took, definitely put the pressure on. Made me feel like I was being chased, which is always the easiest way to keep running. I knew that. A couple hours ago I had been running from invisible cops. And there was that time I got chased by a dog, hanging out at the basketball court hoping somebody would pick me to run. This older dude that everybody calls Sicko was there playing. He’s one of those dudes with a crazy eye, who never goes nowhere without his dog. He had the fathead mutt tied to the leg of one of the benches, and when I went to go pet it (stupid, I know), it got to barking all crazy, jumping at me, snapping his mouth. I backed away, but it kept lunging until finally the leash popped. It just popped! That dog chased me around the court and off the court, and I didn’t stop running until I got home. That might have been the fastest I had ever run. Well, the second fastest.

Anyway. I won’t lie. I never caught up to everybody else, even with Coach pretty much yelling at me through that stupid megaphone the whole time. He was leaning on the horn like a crazy person, everybody on the street looking at me, some totally confused and some actually cheering me on. I didn’t even come close to finishing with everybody else, but I didn’t quit. I never stopped running.

As everybody except for Sunny lay down on the track, trying to catch their breath, Coach had this cocky grin on his face as he came from his car, like he knew he’d worked us to death. “Coach Whit, who shined today?” he asked, jingling his keys.

Coach Whit stood with her hands on her head, her face and the parts between her braids glistening with sweat. “I gotta give it to Sunny, Coach. The kid stuck with me the whole time.” Sunny lit up. He wasn’t even tired. Like running eight hundred miles or however many we ran was no big deal to him. I, and I’m sure almost everybody else, felt like, I don’t know, like we had become slime.

“Good job, Sunny,” Coach said, giving him a high five. “I told you vets to look out for him, didn’t I?” Mikey and Aaron and Brit-Brat and J.J. and pretty much all the vets groaned, but I could tell they were impressed by lanky-legged Sunny. Patty jumped up and gave him five as well.

“Yo, you like an alien,” she said.

“Yeah man, you got legs,” Lu followed. Then he turned around to me. “You too, Ghost. Them new shoes ain’t give you no new speed, but you ain’t quit, so . . . yeah.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You too.” I don’t know why I said “You too.” It’s just like a reflex. It didn’t even really make sense in this case, but that’s what came out.

“Okay, okay,” Coach said. “Y’all can hug and all that tomorrow at the newbie dinner.”

“What’s that?” Patty asked.

“It’s tradition. Every year I take the newbies out for Chinese food on the first Friday of the season. It’s like a bonding thing,” Coach explained, and then looking from me, to Lu, to Patty, to Sunny, one by one, he added, “What, y’all don’t like Chinese food?”

Of course we quickly answered, “Nah, Chinese is good.”

“Definitely.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’m cool with it.”

Coach, with the key ring now on his middle finger, spun the keys like cowboys do with their guns on the old movies Mr. Charles was always watching.