The Fantastic Family Whipple (28 page)

And then, it happened. Roland had just completed a routine Triple Tail-Whip, when his rear wheel slipped out from under him, sending the boy and his bicycle toppling inconceivably to one side.

Amidst a gasp from the crowd, Roland released his left handlebar and pushed against the ground with his free arm, managing to reverse his fall just before he hit the park floor. It was an impressive save—but it was too late. With a wobble like that, the Goldwin boy’s chances of matching Henry’s score were virtually nil.

Arthur and his family struggled to contain themselves (as it would have bordered on tactlessness to cheer for an opponent’s misfortune), but even a cursory glance at their faces would have given away their excitement. After a long, harrowing day of defeat, here was their first glimmer of hope.

Sadly—for the time being—it was to remain but a glimmer.

Recovering from his near fall, Roland pedaled furiously to the drop that led to the Ghost-Maker—the highest launch ramp in the park. Picking up immense speed as he careened down the hill, the Goldwin boy charged up the ramp and rocketed off the lip, spinning himself violently through the air.

With each airborne revolution, the Whipples’ faces dropped a bit more, so that when Roland clinched a clean landing after his third complete spin, the prior moment’s hope had all but vanished from their eyes.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crowd had leapt to their feet.

Roland Goldwin—Unsafe Sports unknown and penny-farthing stunt park novice—had performed the First Ten-Eighty Ever Executed in Competition, before the reigning champion had even attempted it. Regardless of one’s allegiances, the accomplishment could not be ignored.

Roland finished his run without further flaw, earning him an unbelievable score of 9.78 and pushing Henry into second place. But it wasn’t over yet.

Though Henry had already lost one world record to his rival, the Whipple boy still had a chance at the gold and furthering his own record for stunt park wins—though it was hard to imagine a Ten-Eightyless run earning him the victory. Of course, if he had planned on surprising the crowd with the trick in his final run, only to be beaten to it by his opponent, pulling off a Ten-Eighty would not be impossible for Henry. But if he had planned it to be an icing-on-the-cake sort of trick, it had now become a
cake
-on-the-cake
sort of trick: completely crucial—and somehow, infinitely more difficult.

Most riders would have buckled under the pressure, but Henry was not one to give up easily—or gruelingly, for that matter. And so, when it came time for the final run, he dropped into the park with the composure of someone with much less to lose.

Henry tore across the park, hitting all of his previous tricks with even more punch than before as he launched from ramp to pool to rail in a frenzied defense of his title. Executing one death-defying stunt after another, the eldest Whipple boy rode like his life depended on it. And it very nearly did.

When he had accomplished all he could on the lower park, he made his way toward the Ghost-Maker, with sixty seconds to spare. Dive-bombing down the slope, Henry reached the ramp at a higher speed than any other rider that day. It was a perfect launch.

As their eldest brother began his spin sequence, the Whipples began to mouth the number of rotations.

One…Two…Th—

Suddenly, a small, almost undetectable blur zipped across the sky toward Henry. As the boy headed into his final revolution, the path of the mysterious blur met his own.

Without warning, Henry’s body convulsed, then seized up altogether, his momentum stalling in midair.

The horrified crowd struggled to make sense of what
they were watching. And then they realized. The blur had come from the Archery Area.

Arthur leapt to his feet alongside his family. He could hardly believe what was happening. His brother, it seemed, had been shot by a stray arrow from another foot archery event—and was now falling lifelessly toward the ground.

Then, by some miracle, Henry seemed to snap out of his paralysis. Managing to hit the downside of the ramp at a forty-five degree angle, he eked out a last-second landing—as a sigh of relief rose up from the crowd. He had survived. Now he could end his run and receive proper medical attention.

But Henry had other plans. Having fallen a few degrees short of a full Ten-Eighty, he had only managed to complete a measly Ten-Thirty-Five. It was a failure he refused to accept.

