“We need two orange juices,” I said, thumbing through the juices like I was looking for a shirt in the coldest closet ever. Mr. Charles, as usual, didn’t hear me. I looked over; he was reading another piece of paper. This time it was one that he pulled from a box. I think it was like a receipt or something to tell him what he was supposed to have in each carton. He never even looked up, didn’t hear me at all. Dang. I wonder what it must be like to be hard of hearing. I bet gunshots sound like knocks on the door, which is a scary thought. Sheesh. Anyway, I repeated myself, louder. “Mr. Charles!” This time he looked up. “We need two orange juices.” Mr. Charles nodded, pulled two from a box, and handed them to me.
Of course, while we were doing all this, I kept an eye on my backpack. I had set it down in a corner at the back of the store. Every time we’d restock some cookies or some dishwashing liquid, I would double-check to make sure it was still there, that my sweet silver babies were still safe.
After the counting and restocking was done, Mr. Charles asked me to move all the leftovers into the stockroom.
“No problem,” I said, struggling to get a grip on the sides of one of the bigger cardboard boxes. “Is there any order you want me to put them in?”
“Nope,” Mr. Charles said, now wiping down the counter. “Just stack it all up toward the back so I can get in there and move around. That’s all.”
One by one, I picked up boxes of ramen noodles, six-packs of beer, and cases of Worcestershire sauce (war-sess-ter-shyer . . . worst-tester-shier . . . gotta be a world record for hardest word) and moved them into the stockroom. Mr. Charles seemed to have relaxed and was now standing behind the counter, staring at his old TV again. That made me feel kind of good, like I was doing something to help the old man out. I mean, he had always been so cool to me, such a good dude, so it felt nice to be able to do something for him. Plus, he was getting up there in age. He even had that weird, flappy, turkey-neck thing. So lifting these boxes was probably getting pretty hard for him.
The sixth (or was it the seventh?) box was the heaviest. It was filled with gallons of water, which was crazy because it just doesn’t seem like water should be that heavy. I mean, it’s clear. Like air. And air don’t weigh nothing. I couldn’t even really lift the box. I just kinda held my arms straight and did the caveman walk to the stockroom, bumping into everything, including the stockroom door, hoping I’d make it there before my shoulders popped out the sockets.
The door closed behind me. I dropped the box and used my feet to slide it across the room over to the other boxes. Then I stopped and, for the first time, had a look around.
I can’t tell you that I remember anything about what the stockroom looked like when me and my mom hid in it. But I know we were in the corner, a corner where there was now a coatrack. I remember that me and Ma huddled right there, up against the wall, her holding me by the face, her hands covering my ears. Now when I think about it, I think she did that so that I wouldn’t hear her crying or breathing hard, even though I could feel her chest rising and falling at the exact same pace of my own thumping heart. But I don’t remember there being any boxes. I don’t remember the desk and file drawers, the clock on the wall or the five-dollar bill hanging in a frame. It all might’ve been there, but I just don’t remember seeing it. And looking at it then, gazing around the room, I didn’t really feel nothing. Like, no emotions. Until . . . I tried . . . to open . . . the door.
It wouldn’t budge.
I tried again.
The knob turned, but the door wouldn’t come loose. I knocked lightly, trying not to panic. But of course, Mr. Charles couldn’t hear me. He was probably deep into his cowboy flick. And he was on the other side of the store. And on top of all that, he was practically deaf. So I banged. Still nothing. Then I started trippin’. Like how when you at the swimming pool on the hottest day of summer, and you jump in and it’s cool, and then you take one step too far and suddenly you’re in the deep end, and things ain’t so cool no more. Because you can’t swim. That’s how I felt. Like I was drowning. Like I was filling up with water. Like this place, this weird little room that had saved my life, now felt like it was gonna take it.
I looked at that corner again, my mind boomeranging back to me and my mom crouching and crying, wondering if my dad would corner us. My heart began to hammer just like it did back then. The clock on the wall suddenly seemed to tick louder. I turned back around and beat on the door again. Tried to beat a hole through it. Balled my hand into a fist and pounded and pounded and pounded, yelling Mr. Charles’s name until at last, after what seemed like forever, I could hear him on the other side of the door.
“Castle! I’m here,” his voice came through, muffled. Mr. Charles yanked it a few times, each time letting out a weird grunt, until finally the door swung open. He stumbled back into the chip display, before finally catching his balance. I shot out of the room.
“Stupid thing gets stuck,” he tried explaining, but I couldn’t wait around to hear about it. One more minute and I would melt in the aisle between the chips and the sodas, so I grabbed my backpack and ran straight for the door.
6
WORLD RECORD FOR THE LONGEST RUN AFTER THE MOST RUNAWAYS IN A SINGLE DAY
I RAN NONSTOP to my next stop, which was the track. But not only because I was buggin’ about being trapped in a stockroom—that stockroom—and trust me, I was buggin’, but also because that creepy clock reminded me that I was also late for practice. I ran through the streets until I finally made it to the park, where everyone was already warming up.
“So nice of you to finally join us, Mr. Cranshaw,” Coach said as I threw my bag down. I wanted to tell him that I’d basically been trapped in a teleportation thingy that zapped me back to the scariest moment of my life, but I didn’t because I knew no one would believe me. So I just sat down on the bench, kicked my half shoes off—thankfully, everybody else was focused on stretching, and not on my feet—and rolled my pant legs up.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, unzipping my bag, but Coach had already turned his attention back to the other runners. I looked to my left and right, then over my shoulder, then quickly scanned the other side of the track to make sure there were no extra guests dressed in undersized navy-blue uniforms with badges and handcuffs checking out practice. Once I knew the place was clear of cops, I pulled the silver shoes out and slipped them on my feet, lacing them up tight. Then I threw the beat-up sneakers in the bag and hit the track.
