by R. A. Spratt
The mud run was nowhere near as fun as Tom had thought it would be. There was so much running, which was in itself awful, punctuated by dropping into mud of varying temperatures and depths and thicknesses.
Then there were the obstacles. They didn’t make much sense to Tom at all. He had no idea what was going on. It was just a whirlwind of April screaming instructions at him, like ‘put your foot there!’, ‘the other foot!’ and ‘hold on tight so you don’t drop to your death!’.
Now it was starting to get hot. The race had started at 10 am, but it was nearing noon and the sun was high in the sky. It was beating down on Tom’s mud-caked head and back as he crawled under barbed wire.
Tom hadn’t believed April at first when she’d said there was barbed wire. That would be too dangerous. It would be irresponsible. The organisers would never allow it. He assumed April was messing with him, but he soon found out that she was right and he was wrong when he stretched out a cramping leg and got a nasty big scrape up the side of his calf.
The worst bit was that no one was kind to him or sympathetic in the least. Tom didn’t like it when people fussed over him for being vision-impaired, but now that he was totally anonymous (the mud had soon covered the hideous orange vest so he looked no different from the other competitors), he didn’t like the total lack of attention either. He was so used to having all his achievements acknowledged and praised by everyone he knew, and even people he didn’t know, that being totally ignored felt very lonely.
All he had was April. He found himself growing to quite like her. She was very angry and abusive, but she was there and she was endlessly optimistic and upbeat. She actually seemed to be enjoying the torture. The worse the obstacles became the more cheerful she got. She seemed to thrive on the misery of her fellow competitors. Her little dog was just as bad. He was following along with them, dodging round the obstacles. Tom couldn’t see Pumpkin, but he could hear his little footsteps, the constant yapping and the random cries of pain from other competitors when the dog bit them.
‘Come on, Tom!’ yelled April. ‘You’re slowing me down.’
Tom could feel April dragging him forward through the mud by the lanyard.
‘Don’t make me do all the work!’ April barked this command with such authority that against all conscious will, Tom struggled to move his arms and legs faster to propel himself forward.
‘Good boy,’ said April. ‘I’ll give you a treat later.’
‘I’m not a dog,’ mumbled Tom.
‘No, true,’ agreed April. ‘I like dogs. Come on, we’ve got “The Sarcophagus” next. I can see it up ahead.’
‘What?’ muttered Tom. He felt faint. He was on his feet now, but he felt like the weight of all the mud caked about his body was pulling him back towards the ground.
‘The Sarcophagus,’ explained April. ‘It’s a great big pyramid, like the ones in Egypt. There’s handholds in the shape of hieroglyphs, but they drop off if you hold them too long. It’s covered in mud, and if you lose your grip you slide down into the mud moat at the bottom. It looks awesome. Let’s do it!’ Tom felt a sharp tug at the lanyard. He lurched forward a step, then stopped.
‘No,’ he muttered.
‘What?’ said April.
‘I can’t go on,’ said Tom.
‘You’ll be fine,’ said April. ‘There isn’t really an ancient Egyptian dead body inside. It’s just something Fin made up from the timber out the back of Dad’s shed.’
‘No, not the obstacles,’ said Tom. ‘I can’t keep going. I can’t move. I’m done.’
April’s voice came from closer now. She had moved up right by him.
‘You’re kidding me,’ said April. ‘This whole thing was your idea.’
‘I know,’ said Tom weakly.
‘You wanted to prove something,’ said April. ‘I can’t remember what it was, but it was something about principles and values and important stuff like that.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Tom.
‘So what happened to your principles and values?’ demanded April. ‘You’ve come this far. We’re three quarters of the way through the course. We’ve only got about thirty minutes to go.’
‘I can’t go on another minute,’ said Tom. He sank down on his knees. ‘I think I’m dying.’
Tom felt April’s hand on his face. She scraped the dried mud off his forehead, then laid the back of her hand against it.
