Ultra (8 page)

Not surprisingly, Kneecap didn’t like the joke very much. She threw away my hand like it was a dirty diaper.

“Why would you tell me
that
?” she asked.

“I was only making conversation!” I sputtered.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” came to an end, and the deejay launched an even slower song. The disco ball started spinning. Most of the kids broke off into pairs.

Kneecap stared at me. “Do you even know what a towel-head is?” she said. “Some jerks use it to mean Arabs — people from Saudi Arabia.”

I stared at her. I hadn’t known that.

“My mom is from Saudi Arabia, you idiot.”

She turned and stalked away, stopping to pick up her extra Tetris cubes from the floor. Then she stopped and looked back. “Throw away your weird pills, Quinn,” she said.

With that, she walked across the darkened gym, the strobe light flashing off her cardboard outfit. She suddenly looked ridiculous in that costume, and very sad, and I wanted to run over to her and cheer her up, only I couldn’t.

For a while after that, she and I didn’t talk very much. Actually, we didn’t talk at all. Kneecap never sat beside me in Science class anymore. And I didn’t sit with her on the bus, since I was running to and from school every day.

For a day or two, I was confused about what had happened. But then I thought about what I’d said. That towel-head joke. What a boneheaded thing to say.

But here’s the weird part: It was my dad who told me that joke. Did that make him a racist? Was
I
a racist for repeating it?

I decided that I needed to ask my dad about it. I’d do it on Sunday, the next time he Skyped. But that was the first Sunday that Dad didn’t call. And so the towel-head thing got swept under the carpet.

With Kneecap gone, Kara exploded down the path, plunging left and right down a chute of sun-baked stones. A third of the way down the mountain, we skirted a giant bowl of rock and scrabbled over boulders as large as couches. I felt totally out of control, charging downhill at death-defying angles, my legs running faster than the rest of my body could keep up. Kara, as usual, was incredibly fast. Gravity didn’t seem to apply to her.

We dropped below the treeline and ran through a forest of evergreens. They were tall and pressed closely together, and the branches felt like razor blades as they brushed against my arms and neck. It was hot again and sweat poured off my skin. I felt like I’d been dunked in cooking oil.

Three-quarters of an hour later we reached the foot of the mountain. We stopped for a break in a meadow filled with purple wildflowers. My legs felt like rubber, and my brain was mush. I turned around and looked at the mountain behind us.

“Did we really just climb over that?” I said.

Chimney Top shimmered in the haze. Kara nodded.

Clouds dotted the sky.

“Think it’s going to storm tonight?” I asked.

“Hard to say. Maybe.”

We walked along the trail. A flat, grassy swamp stretched out ahead of us. Wooden duckboards had been laid across the marsh, but many of the planks had broken, or rotted away. As we walked, dozens of tiny frogs leapt from the mud banks, barking out froggy yelps as they splashed into the water.

“Look at that one!” Kara said.

The bullfrog was cramming live dragonflies into its mouth. Its jaws were full of wings and eyeballs and legs that were still twitching.

Ollie would love this, I thought to myself. I thought about calling him, but decided against it. Kneecap had said the roaming charges were brutal. So I sent Ollie a text:
LOTS OF FROGS OUT HERE
.

“We’re still behind pace,” Kara said, checking her watch. “Come on; let’s kick it up a notch.”

“Sure thing,” I said.

Big mistake!

By now my legs were as weak as rubber bands. I trailed behind, watching Kara’s ponytail bounce back and forth.

“It’s important to bank lots of miles during the day,” Kara shouted. “We’ll be a lot slower tonight, after the sun goes down.”

She was getting harder and harder to hear. Then, quite suddenly, BLIP — she was a hundred metres ahead. Then, BLIP — she was a hundred metres farther ahead. My mind was popping in and out like a radio station. BLIP — Kara was a dot on the horizon. BLIP — she was gone.

I stopped, expecting to see her turn around and come back. Then, BLIP — I was lying down on the boardwalk.

When had I decided to take a nap? I didn’t remember doing that.

