by Leigh Hutton
There were eleven women competitors in total. Three from America: Kerry, Lasha and Lucifer. Two from France: the fast and famous ‘Madame Roux’ and another equally stunning brunette, Henriette, whom Clover had met while getting their bikes through technical inspection. Two from Sweden. Then Clover Canada, the pair of German girls and one Australian, Joanna Elwood. Three Aussie girls had been on the pre-event list online, but according to the site, the second and third, were out due to injury. The Aussie girls had been touted as favourites to take out the class on its debut. Clover couldn’t wait to meet Joanna.
The opening ceremony celebrations got underway with a parade of nations, led by the home team, which really whipped the local crowd of about fifteen thousand into a frenzy. Foghorns blared, and kids and adults alike screamed the names of their favourite Czech riders, who were illuminated by huge floodlights as they led the procession of entrants around the arena. A stage had been constructed at the far end of the field, crowned by huge speakers, pelting dance music.
‘Welcome to the 98th annual, World Six-Day Enduro Championship!’ boomed a voice loud enough to penetrate the music. The announcer then switched to speaking Czech, and by the eruption of the fans, Clover assumed had just welcomed the home team. Before he could continue to introduce the rest of the nations, however, the dance music was cut, and a roar of small capacity engines caught the attention of the entire auditorium.
Clover had to stand on her tiptoes to get a look at the source of the sound. Two dozen men in trench coats and black bowler helmets complete with bug-eye goggles were blasting with all the pace their strange little dirt bikes could muster towards the centre of the oval. Clover laughed as she spotted the last rider in the group, a ‘Cat Man’ dressed in striped orange and black fur, with his motorcycle also donning the costume, complete with a long tail flapping behind.
‘And, here, may we present the Purple Helmets!’ the announcer yelled. ‘The Sheep Skull Enduro Riders, all the way from Isle of Man, United Kingdom!’
Before the crowd could cheer, the full intensity of the stadium’s spotlights was trained on the Sheep Skulls. A lone man had appeared, in an orange jump suit with a cord sticking out the front of him that was attached to one of the bikes, which was now taking off towards one end. The cord caught, pulling the suit from the unfortunate man and leaving him totally naked, with the exception of his helmet which he promptly whipped from his head and used to cover his front bits. The crowd went nuts.
The Sheep Skulls continued their routine, to the delight of all in the stadium. Their stunts included one of the riders jumping the rest with the assistance of a steep ramp, a race with members being pulled in flaming chariots, and a grand finale with a precarious moving pyramid of all the insane Sheep Skulls.
When the Purple Helmets roared off, presumably to find a bar, the announcer got back to welcoming the remaining nations, and the spotlights returned to the riders of the WSEC. In alphabetical order, with Australia first. All Clover could see of the Aussies were flags being waved and blow-up yellow kangaroos and beach balls bouncing around above the riders’ heads.
The Swedes strode past, in royal blue and yellow, the lady riders as blonde, slim and lovely as the men were huge and godlike. Spain so much red and cheerfulness, singing in Spanish and waving to the crowd. And England, a whole new kind of handsome, with their dark hair and pale complexions.
A rush of honour filled her heart as Canada was announced, and the lights made it impossible to see beyond the faces of her team. She waved to the crowd, grinning without any effort at all. It was beyond her wildest dreams, being recognised as part of her nation’s team, among all the best Enduro racers in the world.
This feeling, however, was quickly extinguished.
Lasha Moore grabbed her arm.
‘By the look of you,’ Lasha said. ‘I’m not sure you realise how hard this is gonna be.’
‘How many six days have you ridden, Lasha?’ Clover replied.
Lasha shook her head and laughed, a trill, sinister sound. ‘I was sorry I didn’t get to say “hello” at all this summer. So glad I’ve had the opportunity before the biggest race of your life.’
‘Whatever,’ Clover said, ripping her arm from her grasp.
‘Break a leg,’ Lasha shot back, as Clover glared, and then hurried to take her seat next to her parents in the stadium. She looked frantically for Kerry.
Leslie moved close. ‘What did she want?’ she asked, in a pause of the music.
