Ten minutes later, soft steps in the hall made me freeze. The bedroom door opened slowly. I held my breath and sat down on my bed. Would it be Rake with a knife or Martin with a pitchfork?
It was Martin and his hands were empty.
“I saw no one,” he announced, sitting down next to me on my bed. “I believe they have left.”
“W-what do you think they wanted?” I whispered.
My eyes were used to the dark now and I saw his shoulders shrug. “Perhaps,” he said, “they only wanted to scare you.”
“I suppose,” I said, thinking that if that was their plan, it worked. I was scared.
We sat in awkward silence for a minute.
Martin stood up. “You must try and sleep,” he said. “I will stay awake and…and be on guard duty.”
“In case they come back?” I said.
“Yes.”
“In case there’s trouble?”
“Yes. Go to sleep.”
Go to sleep?
That was easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one everyone was trying to kill. Well, we know that’s not entirely true. There was one person trying to whack him—me. And speaking of me, how on earth was I supposed to sleep with three people outside trying to kill me, and another person inside scheming to kill me? Well, maybe Martin wasn’t scheming. But I still couldn’t be certain of that either.
I pulled the sheets up to my face and closed my eyes. Why did you have to go and die, Pete? Stupid polio. What a dumb disease! It didn’t even sound dangerous—not like the Black Death—yet Pete got sick and had died in only two days. Poor Pete. I prayed to his ghost to protect me. Then, as insurance, I prayed to the spirit of his bed, if there even was such a thing, to keep harm away. These were dangerous times and I needed all the help I could get.
Eventually I fell asleep. And eventually I woke up again, finding myself alive. I also found Martin sitting in the chair looking at me. His eyes were red and puffy, so I figured he must have stayed awake all night trying to…trying to protect me? Just like he said he would.
A wave of shame began to wash over me. In fact, it was hitting me so hard, it threatened to drown me in a sea of guilt.
Ten minutes later, while I was washing the sleep from my eyes at the house pump, an idea began to form in my brain. It wasn’t anything Tom would like, but for some reason I didn’t care. After what had happened last night, I knew I wouldn’t be killing my Nazi. It probably was just a stupid animal out there, but Martin didn’t know that. He’d acted like a guy protecting his family—my family.
Martin and I ate breakfast alone and in silence (Mom and Dad were already busy weeding the gardens). Martin was quiet because he’d been up all night, and I was quiet because I was fine-tuning that idea in my head.
When I was ready, I broke the silence. “Do you think you could really teach me to run faster?”
My brilliant idea was to take Martin’s mind off his own shattered Olympic dreams by focusing his energy on coaching me. Now, as noble as that sounds, I was actually being sneaky and selfish again. I wanted him close by for protection. And if he actually could make me run faster (which I doubted), well, that would just be a bonus.
Martin sat up straight, suddenly wide awake. “I promise you, Varren. I can make you run faster than you have ever run before.” He thrust out his hand for me to shake, as if we had just agreed to end the war.
Martin’s firm grip on my hand, and his steady gaze, made me feel optimistic for the first time in days. In fact, I was so excited, I decided to send a quick letter to my brother.
Dear Pete, So, what do you think? I now have a bodyguard, and a coach.
Dear Warren, It makes sense to have protection, especially if Rake is out to get you. So I’m glad you didn’t kill Martin with a shovel, or break his neck on the trail, or drown him in the cattle trough, or suffocate him in his…
Dear Pete, Okay, okay, I get the idea. Jeez!
Chapter 8
“But the summer games are in only two weeks,” I said. “Is that enough time?” I knew it wasn’t, of course, but it seemed like an appropriate thing to ask.
Martin threw back his head and laughed. “I have seen you run, and I know you are fast,” he said. “But it is because I have seen you run, that I know I can make you run faster. Do you understand?”
“No.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
Martin laughed again. “You will see. I will show you later.”
I was doubtful, but I was also curious. Could he make me sprint faster in only two weeks? Faster than one-hundred metres in twelve seconds? I had always hoped that over the next five years I would be able to shave some time off my hundred. In fact, my dream was to someday match Jesse Owens’s Berlin time of ten point three seconds. Owens’s Olympic gold time was less than two seconds from my best time, but in the world of sprinting, that was the difference between getting a world record and not even qualifying.
The hope I’d felt in the kitchen vanished when we went outside to resume work on the sewage pit.
We approached the hole, grabbed our shovels, and then both froze. At the far end of the pit, at ground level, someone had stuck a cross in the earth. It wasn’t much—just two sticks tied with twine—but it was definitely a cross. A message. I was dead meat, I was digging my own grave, I would be taking a dirt nap….
“– there last night,” Martin said, scanning the area for Rake.
“Huh?” I mumbled, still thinking of ways to announce my death.
“Those boys must have placed the cross there last night,” he said. “That was what we heard.”
I looked up at him and nodded.
“They are only trying to frighten you,” he added, needlessly.
I nodded again.