I looked up and noticed a wooden post. There was a sign at the top: Mile 35.

“Things get pretty strange after thirty-five miles,” Dad had said. And he was right. Things were definitely getting weird.

Then another BLIP. My shoes had come off. I was wiggling my toes in the sun.

Wait a second! I thought. Who took off my shoes?

I pulled out the bag of sweet potatoes. The wedges were crunchy and loaded with salt. I ate as many as my stomach could handle, then I stuffed the bag back into my pouch.

I took off my hat and dunked it in the swamp. When I put it back on, skunky-smelling water trickled down the back of my neck.

Stand up and start walking, I told myself. If you fall asleep now, you’ll never get back up.

Then, BLIP — I was walking. BLIP — the swamp was gone. BLIP — I was back in the forest, and my cap was dry!

I found myself walking down an old logging road. It had deep wheel ruts on both sides, and long grass was growing in between.

Suddenly I heard a noise. Something was humming. Thousands of flies were whining like a chainsaw.

I followed the sound, leaving the trail behind. The smell of moss and mud filled my nostrils. And something else too — something sweet. I pushed aside some branches and saw a strange sight. Rusty splashes on the ground. Paint? Truck primer?

The sound of the buzzing flies grew louder. Then I saw it.
Nastiest thing I’ve ever seen.

Putrefying flesh, pulsing with white worms. Bloody swatches of brown fur. A pink hoof, covered with ants.

The deer’s leg was more than a metre long. No — it was too big to be a deer. Had to be a moose.

What animal was strong enough to tear the leg off a moose?

Coyotes? Wolves?

Something bigger?

Mom’s advice came back to me. Don’t forget to sing, she’d said.

I suddenly burst into one of my songs. I didn’t care if anyone heard; I just wanted to scare the bears away.

I slashed my way back to the trail. When I reached it, I started running again. Of course, this little burst of energy didn’t last very long. I sprinted for maybe 15 seconds. My heart was pounding like a chopper’s rotors.

Then, once again, BLIP — I was lying on the ground. Marshmallow-white clouds were tracking lazily across the sky. I tried to stand up, but I didn’t have the strength. I rolled my head sideways and saw a beaver pond.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Okay, I have to stop you. What the HECK was going on?

QUINN:
I was bonking.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Bonking?

QUINN:
I’d run 35 miles, and I hadn’t eaten very much. My gas tank was empty. I was all out of go-juice.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Is bonking the same thing as “hitting the wall”?

QUINN:
Yeah. My dad calls it “premature deceleration.” It’s basically a total brain meltdown.

So there I was, lying on the grass beside this beaver pond. Dead logs stuck out of the water at all angles, with turtles sitting on the logs. Lily pads were everywhere. Water bugs skated across the surface between them. Pinpricks of white light were flashing in my eyes.

That was the good news. The bad news was, the weather was turning to crap. All morning the sky had been as blue as the bottom of a Jacuzzi, or, as my dad would have said, so blue you can smell the paint. But now black clouds were rolling across the sky. They gathered on the horizon like an invading army.

I took off my shoes and shook out two clouds of dirt. A breeze freshened the air and the pond glazed over with ripples.

The clouds got fatter and started climbing into the sky. One was larger than the others. It looked like the head of an octopus.

Whitecaps curled across the pond. Electricity crackled through the air. “Have you seen my shadow?” the octopus cloud said.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
I’m sorry — what happened? You heard a
voice
in the clouds?

QUINN:
Yeah. It sounded like sheets snapping on a clothes line. I thought the cloud was talking to me. But it was just a hallucination.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
Which part was the hallucination — the cloud or the voice?

QUINN:
The cloud was real, but the voice was something else. It felt like a dream. Only I wasn’t sleeping.

The cloud had purple tentacles that reached out over the hills. The tops of the trees thrashed back and forth.

“Have you seen my shadow?” the cloud repeated.

A bird nest glanced off my leg and blew down the trail. My heart was hammering.

“Who wants to know?” I shouted.

The cloud rotated above me. Tree limbs flew through the air like shrapnel.

