Chapter 20
Closing Ceremony
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The next day, Luke, Abby and Tom met Luis and Sara late in the morning. They were all going to the closing ceremony together. Luke and the Vargases had had their bikes returned in the night, too, but unlike the Ellsworths, it hadn’t woken them up.
They rode their bikes down the streets of Aurelia to the central square. As they rolled along, Abby, Tom, and Luke told Luis and Sara the interesting news about Mr. Neudel, how he had been born on Gracchia, years before the official first meeting between Humans and Gracchus. Neither Sara nor Luis were particularly surprised.
“Oh. Actually, I never thought about it. He is kind of strange, but so is almost everything around here,” Sara summed it up.
The sky was blue with only a few high clouds; rain seemed unlikely, thank goodness. The five young Humans had experienced quite enough rain lately.
All the bicycles gleamed, scratches and dents repaired, chains cleaned and chrome buffed. They looked brand-new.
“It must have been Quirinal, or his people, I mean,” Tom said. “Who else knew where we’d left the bikes? And even then, we told him only an approximate location.”
“It could have been Macready,” Luis said.
“Maybe, but he wouldn’t have had time to do all these repairs. It must have been the Gracchus,” Abby said.
“So why is there another closing ceremony today?” Luis asked.
“Well, yesterday’s ceremony wasn’t exactly a success,” said Tom.
“Right, but you’d think they wouldn’t want to repeat yesterday’s fights, either,” Luke said.
“Maybe it’s because things were left undone,” Sara said.
As the clusters of people walking to the central square grew more numerous, the kids left their bikes parked on a side street and walked the remaining distance. The adult Vargases weren’t going to be there; they had to work to ready the restaurant for the day’s customers, and Abby’s and Tom’s Dad had gone to his office to get some business done that morning, but he was going to try to drop by the square if he could. Luke knew his Dad was somewhere in the crowd, but it would be difficult to find him in this crush. Many of the people they saw wore bandages and disgruntled expressions but otherwise seemed little the worse for wear. The teams of Velvet Kitten and Carnivorous Amphibian were on opposite sides of the square. They threw each other the occasional glare, but that was all.
The kids came upon what remained of the MAFM team, and Macready gave them a boisterous greeting, shaking hands and slapping backs with vigor; his good mood was infectious. The MAFM had a few cuts and bruises but were, like Macready, in good spirits. Abby saw that they still had their ceremonial staff with the beautiful inlaid stones.
“Do you get to keep that until next year?” she asked Macready.
“No, no. They were supposed to be returned yesterday, but for obvious reasons, it wasn’t done. There’ll be a formal return after the awards today.”
“How did the MAFM do, overall?” Tom wanted to know.
Macready shrugged. “We have no idea. The Gracchus don’t share their tally of points or results. Every year there’s a winner, and that’s it. There’s no prize for second place, and the Gracchus never explain how they arrive at their decision.”
Tom thought that perhaps that was why the participants hated a tie so much. They wanted the winner’s spot, alone, because that was the only result that counted.
The Gracchus Master of Ceremonies stood on the same platform as yesterday when he had handed out the ceremonial staffs.
“Friends, competitors, mortal enemies,” he began. The crowd quieted.
“Yesterday the judges ruled in error.” A great gasp went up from the gathered people, then a babble of voices clashed in the air. Yesterday’s post-race melee had taken much of the starch out of the competitors, but now it was as if they’d been reenergized by a shot of electricity.
Macready groaned. “Oh, no. Batten down the hatches.”
“Unbeknownst to the judges at the time,” the Gracchus continued, “a group of unofficial entrants was running a parallel race.”
The tension in the air was in no way lessened by this odd pronouncement, but the confusion was palpable.
“This team ran an independent course that included physical hardship, loyalty, danger, and a large amount of serendipity,” the Gracchus said.
Luis wasn’t sure his LMD was working. “What’s…serendipity?” he whispered.
“Dumb luck,” Sara whispered back.
“Oh.”
“In the true spirit of the Bonebreaker Race, they left no one behind, even as they fought off enemies who sought to stop them. Even as the Blues brought back the information that ended a war, so did this team bring back the information that will guard and protect this very Gracchia.