‘You’re not dying, you daft drama queen,’ said April almost affectionately. ‘You’ve overheated. It’s the mud. It’s caked on you so thick, it’s stopped you from sweating and cooling down. You’ll be all right. We’ve just got to drop your body temperature to a normal level.’
Tom sensed her stand up.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked. He didn’t want to be left alone.
‘Nowhere without you,’ said April distractedly. ‘The lanyard, remember?’
Tom felt grateful for the lanyard.
‘There!’ said April. ‘You can cool down in there.’
Tom felt the lanyard yank. April wanted him to stand up. ‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Just leave me here.’
‘I can’t leave you here,’ said April. ‘You’re in everyone’s way. Besides, I want to finish this stupid race. The whole thing was your idea. I’ll get in trouble with Mr Lang if I abandon you in a mud pit in the middle of Main Street.’
‘I can’t move,’ said Tom. ‘I’m too tired.’
‘We’re only going to walk twenty metres,’ said April. ‘We’re right by the bank. Banks always have excellent air conditioning. We’ll get you in there and you’ll cool down. Then when you’re feeling better we can come back out and complete the race.’
Tom shook his head.
‘Don’t shake your head at me,’ chided April. ‘You know I’m right. Come on, get on your feet. Just think of the air conditioning.’
The idea of air conditioning did sound blissful. Tom felt April grab hold of his arm and help him to his feet. She put her arm around his waist and helped him stagger forward.
Squelch, squelch, squelch. Tom could hear the mud sucking on his shoes as April led him towards the bank. But then, as soon as they stepped into the entrance way, he could feel it. The blessed relief of air conditioning.
‘There’s an old lady chair over there,’ said April.
‘What’s an “old lady chair”?’ asked Tom.
‘You know,’ said April. ‘Banks and supermarkets always have them. A place for old people to sit down so they don’t fall over and sue everybody. You can go and sit on that while you cool down.’
‘They won’t like me getting it muddy,’ whispered Tom.
‘They won’t know what to do about it,’ said April. ‘The bank won’t have a protocol for handling incredibly muddy children in the standard operating procedures that they force their staff to learn during employee training.’
‘Huh?’ said Tom.
‘Trust me,’ said April. ‘I’ve seen it a million times. It’s human nature. The safer someone’s job is, the less likely they are to take initiative. With air conditioning this good, no bank teller would want to jeopardise their job. The first teller who spots us won’t feel confident enough to act unilaterally. He’ll ask another teller what to do, then they’ll both ask the manager so that the blame is shared if the decision is wrong. Then finally one of them will decide to tell us to leave.’
‘Then we go?’ asked Tom.
‘No,’ said April. ‘Then they’ll have to come out from behind the secured area to do that, which will mean more fuss. So by the time someone is actually standing in front of us asking us to leave, we’ll have been here ten minutes and you will have cooled down enough to continue the race.’
‘You’ve put a lot of thought into this,’ Tom observed.
‘I’m surprised more people don’t,’ said April. ‘Knowing exactly what you can get away with is an important life skill.’
‘It is when you’re as annoying as you are,’ said Tom.
‘Exactly
,’ said April as she unclipped the lanyard. ‘You can’t have a personality like mine and not know the limitations of what people can and will tolerate. Luckily, the answer is usually a lot.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Tom, panicking as he heard April’s voice move away.
‘To the water cooler to get you a drink, dimwit,’ said April.
Tom could now hear the glug, glug, glug of the water cooler being used.
‘What, did you think I’d abandoned you?’ asked April as she shoved the paper cup into his hand.
‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ said Tom, taking a sip. The water was icy cold and tasted heavenly. It was filtered, so there was no chlorine or other chemical tastes you associate with tap water. But, most importantly, it didn’t taste like mud, which had been the only liquid in Tom’s mouth in the last two hours.
‘Hey, you two!’ a teller called out from the other side of the counter. ‘You can’t be in here covered in mud like that.’
‘That only took them two and a half minutes,’ said April. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘We should go,’ said Tom, finishing his drink.
‘You need to cool down,’ said April. ‘We won’t go until they come out from behind the counter. That bullet proof glass might protect them from robbers, but it also protects us from them.’