“Jeez!” I grumbled, pulling my cap down tightly over my head. “Take it easy!”

The cloud changed shape, flattening out like a pie plate. Sand fizzed across bedrock and dirt filled the air.

“Enough with the wind machine!” I cried.

It was in that moment — as I said those five words — that I realized the voice belonged to the Wind.

Yes, I know. It sounds stupid now. But at the time, I was convinced that I was having a conversation with the Wind. At the same time, I knew it was only a hallucination. I kept hearing my dad’s voice saying, “Things get pretty strange
after thirty-five miles.”

I bent down and dug through my pack for some food and popped a handful of jelly beans into my mouth.

When I looked back up, something had appeared in the sky. It flew toward me like a giant bird, swirling on the updrafts and downdrafts. Eventually it came close enough that I could tell what it was. I reached my hands out and pulled it down to earth.

It was a pair of camouflage pants, size 42 and badly stained. Something was hiding in one of the back pockets.

I pulled it out. It was a folded piece of paper. Someone had written on it. It was my handwriting … WAIT!

“Hey!” I shouted. “Where’d you get this?”

Wind said nothing, but the yellow eye glistened. It was a song I’d written the year before.

It was my anti-war song, “Man Versus Man.” I’d written it back in the fall. But then I’d lost it.

“Who’d you steal this from?” I shouted.

Wind didn’t answer. I held the waistband of the pants and shook them out. They were pretty disgusting, coated in mud and grime. A roll of Fruity Juicers popped out of the front pocket. I unwrapped the waxed paper and tossed two candies into my mouth. The taste reminded me of afternoons at my house — Dad making toast soldiers for me and Ollie after church. The sound of hot cross buns popping out of the toaster.

Wait a second — how could a candy remind me of all
that?

Just a hallucination, I reminded myself.

I crumpled up the wrapper and sat down with my back against a rock. Pillowcases of cloud swirled above the trees.

“Have you seen my shadow?” Wind bellowed.

“Your
s
hadow
?” I coughed. “You don’t
have
a shadow! You’re the Wind. You’re, like, shadow-free.”

Wind blew through the trees, moaning with grief. It sounded like a freight train blowing its horn late at night.

I thought to myself: Why doesn’t Wind have a shadow? Everything else has a shadow — doesn’t it? Kids have shadows. So do animals. And bicycles. So do cars, mountains, parents.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and find it. I’m running through the forest anyway, so I’ll do some looking.”

The octopus cloud lightened to the colour of buttermilk, and spots of blue appeared here and there in the sky.

“Just one question,” I shouted. “How will I recognize your shadow if I see it? You’re always changing shape. I don’t know what you really look like.”

But Wind didn’t answer. It had already jetted off. It was probably stealing baseball caps from kids in Saskatchewan by now.

I swallowed some of my yams. The sky continued to brighten. The waves in the beaver pond softened.

What the heck just happened? I wondered.

Some daring frogs began to croak. I stood up, feeling like I was waking from a dream. Then I ate my last sweetpotato wedge and started running.

Thirty-five miles down. Sixty-five to go.

Okay, so 100 miles may not sound like such a big deal. But do you know how far it actually is?

It’s exactly 160 kilometres. Which is about the distance from Vancouver to Hope. Or from Toronto to London. Or from Montreal to Saint Boniface.

One hundred miles is the distance between:

Edmonton and Red Deer

Calgary and Fort McLeod

Halifax and New Glasgow

Fredericton and Miramichi

Charlottetown and Moncton

Victoria and Port Alberni

Kelowna and Kamloops

Sudbury and Blind River

Hamilton and Owen Sound

Regina and Chaplin

Winnipeg and Carberry

Medicine Hat and Lethbridge

Moose Jaw and Swift Current

Whitehorse and Skagway

I could go on, but basically, if you get in a car, hop on a
highway and drive for 2 hours —
that’s
100 miles.

Not many people enter 100-mile races, and of those who do, about half DNF. That’s how tough this race is.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS:
DNF stands for Did Not Finish, right?