“This year’s winner of the Bonebreaker Race is the Group of Five Human Children. Tom, Sara, Luis, Abby and Luke, we salute you.”
Abby’s mouth dropped open. He was talking about them. She looked at her friends and Tom; all were just as dumbfounded as Abby. Luis was the first to get over the shock; he started hopping up and down, waving his arms in the air.
“We won! We won! Hey guys, we won!”
Macready led the MAFM in a cheer for the Group of Five. The rest of the crowd milled around, talking excitedly, bemused by the sudden, totally unexpected turn of events.
Tom said the first thing that came into his mind: “We have got to get a better name.” Group of Five sounded like a criminal gang and an unimaginative one at that.
Many in the crowd came up to congratulate the Group of Five. One Aeris told Luke, “Felicitations. Frankly, we’re just glad that Velvet Kitten didn’t win, the cheaters. And wait until next year. We’ll not have mercy on you simply because you’re young and inexperienced.”
Luke hoped that now they would be allowed in next year’s race. But still, how many winners of the Bonebreaker lived under the rule of their parents?
Sara was simply happy that no one threw mud bombs at them. She wondered what the other kids at school would say.
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“You know, if we’re in the race next year, we’ll get the staff of the Blues,” Luke said. “The most revered, the most prestigious staff. All the other teams will be out to get us.”
The Group of Five were sitting around the Ellsworths’ courtyard pool a week after the surprise ending of the Bonebreaker Race, watching Pip dart from the shadows to snare unwary fish. He ate so much Abby wondered if he was getting ready to have babies.
“We’ll get that staff if our parents let us race,” Luis said gloomily, “and if Abby and Tom are still around.”
The post-race letdown the week after the race had affected Luis the most of all. There had been no winners’ parade, and except for the first few days after their victory, no one seemed to remember. They didn’t even get free ice cream or anything. Back on Earth, every activity from Field Day to soccer tournaments to playing in a school concert had merited a plastic statue or at the very least a ribbon and certificate of participation. Even the losers got a statue or certificate; the prevailing system hadn’t believed in singling out the winners for extra praise. But apparently the Gracchus didn’t hand out award plaques.
During the past week, the season had definitively changed from Full Blossom to Prelude to Fiery Heat in the Gracchus parlance. School had resumed, and the Group of Five had enjoyed a temporary fame from their unplanned victory in the Bonebreaker Race. Shasta and McKinley continued to ignore most everyone, but Kimmy and Wooly had congratulated them, making Sara blush.
No one had yet been permitted to visit Mr. Neudel in the hospital, or whatever version of a hospital the Gracchus had. But Ms. Tavish told them that he was expected to recover. Abby was looking forward to seeing her neighbor again. Maybe she’d make some gummy bear bread for him and try to find out what information had been in
that black box.
Abby and Tom were both glad that they were going to be here this summer, even if they did have to go to school. Gemma was going to visit sometime, and Dad had promised to take them camping on one of their vacation breaks. Seeing more of Gracchia than just Aurelia would be interesting, although Abby wasn’t crazy about camping. There were so many mosquitoes and bugs. Maybe it would be better on Gracchia.
The Gracchus were staging their own version of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” out on Gem Island in a month or two. Ms. Tavish said that some of the students might be asked to take part, and that might be interesting.
In fact, Tom and Abby both could hardly wait for the summer to get into full swing.
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Watch for Far Travels, Book 2, Summer on Gracchia!
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About the Author: Kristi Seibert lives in Colorado with her husband, two cats, and a turtle named Julius. She is at work on the next Gracchian adventure while also writing a novel about a reluctant hero named Flint Razor. Originally Flint was meant to be a Man Book parody, but she fell for the main character and had no choice but to take him seriously. Kristi has been influenced by Robert Heinlein, Peter O'Donnell, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Bill Watterson, Wilbur Smith, Gary Jennings and Shakespeare. She spends a lot of time reading, and according to her husband, not enough time writing.
Far Travels, The Gracchian Adventures, Book One Page 20