And so to the crowd’s utter shock, as soon as he had regained his balance, the boy began pedaling harder than ever before, barreling around the park, pulling backflips and landing aerials, all the while circling back toward the Ghost-Maker.

No longer comfortable with their son’s calculated risk now that he seemed to have an arrow lodged in his body, Mr. and Mrs. Whipple dashed down through the stands toward the competitors’ entrance, with Arthur and his siblings just behind them.

“What is he doing?” shouted Cordelia. “With penetrating trauma like that, he’s likely to kill himself!”

“Come on, Henry,” pleaded Simon. “Let it go, just this once. I don’t want to have to perform your funeral march, Brother….”

“Don’t be a hero!” cried George.

Arthur and his family promptly arrived at the gate, but they could only stand and watch as Henry hurtled himself up and over the massive launch ramp one last time.

It was clear from the moment he left the ramp that something was not right. Instead of cutting cleanly through the air in his usual born-to-fly sort of way, his present action could only be described as floundering. Henry spun lopsidedly toward the ground and clumsily crash-landed on the ramp’s backside after less than two rotations, his feet thrown from the pedals by the impact. As the clock ran down, he rolled haphazardly across the slope, swerving back and forth in unpredictable serpentine movements, his speed decreasing steadily until it was violently curtailed by the outer wall of the park.

Mrs. Whipple screamed.

Henry crumpled to the ground, his contorted limbs intertwined with the twisted frame of his bicycle. He did not move.

There was a great collective gasp—and the crowd fell silent. Even in the world of Unsafe Sports, death was a solemn matter.

But then, a hint of movement. A twitch of his shoulder—and Henry was wrenching his arm from the mangled spokes.

Mr. Whipple threw open the gate, and the Whipples leapt onto the park floor, racing to the aid of their fallen brother. But before anyone could help him up, Henry was already on his feet. As the battered boy staggered toward them, Arthur could see the feathered shaft of an arrow jutting out from behind his brother’s shoulder.

And then, to the relief of all, Henry spoke.

“Sorry, Dad. I just couldn’t pull it off…. If that bird hadn’t run into me on my first Ten-Eighty attempt, I know I’d’ve made it—but it must’ve dislocated my shoulder or something, because my upper body’s been completely stiff ever—”

“Henry,” Mr. Whipple interrupted urgently, “that was no bird. Son…you have an arrow sticking out of your back.”

Henry’s brow furrowed in confusion as he turned his head to locate the offending object—but in his disoriented state, he merely pivoted his body away from his gaze and began stepping in a circle, like a dog determined to find its own tail.

“No, Henry. Don’t move…”

“Coming through!” shouted a woman wearing a red cross on a white armband as she rushed into the cluster of concerned Whipples. “All right,” she addressed Henry, “now hold still while we have a look.” After a brief inspection, she declared, “Yes, you do indeed have an arrow sticking out of your back. We’ll need to cut away the surrounding cloth to determine the damage.”

Mr. Whipple nodded in consent. Retrieving an enormous pair of shears from her first aid kit, the woman removed the back of Henry’s shirt—and uncovered the site of the wound.

The tip of the arrow entered horizontally, just beneath Henry’s right shoulder blade, then exited near his spine, its point jutting out under the shoulder blade at the other side. It reminded Arthur of a simple sewing needle—but piercing flesh instead of fabric. This, of course, only made it all the more disturbing.

Thankfully, the medic’s prognosis was not nearly so grim.

“It seems you are in luck, young man,” she informed Henry. “The wound appears to be wholly superficial.”

“Oh, thank God!” cried Mrs. Whipple.

“If I could just borrow a few of your tools,” Cordelia offered to the medic, “I could have the intruding object out in no time.”

“Umm,” said the medic, “that’s very kind of you, miss—but I do think it would be best to have the procedure done at a proper hospital, just in case.”

“What, and dishonor my family name?” snapped Henry. “Did Lance Pierson need a hospital when he skewered his foot in the Vertical Javelin Toss? No, ma’am. I say we get it over with right here.”

Mr. Whipple shrugged in a lack of protest.