Or, are you trying to frighten me? It occurred to me, Martin could have stuck the cross there just as easily as Rake. He’d had plenty of time last night, when he was outside, to bind two sticks together and poke them in the ground. Darn it! Just when I thought I was safe from him and my suspicious thoughts, my suspicious thoughts returned.
Martin pulled the grave marker, examined it briefly, snapped both pieces over his knee and tossed them in the shrubs. Was he destroying the evidence, I wondered? Or was he doing me a favour and removing a symbol of terror?
I didn’t think Mom and Dad had seen the cross, but even if they had, they’d just think Martin and I were joking around. Only we weren’t joking around and I wasn’t laughing.
There wasn’t anything more to say, so we started digging.
Dear Pete, What the heck’s going on?
Dear Warren, Just stick with the plan.
Dear Pete, Which plan?
Dear Warren, The plan where you DON’T kill him.
Around mid-morning, Gwyneth and Celia came by. Celia ran up to Martin and presented him with a small package.
“What is this?” Martin asked, pretending to be extra surprised.
“They’re cookies!” Celia shouted. “We made them for you…for rescuing us.”
I cringed and quickly scanned the area for my parents.
Gwyneth elbowed me lightly in the ribs. “They’re actually for both of you,” she whispered. “But Celia thinks Martin is a bit more of a hero than you, because he’s the one who saved Tinker.”
I felt my face blush. “You guys didn’t have to get us anything.”
“Well,” Gwyneth said slowly, “I sort of do…now. I may have messed up.”
We watched Martin carefully open the box and then act like it was empty—like the cookies were all gone. Celia knew he was only teasing, but we could tell she enjoyed it. They sat on the edge of the pit and began eating cookies. Martin pretended they were the best he’d ever had, even though Gwyneth and I knew they probably tasted like stale biscuits. (Sugar rationing, remember?)
“Messed up how?” I aske
d Gwyneth. “What do you mean?” We were far enough away from Celia (and Martin) that she couldn’t hear what we were saying.
“On the way home yesterday,” Gwyneth began, “I asked Celia not to say anything about what happened when we went swimming.”
I nodded.
“But Celia thought it was such a great story, she blabbed to Mom and Dad as soon as we got back. She’s a great fibber most of the time, but she really made it sound like you and Martin swooped in and saved our lives—not just Tinker’s.”
I felt my heart begin to race. “What did your dad say?”
“He’s grateful for what you and Martin did, of course,” Gwyneth said, “but now he’s nervous about what Rake and those boys might do next. He told me last night—it was just me and Dad then—that you may have poked a hornet’s nest.”
“Do…do you think he’ll tell my folks what happened?”
Gwyneth shook her head. “No, but Dad said to tell you to be very careful until Rake simmers down. Dad figures he’ll be spittin’ mad at us—well, you mostly—for a few days, but then he’ll probably forget about the whole thing.”
I watched my hands begin to shake. “That’s good advice, for sure.”
“Thing is, Dad’s been seeing Rake lurking around the local back trails more and more, so he’s told us we’re to stick to the proper roads until he moves on.”
I didn’t say anything. I was too busy imagining Rake prowling around our farm last night, waiting to burn the whole place down.
“You still did the right thing, Warren. You both did.”
I watched Celia enjoy another sugarless cookie. “I s’pose,” I said.
“It’s a good thing you have Martin staying on the farm. I don’t think anyone will mess with you with him here. He’ll keep you safe.”
“Hmm.”
Gwyneth seemed to sense I had more on my mind. “What?” she said finally.
I watched Martin take Celia’s hand and head for the pump. He probably had one of those cookies wedged in his craw and needed to wash it down. “Do you think I can trust him?” I said, indicating Martin with my chin. “I mean, really trust him?”
“Martin?” Gwyneth looked over at him and smiled. He was splashing water on Celia, and Celia was giggling. Then Gwyneth looked at me like I was nuts. “Well, of course you can. You saw what he did at the swimming hole.”
“Yeah, but…”
She gave me an intense stare. “There is no ‘but,’ Warren. He’s obviously a decent, caring person.”
I gave her a “but” anyway. “But he’s a Nazi prisoner of war.”
Gwyneth shook her head. “Not every person in Germany is a monster, you know.”
“I guess…” I said feebly.
She wouldn’t let it go. “You know those two Swedish brothers that run the sawmill in town?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, they’re nice guys.”
“Well, they’re German. They tell everyone they’re from Sweden so people don’t bother them, but they’re from Berlin.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “And you know what else? If those nice guys were in Germany right now, they’d be forced to join the army and fight us. It’s just the way things are.”
I took a deep breath, which was probably more of a sigh, but didn’t say anything.
Gwyneth rubbed my knee. “Be glad he’s here. Celia and I are.”
That night, after our spaghetti dinner (no meat in the sauce, of course), we headed straight outside again to start my sprint training. Dad and Mom had both looked surprised that I suddenly wanted to spend more time with Martin, especially since forty-eight hours ago I hadn’t even wanted to talk to him.