‘You’re getting mud everywhere,’ called the other teller.
‘We’re having a medical emergency here,’ April called back. ‘Why don’t you leave us alone?’
The two tellers went over to their manager in a back office and they all muttered among themselves. April leaned against the wall next to Tom and waited.
Just then, the door to the bank opened and Mr Chelsea from the Chelsea Bakery stepped in. He had a large cloth sack in his hand. He glanced at April and Tom. He had no idea who they were because they were covered in mud, but it was a small town so it was best to assume they were nice, so he nodded politely.
The bank manager finished her conversation with the two tellers. She called out across the counter, ‘Hello, Mr Chelsea, we’ll be with you in a moment.’ She had a less warm tone when she spoke to April. ‘We’ll call an ambulance for you.’
‘Hah!’ said April. ‘Good luck with that. There’s a massive mud slide blocking off the whole of Main Street, in case you hadn’t noticed. There’s no way an ambulance could get anywhere near the building. They’d have to push the gurney down the mud slide. Then you’d get even more mud in here.’
‘You can’t just stay there,’ said the manager. ‘You’re getting mud all over the carpet. At the very least you could tie the dog up outside.’
Pumpkin was chewing on a captive pen that was dangling over the side of the counter. He was growling and trying to tug it off its chain.
Mr Chelsea gave them a wide berth as he made his way over to the teller. The local health inspector was a nasty man. It would be just like him to spring a surprise inspection on Mud Run Day. He couldn’t afford to get mud on his baking clothes.
‘No,’ said April. ‘I don’t have to. He’s a therapy dog. I’ve got a certificate. He’s allowed in shops and restaurants.’
The bank manager peered over the counter at Pumpkin. He was a small Moodle. But he looked particularly tiny now that all his fur was caked flat with mud. ‘I’ve never seen such a small guide dog before,’ said the bank manager.
‘He’s not a guide dog for Tom,’ said April. ‘He’s my therapy dog. He provides me with emotional support and helps me with my anger management issues.’
Tom made a scoffing noise. ‘He doesn’t do a very good job then. You’re angry all the time.’
‘On the contrary,’ said April. ‘You should have seen how angry I was before I got a dog.’
‘You’re just making this up,’ accused the manager. ‘Go on, you’ve had your laugh. You need to go.’
‘You’ll have to come out here and make me leave,’ challenged April. ‘But it won’t look great for you in tomorrow’s paper when there’s the headline “Cruel Bank Manager Throws Out Sick Blind Boy”.’
‘A newspaper headline would have more alliteration,’ said Tom. ‘It would be something like “Mean Manager Manhandles Blind Boy”.’
‘You’re not blind, remember?’ said April. ‘It would be “Mean Manager Monsters Vision-Impaired Victim”.’
‘Now wait a second, I haven’t “monstered” anybody,’ said the bank manager, who was, to be fair, a genuinely nice middle-aged lady. She didn’t look like she could intimidate a kitten. April had a brief pang of conscience.
‘That’s okay,’ said April, pushing off from the wall. ‘He’s cooled down now. We were about to leave anyway. Come on, Tom.’
Tom stood up and April moved to re-clip the lanyard.
BANG!
The door of the bank flew open, slamming into April’s head as she bent over. She was knocked out cold. As she collapsed on the floor, the lanyard pulled Tom down on top of her.
Neil, covered in mud but still recognisable because of his unusually potato-shaped head, stepped into the bank. His eyes immediately fell upon April, prostrate on the ground.
‘What did you do to her?’ he demanded, grabbing Tom by his collar. ‘I’m trying to win this race for her, and you’ve knocked her out!’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ protested Tom, struggling to breathe. Neil had freakishly good wrist strength.
‘You can’t fight in here!’ protested the bank manager. She briefly considered making an attempt to pull the boys apart. She had two sons of her own at home, so she was used to being called on to be the referee in impromptu rock’n’roll wrestling bouts. But she was wearing a newly dry-cleaned bank uniform and these two boys were just so dirty.