“If you insist,” said the medic. She removed a pair of bolt-cutters from the first aid kit and handed them to Henry’s sister.

Cordelia promptly snipped off the arrow’s tip, then grasped the feathered end and, without delay, slid it smoothly out of her brother’s back. After cleaning and bandaging the twin puncture holes it had left behind, she offered both pieces of the arrow to Henry. “A souvenir, Brother,” she smiled, “for your troubles.”

The boy’s eyes lit up as he took it. “Thanks, Cord,” he grinned. Looking up into the stands for the first time, he raised the arrow over his head, as if to announce his triumph over the deadly projectile.

At the sight of an undeniably alive Henry Whipple, the crowd—whose murmuring had steadily increased since the medic’s arrival—gave an explosive cheer.

As the boy and his family returned to the sidelines, the announcer’s voice filled the arena.

“Scoring a 9.72 in his final run, Henry Whipple has just missed the high score, halting his Streak of Consecutive Stunt Park Gold Medals at four—and confirming Roland Goldwin as this year’s champion!”

The Whipples hung their heads as the announcer continued to sprinkle salt on their wounds.

“Goldwin’s incredible winning run included the First Ten-Eighty Ever Performed in Competition—a world record that Whipple himself was expected to break…”

Henry raised a hand to his brow in regret.

“But it seems our silver medalist won’t be going home
empty-handed after all—as he has just become the First Entrant Ever to Complete the Stunt Park Event with an Arrow Lodged in His Body!”

There came a spontaneous cheer from the crowd, and Arthur’s heart swelled with happiness for his brother. Indeed, Arthur recalled, the last entrant to have an arrow lodged in his body had not actually completed the event, due to loss of blood. The Unsafe Sports planning committee had scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss moving the foot archery event to a more remote location, but just before the meeting was to take place, the head of the committee had been struck by a stray arrow himself, and the meeting had been cancelled.

The Whipples turned to one another in delighted astonishment. Henry’s unfortunate accident had proved to be their one defense against complete annihilation by the Goldwins that day.

The irony was not lost on Rex Goldwin.

“Tough break, son,” Rex cooed to Henry as the Goldwins approached the competitors’ gate, “to be struck by an arrow and nearly killed in the middle of your run…. Or,” he chuckled, “should I say
lucky
break? Seems this whole Lyon’s Curse business has its upside as well, does it not?”

Catching a stern glance from Mr. Whipple, Rex promptly changed the subject. “But honestly, it’s been a pleasure competing with you all today. Looks like we’ve got the makings of a solid, friendly rivalry brewing here, eh? Like I always
say, nothing breeds perfection like a bit of healthy competition—am I right?”

“Right you are, Mr. Goldwin,” Arthur’s mother replied. “It seems we’ve been resting a bit too heavily on our laurels lately—and we’ve got you to thank for bringing it to our attention. You truly have an amazing family.”

“Please, Lizzie,” Rita Goldwin cried as she and her children stepped up alongside her husband, “you’re making me blush! I cannot tell you what a dream come true it is to hear you say that…. So, no hard feelings then?”

“Nothing beyond a bit of amicable competitive spirit, I’m sure.”

“Splendid! You know, we really should all have dinner sometime. Be nice to get to know each other as
neighbors
as well as competitors, wouldn’t it, Lizzie?”

Arthur’s mother paused a moment, then said, “Of course it would, Mrs. Goldwin. Why, we’ve still not officially welcomed you to the neighborhood, have we? We’d be delighted if you’d help us remedy that by accepting our invitation to dinner this week—Friday, perhaps?”

Mr. Whipple turned to his wife in utter disbelief.

“Ah, that’ll be fantastic!” Rex Goldwin beamed. “What do you say, Charlie?”

“Oh—well…I’m afraid we’ve got that
thing
on Friday—haven’t we, dear?”

Mr. Whipple’s wife responded with an icy glare in his direction.

“Never mind,” he sighed. “It seems we’d be delighted.”