For Real

by Alison Cherry

  “This space is really, really small,” I say, making my voice tremble.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”

  “No, I mean, really small. And hot. Are you hot? I feel super warm.”

  “Not really,” he says.

  I breathe faster. “Samir, I feel weird. I need to get out of here. I need air.”

  He sighs impatiently. “You can have all the air you want once we find the brick.”

  “No, I need it now. I can’t breathe. I feel like the walls are closing in.” I stagger, crashing into Samir’s chest and knocking him back against the wall. “Oh my God oh my God oh my God …,” I chant in a high-pitched, hysterical voice.

  “Claire, chill out! Just take a deep breath, okay? You’re fine. We need to do this.”

  “I can’t, I can’t do this. I need to get out of here.” I deserve an Oscar for this performance. Before Samir can protest, I duck down and crawl out of the opening, panting so hard I really am starting to get dizzy. I curl up on the floor with my head between my knees, cursing the insidious bagpipe music that’s trying to eat my brain from the inside.

  Right away, a producer appears beside me. “Are you hurt?” She puts a gentle hand on my back, even though I’m covered in pudding and sweat and dirt. She’s the first person who’s been nice to me in twenty-four hours, and even though my panic attack is totally fake, for a second I feel like I’m going to cry for real. Stay on task, I remind myself.

  “No,” I gasp. “I just don’t do well with small spaces.”

  “Just breathe. You’re going to be fine.” She reaches out and taps Samir’s ankle, and he squats down so he can hear her. “You have to stop searching until your partner is ready to rejoin you,” she says.

  He rolls his eyes. “Claire, hurry up. Are you almost ready?”

  I put my hand to my forehead like I’m a fragile flower and take a surreptitious glance around the room. Miranda and Steve are gone, but Will and Janine are still in their chimney, and Tawny and Troy haven’t even arrived. I need to draw this out longer. I take several infuriatingly slow breaths and say, “Okay, I can try again,” in a weak voice.

  The second I’m back inside the chimney, I start making small whimpering sounds that harmonize with the obnoxious bagpipes. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” I whine. “Where is that stupid brick?”

  “Relax,” Samir says with about as much sympathy as a drill instructor. “Close your eyes and pretend you’re somewhere else.”

  “But I can feel how close together we are. You keep bumping into me. Oh God, I’m getting dizzy again.” I flail my arms around and “accidentally” whack him in the face.

  “Knock it off!” he shouts. “We don’t have time for this. We’re already way behind!”

  “I can’t help it! I’m claustrophobic! It’s not like I’m choosing to be scared!”

  “God, fine. Just … stand still, okay? You don’t have to do anything, but you have to stay in here, or I’m not allowed to search.”

  “I’ll try,” I say. “But I can’t promise anything.”

  I leave the chimney twice more to “get some air” before Samir finally finds the loose brick, which turns out to be near the bottom, behind my right knee. As we crawl out into the room, I scan the other chimneys for shoes and find that Will and Janine are gone and Tawny and Troy have finally arrived.

  Samir rips open the instructions for our last challenge—our final challenge of the race, if everything goes as planned.

  Drive yourselves to Sweetheart Abbey in Dumfries. This famous abbey was founded in 1275 by a lord’s daughter in honor of her dead husband. When she died, his embalmed heart was buried in a small casket beside her. You must search the thirty-acre grounds of the abbey, where hundreds of small caskets have been scattered. Only one of them contains your next instructions.

  Samir groans and rubs his eyes, leaving behind smudges of soot that make him look like a raccoon. “Oh my God, this could take forever.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find it right away,” I say.

  He glares at me. “Everything takes forever with you. I have no idea how you’ve lasted this long in the race. I can’t wait to switch partners.”

  I shoot the camera another secretive smile as I follow Samir out of the pub.