‘Just to be a cow,’ Clover said.
Leslie’s face pinched with confusion, then she shook her head. ‘That’s okay, honey.’ She patted Clover’s thigh. ‘I bet she doesn’t know her throttle from her front brake.’
Clover blurted out a laugh, and couldn’t help but smile at her mom. But not even a motorbike joke from her mother could make her forget what Lasha had just said. The truth was, Lasha was an experienced rider, and probably knew this race, better than she did. Maybe there was some merit to her theory? Maybe the six-day would prove too tough for her?
Lasha’s work was done. Clover’s confidence was shaken and she felt nervous and unsure until she mounted her bike, on the morning of Day 1. She was still feeling glum as she pushed her gleaming WR250F from the bike impound, through the pits where she would hopefully return at the end of the day to complete her work period and up to the start podium, erected at the entrance to Parc Ferme.
It was a freezing morning, darker and bleaker than any of the days since they had arrived. Rainclouds had set in the afternoon before, leaving the air thick and misty. Any moment, rain would start to fall, turning the track to slick slop, the rocks and logs to ice.
On the raised platform, with the blow-up WSEC archway overhead, Clover glanced at the other girls on her minute: Joanna, the Australian girl, and … Lasha Moore. She considered giving Joanna a thumbs-up, but decided against it as she wasn’t even looking in her direction. Lasha was glaring, and Clover glared right back, but a figure beyond her caught Clover’s eye.
Lasha’s father was standing right at the edge of the start area, just inside the barricades, arms folded, sunglasses on. A scowl on his face. He kept checking his watch, and even yelled an instruction to Lasha, ‘Remember, you’re either on the brakes or on the throttle no coasting!’
Lasha rolled her eyes, and looked down at her fuel tank, fidgeting with her breather hose.
The whole scene suddenly gave Clover a powerful sense of Déjà vu. She knew it all too well. She’d lived it, so many times, before Ernie had realised how his competitiveness was affecting his daughter. And at that moment, the truth struck Clover: Lasha didn’t hate her. Lasha hated her dad. Clover was her only real competition in juniors, and as long as Lasha was winning, her dad would’ve stayed off her back. I bet he’s nice to her, when she wins. Clover had, inadvertently, made Lasha’s torture worse. It was the pressure that she herself had struggled to deal with. Lasha’s way of dealing with it was by taking it out on Clover.
Despite all the pain Lasha had caused her, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the girl. Maybe she’d learned more about forgiveness from the incident with Sera than she’d realised. She never thought that pity would be an emotion she’d associate with Lasha Moore.
Without even thinking, Clover looked back at Lasha and smiled. She even gave her a quick thumbs-up.
Lasha looked stunned, but then her whole face seemed to soften. Clover could have sworn the girl looked relieved.
She was lucky enough to have a dad who realised his mistakes. Maybe Lasha’s would too. Maybe, one day, they would be friends.
Clover smiled, and looked back at the track. She was shivering from the cold, but was lit from within with a peace and calm she’d never experienced before. The arrows of the course were clearer in front of her. Now that she’d put aside her hatred of Lasha, she had more energy to focus on the ride ahead.
And she wanted to win.
Clover wrapped her shaking fingers around the rubber grips, pulled herself f
orward, and jumped up and down on the seat a few times, to feel the movement of her suspension, warming it from the chill of the damp air.
Being with her bike always ignited that passion within her, the flames of hunger to succeed and become number one. She knew she needed to cast aside any seeds of doubt and be confident if she was going to have a chance of even finishing. She was ready. She had prepared and trained as hard as possible. Yes, she told herself. Clover Canada is going to finish the six-day! Prove to everyone who’d ever doubted her or tried to pull her down. Prove to herself that she’d made the right choice, in leaving Dallas and their old life behind.
Clover tightened her grip on the handlebars, and then shook her hands out, to flick away her nerves. She surveyed the man in front of her, resplendent in his bright yellow vest with ‘Oficiální’ then ‘Official’ written in bold across the breast. He raised the Czech Republic flag.
One minute till blast off.