BANG!
Suddenly the bank door flew open again. This time it slammed into Neil’s back and knocked him down on the floor.
‘That’s quite enough,’ said the manager, turning to confront the new arrival. ‘No mud-covered people in the bank, please.’
‘THIS IS A ROBBERY!’ yelled the mud-covered person in a deep, raspy voice. ‘Everyone, down on the floor.’
‘We’re already down on the floor,’ complained Tom, who was sandwiched between Neil and April.
‘Just do as he says,’ said the manager. She called out to her staff on the other side of the counter, ‘Follow your training.’ Then she lay down on the floor next to the mud-covered children.
‘HAND OVER ALL THE CASH!’ the robber yelled at the first teller.
WHACK! The bandit screen flew up.
‘I told you to do as he says!’ cried the manager.
‘You told us to do what we’d been taught in training,’ called the teller, her voice muffled by the bandit screen. ‘And we were trained to trigger the bandit screen when an intruder enters the bank. The police have been automatically notified. They’ll be here soon.’
‘I thought Constable Pike was doing the mud run?’ said Tom. ‘It’ll be hard to find him among all the other mud-covered people.’
The robber looked around desperately. There was no chance of getting cash from the tellers now, but Mr Chelsea was holding a brown hessian sack, the type small businesses use when they deposit their takings. ‘You!’ ordered the robber. ‘Give me that sack.’
‘No, please,’ said Mr Chelsea. ‘Do you have any idea how many buns I’ve had to bake for this? The mud run is my biggest week of the year. This is the only chance I’ve got of covering the prize money.’
‘Give me the sack!’ demanded the robber. Having gone to all the trouble to rob the bank, there was no way the thief was leaving empty-handed.
‘Just do it,’ urged the manager. ‘You’ll be covered by insurance.’
April staggered to her feet. She was still disorientated from the bang on the head. ‘It’s all right, I’ll take him out.’ She lurched towards the bank robber, but she was pulled up short by the lanyard and fell backwards landing flat on her back. ‘What happened?’ she asked groggily. ‘Did someone just attack me?’
‘I think you attacked yourself,’ said Tom.
The bank robber used the distraction to wrench the sack from Mr Chelsea’s hands, then fled out the door.
‘Quick, someone do something,’ moaned Mr Chelsea.
April ran over to the front door, dragging Tom with her. She looked out onto the street. She was looking for a mud-covered person running away from her. The problem was there was a mud run going on, so there were several hundred mud-covered people running down the street. They all looked exactly the same, dripping with thick brown mud. Loud music was blaring to encourage the athletes, but it just meant there was no way of crying out for help. April took off running, pulling Tom along.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Tom.
‘We’ve got to get to the finish line and alert the authorities,’ said April. ‘Or at the very least turn off this stupid music so we can find the thief.’
Joe was swinging on a rope in the Daffodil Gardens. He would have enjoyed acting out this classic Tarzan scenario under normal circumstances, but not today. He was exhausted. He was covered in mud. Every muscle in his body ached, and he was pretty sure he was tearing skin off his hands trying to hang onto this mud soaked rope. All Loretta’s training had paid off. He didn’t feel like he’d learned any skills running around the equine centre, but he had learned how to endure pain and discomfort which was all he had left to rely on now.
It was hard to tell where he was in the race. There was so much mud and so many obstacles obscuring his view in every direction. But Joe knew he had been passing a lot of people on the course. He wasn’t surrounded by a crush of athletes anymore. And the athletes around him now were of the seriously fit variety. There wasn’t much complaining and collapsing. Just super fit men mainly, jauntily leaping up, onto and over obstacles. But Joe was managing to pass even these athletes.
Joe was six foot two and had broad shoulders, so he was big for a fifteen-year-old. But he was still light compared to a full-grown man, and that came as a huge advantage when you’re wading through mud. The big heavy athletes were getting bogged in the trenches, some even losing shoes as they tried to pull their feet out. Joe was getting closer to the end. There were only a couple obstacles to go.