Free Strider by Beverly Cleary

bagging my head.

March 15
    Track, track, track.
    School is more interesting this semester, especially the study of short stories in English. I study, fall asleep, get up, run with Strider, work out after school. Friday afternoon the team competes against King City in our first meet of the season.
    I think of the Olympics on TV: trumpets, sunshine, flags, great-looking athletes from all over the world, the winners struggling to hold back tears when ribbons holding medals are placed over their heads while their national anthems are played and the crowd cheers.
    Next to exercising Strider, working out is the best part of the day. I love the grit of my spikes biting into our sandy track, the exhilaration I feel after I run, the satisfaction of cutting downmy time. Kidding around in the locker room is fun, even when someone tries to snap a towel at me. I am proud of my gold and red sweats. Geneva smiles and waves at me across the track, so she can’t be angry. Barry meets me at the track with my dog.
    Sometimes Kevin comes home with me, or we both go to Barry’s house. The first time Kevin came here, he blurted, “You mean you live here ?” Then he apologized for being rude. Kevin has manners.
    â€œSure,” I said. “It keeps the rain off.”
    Now Kevin likes to come here rather than be alone in a big house while his mother is out playing bridge or, as he says, playing at being an interior decorator. Sometimes we cook. I taught him to make an omelette. If he knows Mom will be home for supper, he wears a necktie! Mom says he’s a nice boy with an aura of sadness about him, which must be the sort of boy I was when I was in the sixth grade and my parents were just divorced.
    Now I have three friends: Barry, Geneva, and Kevin. I am part of the track crowd. I fit in. I belong.

March 17
    My first track meet was about as far from the Olympics as it is possible to get. King City’s team is about three times the size of ours. Every kid in King City seemed to have climbed off their buses. Maybe there isn’t much to do down there. Wet clouds hung over the field. The two teams piled bottled water, books, jackets, and junk food in separate sections of the cleat-pitted bleachers as if we were staking out territory.
    I was surprised at the friendly way members of the rival varsity teams greeted one another. Some mothers and a few fathers, all of them bundled up as if they expected a blizzard and carrying thermos bottles, climbed into the stands.
    Runners practiced sprints between the freshchalk lanes on the track or twisted and stretched on the playing field. A relay team, all four running so close together their legs looked like pistons, practiced passing the baton.
    When the meet started, everyone seemed to cheer for everyone, but I cheered loudest for Geneva, who came in third in the frosh-soph hurdles. I noticed her hair was pulled back and twisted in a knot.
    When the loudspeaker blared, “First call, frosh-soph eight hundred,” my stomach tightened. I climbed down out of the bleachers to begin my warm-up with the rest of the runners. At the second call, we practiced a few sprints to keep limber, and when the loudspeaker squawked, “Last call,” we reported to the starter for our lane assignments.
    We peeled off our sweats, took our places. “Runners to your marks. Set.” We leaned forward and waited for the starter’s gun. A cold wind had come up, making my muscles freeze. I felt a few drops of rain.
    Bang! We were off, only to be called back. Someone had made a false start. We were started for the second time. My feet hit the track. The crowd was yelling. Stray words floated into my brain as I stretched my stride: “Hit the road, Jack!” “Put it in high, Felipe!” One lap, and I was still going strong. Coachwas beside me. “Move your arms, Leigh!” he shouted as I passed. I moved my arms and prayed I could breathe to the end of the race. I heard