  The ride to Dumfries is largely silent. Samir drives, and since we’re supposed to stay on one road almost the entire way, there’s hardly any navigating to be done. The silence leaves me too much time to think, and as I watch the Crayola-green farmland, low stone walls, and hills of scrubby trees rush by outside the window, my brain churns itself into a froth. What if I can’t ensure that Samir and I come in last, and I’ve spent the entire day looking like an incompetent fool for nothing? What if I succeed, but Miranda’s not even grateful? Have I caused so much damage that my grand gesture won’t be enough to repair things between us?

  We drive past a few small towns and through the city of Dumfries, then down a bunch of narrow, twisting village streets where all the doors are painted different bright colors. Finally, we spot Sweetheart Abbey looming ahead. Only the outside shell of the building is still intact, all crumbling brick towers and arches. The floor, where there must once have been an altar and pews, is a carpet of neatly trimmed grass. Martin and Zora are pulling out of the parking lot as we pull in, zipping toward the Cupid’s Nest. When we get out of the car, I see Miranda and Steve searching a distant field. In the other direction, Will and Janine are tromping through some high grass. He’s laughing uproariously at something she’s said, and he seems to be holding her hand. My heart skips a couple beats before it starts limping onward again

  “We should split up so we can search faster,” Samir says.

  “Nope,” Robby says before I have time to object. “The camera has to be able to see both of you at all times.” I’ve never heard him speak before, and he sounds eerily similar to Kermit the Frog. I almost burst out laughing, but I manage to turn it into a coughing fit just in time.

  Samir heaves a soul-deep sigh. “Fine. Let’s go around to the other side of the building and start there.”

  The far side of the abbey has huge arched windows that gape open to the overcast sky like wide, sightless eyes. Moss grows along the windowsills and covers the top of the wall that encloses a small graveyard. The stones are weathered by hundreds of years of rain and wind, and I run my fingers over the shallow inscriptions. Most of them are so old that I can barely make out the words. Scattered here and there are small wooden boxes that look brand-new—I guess these are the “caskets” we’re supposed to be searching. I was picturing something much bigger, like those hexagonal coffins cartoon vampires live in. I crack open the lid of one, but it’s empty. So are the second and third boxes I try.

  Shockingly, the fourth contains a stack of pink envelopes.

  It figures I’d finally get lucky now, when it’s the last thing I want. If Samir and I find the envelopes this early, it’ll put us in second place, and I can’t let that happen, or I’ll never be able to make things right with Miranda. I close the lid of the box very quietly, hoping against hope that Samir hasn’t seen the flash of pink inside. But he’s checking the caskets a few rows away and not paying me the slightest bit of attention. Robby, on the other hand, has his camera pointed right at me. I shoot him a questioning look, wondering if he got what just happened on film. He gives me a thumbs-up behind Samir’s back.

  “I’ve searched this whole side, and there’s nothing here,” I call to Samir. “They probably wouldn’t put the envelopes this close to the main building anyway, would they? Let’s head farther out.” I start tromping toward one of the large empty fields nobody’s searching, and I’m relieved when Samir follows me, totally oblivious.

  “Remember where you’ve already looked,” he tells me, like I’m five years old and learning to play one of those memory games. “Work smarter, not harder, okay?” For someone with an IQ of 146, he’s falling pretty thoroughly for my ruse. But I just nod like he’s spout
ing sage wisdom, not clichés you might find on posters in a guidance counselor’s office.

  A car door slams in the parking area, followed by the sound of Tawny’s barking laughter. Good—now I just need everyone to find the envelopes in the graveyard before Samir does. Sabotaging myself is surprisingly difficult. You’d think it would be easy to lose.

  Unfortunately, Samir is a little savvier than I’d hoped, and he keeps a close eye on the other teams while we search. I manage to distract him by pretending to twist my ankle when I see Miranda and Steve walking toward their car from the back of the abbey, but when he sees Will and Janine heading to the parking lot ten minutes later, he realizes we’re searching the wrong side of the grounds. He’s getting more and more frustrated, and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to fall for my tricks much longer. Just as I’m wondering if I’ll have to resort to more desperate measures, like filling our car with biodiesel or feigning food poisoning, I see Tawny and Troy heading for the graveyard.