As Clover pulled her goggles from the pocket of her riding jacket, light drops of rain began to fall. She quickly slipped her goggles on, and pulled the strap down the back of her helmet, swiping a gloved hand across the lens to clear the few drops of water blotting her vision.
Flag to half-mast. Thirty seconds to go.
She reached for the start button ready to fire the engine to life as soon as their start minute ticked and the man dropped the flag. She wiggled her toes in her boots, as the cold was starting to freeze them stiff. She had to ignore the throb in her ankle, where she’d broken it in Florida. It still played up in the mornings, especially in the cold.
A familiar voice cheered from behind the spectator’s barriers, which lined either side of the street in front of them.
‘Go, Clover!’
Clover squinted through the masses of people standing, shivering, umbrellas up. Clover smiled when she spotted Leslie, beaming at her. It felt so good to see a familiar face, one she’d been waiting a long time to see at a race. Good to have her mother for support.
Leslie waved, and pushed through the crowd, right up against the orange barrier. Her undivided attention and encouraging smile brought warmth to Clover’s heart.
Clover smiled and nodded with recognition, even raised her hand in a wave, then she glanced down at her engine, checking to make sure she’d remembered to pull the choke out, to help her cold engine fire.
She looked up, and the world fell silent. At that moment, she was alone just her and her machine. She felt the start button beneath her finger, leant forward, elbows up and ready to race. Her breath was warm against her cold cheeks, misting the guard of her helmet. The beat of her heart fell into rhythm with her breath. It’s only day one of six, she told herself. Be smooth and smart. There would be plenty of challenges and obstacles in this race, without her adding difficulty by losing her head. She knew from pre-walking the tests that the last day included a steep ski hill test, and the rest had several Enduro special test phases with gnarly obstacles like rocky creeks, logs and bog holes. She’d find respite in the three grass track tests marked with bunting in open paddocks but even they were in hilly, off-cambered terrain, some designed as corkscrews, to turn you around and around until even your bike was dizzy. The trail, especially, was rumoured to be perilous. And this rain, now coming down in heavy drops, would only intensify the difficulty. This would indeed be the greatest challenge in Clover’s seventeen years. But she was ready.
She held her breath, as the man in the Official’s vest nodded at each of the girls, looked back at his watch … and dropped the flag.
Clover pushed hard on the grey button, giving her bike some throttle. It took three goes for the engine to ignite. The deep, ba-ba-ba-ba, of her 250 was music to her ears.
She let it idle, before slowly bringing up the RPM.
Joanna kicked at her bike, cursing under her breath. She would only have one minute to get it going, before she would fail the cold start test and be heavily penalised. Lasha had already taken off, hardly letting her bike get warm.
Clover clicked hers into gear and eased the clutch out, careful not to let the wet, slippery levers fling from her fingers. The bike lurched forward, and she was off. Wind whipped at her cheeks as she shifted to second gear, out the gate to Parc Ferme and onto the drenched bitumen, only pausing long enough to reach down and push her choke back in. She was thankful Ernie had insisted she wear her Yamaha jacket over her jersey and chest protector. Right now she didn’t care if it made her look masculine, she would have been freezing without it. The thick fabric kept the cold out, as the sides flapped in the force of the breeze.
The road was lined with people, waving flags and cheering in all different languages. A few Canadian supporters leapt forward from the throng, patted Clover on the back, yelling words of encouragement. Children bundled in padded jackets and scarves ran along beside her until their little legs grew too weary to keep up.
Clover revved it out, clicked up into third gear, standing up on the pegs, gripping the bike with her quivering knees, to give her arms a chance to relax. She leant left with the inclination of the road, to follow the red Day 1 course arrows past a row of houses, through a right-hand turn and onto a muddy cart track, around the edge of a field and up into the narrow trails of the misty Giant Mountains.
THIRTY-FOUR
Pairs of glazed-over eyeballs, popping from the heads of fish that still had their scales on, gaped up at Clover from the silver serving trays of the hotel dinner buffet.