Imagine if they knew I was going to kill him—I mean, had planned on killing him?
“We will need to take a shovel,” Martin said, as soon as we got away from the house.
I ran back to the sewage pit, grabbed my shovel, and returned to where Martin stood. “And now?” I asked.
“And now we must find a straight, smooth, hard track that is at least one hundred and twenty-five metres long.”
I thought for a moment, and then knew just the spot.
I took Martin back onto the gully trail we had run on earlier, and then halfway down the path to Tilley Creek. There was a stretch of the track there that ran straight for at least a hundred and fifty metres. The trail bordered the Petersons’ pasture fence, and then cut back into the trees and followed the gully.
Martin nodded his approval. “This will be perfect,” he said looking around.
Over the years the tires of tractors and other farm equipment had beaten two well-worn paths into the clay and grass. Two runners could easily train side-by-side, between the barbed-wire fence on the left and the gully twelve feet away on the right.
“First we will begin with the…” Martin leaned on the shovel and tried to think of the word. “With the blocks.”
“The blocks?” I knew what he meant, but it just didn’t seem like anything worth spending time on. At all the track meets that I had gone to, the blocks weren’t really blocks, they were just holes dug in the track for your feet. But I suspected that at the summer games they would have real blocks.
“Yes,” Martin said. “A short race, like the hundred-metre sprint, is almost always won at the blocks.”
“Huh?”
“I will explain,” he said. “The blocks must be set up perfectly for you, so that your body can jump forward easily and comfortably when you hear the gun.”
I nodded weakly, but wasn’t sure what he meant.
“Now,” he continued, “which leg is your kraft leg—your power leg?”
“Power leg?”
“Yes. With which leg do you kick the fussball?”
“Oh, okay. I kick the soccer ball with my right leg.” I tapped it, to show him I wasn’t totally dense.
“Good. Then that leg will be at the rear of the blocks.” He stuck the spade in the ground and dug a four-inch hole. “We will try several different block positions, to see which is best for you. Then when you are at your Summer Games race, you can set those blocks to that position. Okay?”
That made sense to me, so I nodded again.
He told me to do my normal stretching exercises.
So I did. In fact, I did every warm-up I could think of. As I stretched, Martin kept looking me over, and seemed to be assessing how far from the first hole the second hole should be—the one for my left foot. He took his spade and made another depression in the clay, about eighteen inches from the first.
“Please try that,” he said.
I positioned my feet in the holes and leaned forward on my hands. He had guessed perfectly. Martin’s blocks—or rather, holes—felt more natural than any of those at the high school track field. They had always seemed too close for my long legs. “This feels good,” I said.
Martin used the shovel and scratched a start line two feet from the front block. “We will see,” he said.
He walked five metres ahead and stood off to the side. “Now, Varren, please run from the blocks, as you would in a hundred-metre race. But you need only run twenty metres.”
I positioned myself in the blocks, leaned forward, and waited for Martin to start me.
“Three, two, one, GO!” he shouted.
I leapt from Martin’s blocks with what I thought was lightning speed. Had it been a real race, I think I would have had a great time. Yet when I turned around, I was shocked to see Martin shaking his head.
“We will leave the position of the holes for now,” he said. “I think they are close. We will now work on your start. It can be much better.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Please go to the blocks again.”
I trudged back to the holes, panting from a start that was obviously lousy.
&nb
sp; I positioned my body and waited for further coaching. I had never had coaching like this. In fact, now that I thought about it, I had never had any real instruction. Coach Roberts, the high school track and field coach, was also the math teacher and the science teacher. And he probably didn’t know any of the stuff Martin was showing me. At least, he had never told us these things.
“Stop, please,” Martin said. “Now stand up.”
I did as he said. What was wrong now?
“The faster that you can get out of these holes, the faster will your time be,” Martin said. “Yes?”
“Yes,” I said obediently.
“And to get out of these holes fast, you must position your body correctly.” Martin put his feet in the holes. “Look at my head. Do you see how low it is? And do you see how high my rear is?”
“Yeah.” His head was far lower than mine ever was, and his butt was way up in the air.
“And also,” Martin said, “you should have most of your weight on your arms. But not so much that it is hurting you. Okay?”
I nodded, and we switched places.
“Ahh, that is better,” he said. “Now when I say go, you try it again. Three, two, one, GO!”
I sprang from the blocks, and raced down my twenty metres. Wow, that felt fast. I couldn’t believe the difference the blocks made. And the new body positioning seemed to give my legs explosive power.
“That is better,” Martin said, “but we will make it perfect.”
Martin made me start again over and over, and each time he found some kind of flaw in my technique. First, he said I had to relax. “To win races and to run fast,” he explained, “you cannot be tense or strained.”
Then he said my hands were too far apart, and my head did not look relaxed. Once he was satisfied I had that right, it was my arms. “Straighten them,” he said, “but do not lock the elbows.” There seemed to be no end to the faults he could find. I had had no idea there were so many elements to a great start.
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