“So today is Thursday,” Coach said as I sat down to join in on the much . . . much-needed stretching. After spending the day with fire in my legs, stretching made so much more sense now. It took maybe two seconds for Patty to notice my shoes. She smiled and slapped Sunny on the arm to get his attention. Then he saw them and gave me a thumbs-up. So corny. I looked over at Lu. He was staring at them and fixed his mouth in the way people do when they’re thinking, Not bad. And that was good enough for me.
Coach continued, “And Mikey, tell ’em . . . uh . . .” Now Coach caught a glimpse of the diamonds on my feet and got stuck. He looked both surprised and confused. It was the same expression he had when I told him to call me Ghost. “Um . . .” He caught himself and continued, “Mikey, tell the newbies what we do on Thursdays.”
Mikey said in his usual grunty way, “Long run.”
“That’s right. Long run,” Coach said. “This is about conditioning. Not speed. And everybody has to do it.”
Let me tell you, when he said, “Long run,” there were a few things I hadn’t thought about. The first was that I hadn’t had lunch because of the whole running-out-of-school thing, and I was starving and wouldn’t be able to eat until after practice. And the second was just how much I needed food to give me energy, because what Coach meant by long run was run a million miles. Especially since I’d just run about a million miles. From the school to the store, and the store to the track. Then a crazy thought hit me—was he punishing me for stealing even though he didn’t even know? Or did he? Nah, he d
idn’t. He couldn’t . . . he didn’t. This was just a coincidence. A bad, bad coincidence.
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.
“Okay, then,” Coach said. “Now give me two cooldown laps and get off my track.”
At home, me and Ma had my favorite for dinner. Salisbury steak. Every time she brought it home, all I could think about was how lucky the people in the hospital were that they could get that for dinner. Salisbury steak is amazing. I don’t know what exactly Salisbury is, but whatever it is, it’s delicious.
“So you liking track?” Ma asked, heating the food up.
“Yeah, it’s cool. It’s crazy hard, but it’s cool.”
“And what about the coach?” she asked. “How’s he?”
“I like him,” I said, plain, unsure of what she was getting at. Like I said, moms never trust people around their kids. Never ever. And Coach had just left after asking my mom if I could go to the newbie dinner, and she said I could, but the smell of Salisbury might’ve changed her mind just that quick. I don’t know why it would’ve, but who really understands moms?
“You know what?” she said, popping open the microwave when it dinged. She flashed a smile at me. “I like him too.”
Phew.
The homework Ma was avoiding tonight was all about how to draw blood—they call it phlebotomy—and the movie of the night was Love Jones, which we’ve seen a bazillion times, but my ma loves it. It’s about this photographer lady and this dude who writes poems and they like each other, then they hate each other, then they love each other, and then it’s over. Or something like that. I never really pay much attention. I just flip through my world records book and spout out different facts.
“You know, there’s this dude named Tommy . . . um . . . Tommy something.” I couldn’t pronounce his last name. “He holds the world record for pulling the most nails out of a piece of wood with his teeth.”
My mother, sitting with the nursing textbook open on her lap, just shushed me and kept on watching.
“And there’s this other guy,” I continued, even though I knew she didn’t want to hear it. Most of the time I just liked to mess with her. “His name is Wim Hof. What a name, right? Yikes. Wim Hof. Anyway, he got the record for the most amount of time spent in ice.”
“In ice?” my mother asked. Must’ve caught her at a boring part in the movie.
“Yep. In it. One hour and fifty-three minutes.”
“People crazy,” she said, shaking her head. Then she held her hand out in front of me to let me know the boring part of the movie was now over—it was time for her to resume fanning the tears back every five minutes. Blah, blah, blah.
“Hey, you ever heard of Usain Bolt?” I asked her. “He holds the record for being the fastest man.”
“Cas, come on now,” she begged. “They getting ready to fall in love again. You know this my favorite part.”
I just shook my head and kept on flipping. The good thing was she didn’t ask me about my new fancy shoes, but that’s just because she didn’t know about them. I changed them in Coach’s cab on the way home from practice. Coach, on the other hand, definitely asked about them.
“Where’d you get ’em? That’s all I wanna know,” Coach said. This came after he told me that he was proud of me for not quitting today. I told him that I had no idea why he loved to torture children so much.
“Do you grill all the kids on the team like this? Or just me?” I replied, snappy.
“Just you.” He slapped my arm.
I told him that my mother had gotten them for me as a way to encourage me to do the right thing and stay out of trouble. Just saying it turned my stomach, because here I was, a boy who was suspended for busting somebody in the face at school one day, and skipped half the day the next because I was laughed at. Then I swiped shoes! I clearly wasn’t staying out of trouble. Matter fact, I was knee deep in it.
“Oh . . . okay,” Coach said, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. I wouldn’t have. He could probably see it on my face, especially since just like him, I didn’t have no hair on it to disguise it either. And honestly (yes, honestly), I couldn’t even believe that I had just lied like that. I wasn’t really the lying type. But I also wasn’t the stealing type until a few hours earlier. Altercations, altercations, altercations!
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