Clover dropped her plate to her side. After the toughest day she’d ever experienced on a motorcycle, she was ravenous for a good meal. She’d had little time to eat during the race, as she was late into nearly every time control just had time to fuel her bike, before taking off again. Despite this, Clover still wasn’t famished enough to eat fish that looked like they’d just swum in from the ocean. Ernie had suggested that they go to town for dinner, but the thought of hauling her sore, spent body too far from her bed had seemed ludicrous. Now, though, she wished she’d listened.
Clover looked away from the gawking Nemos, who seemed to scream, ‘Please, don’t eat me!’ and back at her table in the middle of the room, where Ernie was grinning at her.
She shook her head and poked out her tongue. Then stuck a few fingers in her mouth, pretending to gag, before moving along the table of the strange smelling food, in the hope of finding something she might be able to stomach.
After taking scoops from a few trays, Clover made her way back to her table, plonked herself down being graceful and elegant was far past being a concern, as her aching legs longed for rest then looked over at Leslie and wrinkled her nose. ‘I thought they were gonna start serving pasta once the event started?’
‘I did ask,’ Leslie said. ‘Just, wait here I’ll go remind them. Surely they can get it organised for day two.’ Leslie wiped her mouth with a napkin and went to rise.
Clover laid a hand on her arm. ‘It’s all right, Mom. Finish your meal. We’ll ask on the way out.’
‘Thank you, Clover,’ Leslie said.
‘That’s cool.’ Clover eyed the soggy slices of potato dumpling and rice with squares of what she assumed by the colour were vegetables, wishing a steaming plate of Fettuccine Alfredo was smiling back.
She had just squeezed her eyes closed, to prepare herself for a fork-full of colourless goop, when Leslie poked her in the ribs.
‘Look, here come the Aussies.’
Clover let the slop fall to her plate and watched the Australian Team file in handsome as ever. Her heart swam with excitement.
The racers from Down Under took the long, rectangular table at the far end of the room. It looked like the entire squad was present, with at least twenty riders, including Joanna, who sat down silently at a two-seater table adjacent to the main one. She was joined by a man Clover assumed, by his grey hair and worn face, was her father. Clover peeked around Ernie, who offered the perfect cover for her staring.
The tanned dudes from Oz were better behaved and more businessli
ke than the night Clover had first spotted them at the bar. Some of the younger-looking ones stared off into space, as tired as she was. The hot guy with blonde hair and blue eyes Sexy Surfer, as Clover had decided to call him had taken one of the prime spots at the head of the table and was talking animatedly, regaling all who would listen with stories from his day out on the trails. A few of the guys closest to him were listening, watching his lips intently, but the others were more interested in what a black-haired guy had to say. Clover instantly recognised the rider’s strong build and his ruddy, handsome face. Ryder Black.
If the blonde guy was Sexy Surfer, Clover thought, then Ryder was the Sexy Pirate. She’d been able to tell, just from the poster she had of Ryder on the back of her bedroom door, that he smiled all the time. This was confirmed as she watched him now, his full lips parted in that contagious grin, revealing cheeks with super sexy dimples. The only flaw in his features made her even more drawn to him. His nose was thick in the middle, with a white scar across the top, as if it had been broken. His eyes were lighting up as he raised his hands to emphasise a crucial part of his story. Warm, reckless eyes, brown, with flecks of green the colour of her own. What she hadn’t noticed in the poster were the wrinkles around his eyes.
Ryder had all the guys around him transfixed. He seemed perfect to Clover a strong, vibrant soul. Her body wanted to fall towards him, as all the other faces and voices in the room faded. She wished Ryder would look up, spot her, maybe even come over and introduce himself. But he was much too consumed in his story, in his familiar company all those cool people she didn’t know.
When the guys around Ryder, and the bubbly blonde girl too, cracked up laughing, Clover wished she knew what he had said, wished she could join in the joke. The other people around her again came into focus, and the disappointing reality of her position in the Enduro world hit her with all the force of a high side crash. She’d left the Silvertown ‘in crowd’ behind when she broke up with Dallas, and here she was very much on the outside, too. It was a realisation that made her feel colder than ever before.