  “Let’s search the front of the abbey again,” I say, grabbing Samir’s arm and leading him in the opposite direction. “Maybe they put the envelopes somewhere so obvious we wouldn’t even think to look there.”

  Samir rants and mutters as we check and double-check all the empty boxes in front of the abbey, followed by the ones inside the walls. And then Tawny lets out a whoop from the graveyard, advertising her exact location and the fact that she’s found the envelopes, and my heart sinks. Doesn’t she know you’re supposed to be sneaky during challenges like this?

  “It’s over there!” Samir screams, pointing toward the back of the abbey just as Tawny and Troy rush past us on the way to their car. “We looked over there! How did we miss it?”

  “Crap! I don’t know!” I try my best to sound as panicked as he does.

  Tawny and Troy’s engine starts up, and Samir runs toward the graveyard with Robby at his heels. “Hurry!” he shouts over his shoulder at me, and I do. I have to keep myself between him and that envelope for as long as I can.

  But it’s no use. Samir dashes up and down the rows of graves like a sugar-high toddler, throwing boxes open, and he finds the last envelope in less than a minute. “It’s right here!” he shrieks, waving it in my face. “You were searching this side of the graveyard. Why didn’t you see it? Are you blind or something? God, you suck! We could have been done an hour ago!” He sprints toward the car, not even checking to see if I’m following.

  “I’m so sorry,” I pant as I run after him. “But at least we have it now, right?”

  “It’s too late now, Claire!”

  I pray he’s right, but Tawny and Troy hardly have any lead at all. “Maybe it’s not. Just stop for a second and open the instructions! We have no idea where we’re supposed to go!”

  Samir tears the envelope open so forcefully the instructions rip down the middle. He reads the two pieces and then thrusts them at me in disgust.

  Make your way to the front entrance of Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries, the Cupid’s Nest for this leg of the race. Hurry—one team’s race around the world ends here!

  Samir flings himself into the driver’s seat and starts the car before Kanesha and I have even shut our doors. “You’ve cost me half a million dollars, you bitch,” he fumes. “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

  I am, I want to tell him, but I need to save that for the finish line. Instead I say, “It’s not over yet. Just drive, okay? Maybe someone will get stalled on the way to Dumfries.” For a second, I’m afraid he’s going to turn around and slap me. But instead he just peels out of the parking lot so fast our wheels spin and a literal cloud of dust flies up behind us.

  Half the roads we have to take to Dumfries are barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other, but Samir barrels down them at such a breakneck pace that Kanesha and I slam into each other every time he turns. I hold my breath basically the whole way, praying no one else’s car really does break down on the side of the road—at this rate, we actually might catch up to Tawny and Troy. Though if Samir keeps driving like this, it won’t even matter if my plan succeeds, because we’ll all die in a fiery crash before we make it to the castle. “God, Samir, slow down,” I say. “Even if we’re in last place, I’d really like to make it there alive.”

  Samir slams on the brakes so hard the car skids. My head snaps forward and then back as my seatbelt engages, and Robby’s camera nearly flies through the windshield. “You don’t have to stop entirely,” I say, rubbing my whiplashed neck.

  But Samir isn’t paying any attention to me—he’s staring out the front window, both hands on his head like he’s about to tear out his hair in chunks. “Are you freaking kidding me?” he sputters.

  Because the road is completely full of sheep, big and fluffy and huggable, like an animated movie come to life. There are about twenty of them milling around on the asphalt like they don’t have a care in the world, and it’s such a perfect, absurd roadblock that I burst into hysterical laughter.

  “What is wrong with you?” Samir screams. “There is nothing funny about this!” His face is the color of a strawberry, and there’s a vein throbbing on his left temple. He blasts the horn, but the sheep don’t even bother to look up, which makes me laugh even harder. After all the difficult things we’ve been forced to do, my sister’s ex is about to have an aneurism over farm animals.

  “I’m sorry,” I gasp, “but everything about this is funny.”

  Samir rolls down his window. “Move it, assholes! Do you want to be roadkill? ’Cause I will run you over! Don’t test me!” He inches the car forward in what I guess is supposed to be a threatening gesture. A couple of sheep deign to glance up at him for a minute, but they just gaze at the car sleepily, then go back to what they were doing. A couple of them start nibbling on the grass at the side of the road.

  Samir opens the car door and strides out into the flock, waving his arms like a deranged windmill and screaming obscenities, and Robby scurries out after him to document his nervous breakdown. Even when Samir plants both his hands on one of the sheep’s butts and tries to push it off the road by force, it refuses to move. I’m laughing so hard now I can hardly breathe, and Kanesha is starting to giggle, too. Miranda’s going to die when this episode airs.

  Just when I think things can’t get any funnier, one of the biggest sheep turns around and stares straight at Samir, then lowers its head and starts running right at him. Samir’s eyes bug out, and he shrieks like a kindergarten girl with a bee up her dress as he bolts for the car. He dives through the open door headfirst, sprawling across both front seats in an incredibly undignified way. “That psycho sheep is trying to kill me!” he pants.

  Samir’s skinny ankles are still hanging out the door when the sheep stampedes right past him and heads for the fence at the other side of the road. When it reaches a post, it starts rubbing its head against the wood as gleefully as Will was rubbing Janine’s stomach this morning. It makes a happy bleating noise, and tears of laughter start streaming down my face. I so hope Robby managed to get Samir’s flying leap on camera. I can picture it being played over and over in slow motion, underscored with faux-heroic music. For once, I won’t be the one who’s portrayed as ridiculous.

  “Oh my God,” I gasp. “You were terrified of that sheep. You thought it was going to eat you. That was, hands down, the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  Samir has struggled back into a sitting position, but his face is now several layers of red, embarrassment on top of frustration on top of fury. “For the love of God, get off your lazy ass and help me, Claire! We’re about to get eliminated because of a bunch of sheep. How do we get them to move?”

  It takes five more minutes for the sheep to make their own slow, meandering way off the road. Samir spends most of that time leaning on the horn and shouting threats that involve the word “mutton,” and Robby keeps the camera right in his face the whole time. A line of cars starts backing up behind us, and they add their horns to the mix, which doesn’t seem to
bother the sheep at all but makes Samir even angrier. By the time our wooly friends decide to amble back into their pasture, Samir has almost no voice left.

  When we peel into the nearly empty parking lot of Drumlanrig Castle thirty minutes later, four other Around the World cars are waiting to meet us. There’s no need to run at this point—we’re obviously in last place—but Samir does, so I do, too, just to make things easier for Robby. Together we sprint through the gate, across the wide oval lawn, and toward the double staircase at the front of the castle, where Isis is standing. The enormous, brick-red building looms behind her, its chimneys and dome-topped turrets shining a soft gold in the light of the evening sun. I’m glad my elimination point is a beautiful one. With my head held high, I step into the spotlights that surround our host and her archway of flags.

  “Welcome to the Cupid’s Nest, Samir and Claire,” Isis says. “You’re in last place. Your race around the world has come to an end.”

  Samir lets out an unearthly howl as he hurls his pack onto the ground and kicks it. “This is all your fault!” he screams at me, flecks of spit flying from his mouth. “I hate you and your stupid panic attacks and your terrible directions and your total inability to retain basic information! I could have won this if it weren’t for you! I swear to God, you could not have been a worse partner if you’d wanted to lose!”

  The other teams were resting along the edges of the lawn when we arrived, out of sight of the cameras, but Samir’s making such a scene that everyone creeps closer for a better look. I wait until I’m sure Miranda’s within earshot, and then I turn back to Samir.

  “I did want to lose, you idiot,” I say. “You think I’m really as incompetent as I seemed today? I thought you were a theater major. Can’t you tell when someone is acting?”