Record Time
“So you’re saying that if I can do this entire course without so much as ever seeing it you’ll pass me for the entire trimester?” I had already hit record on Flu. “You know. Just for my record. I need to hear it again. Out loud.”
Sergeant Mifflin seethed. “I’m telling you, Hayes. You can’t do it. You start this again and you’ll get more than a write up this time.”
I saluted, my arrogance a small smile on my face.
“Sir, no, sir. If you fear the truth, then I won’t bother learning at all, sir; for I learn more from my teachers than the curriculum. I shall forfeit my education, cause there is truth lurking somewhere in your repudiation.”
Mifflin bent closer to my smile. “That attitude of yours, Hayes. You’ll get put in your place real fast,” he threatened.
“Sir. If I may. I’ve been here several months. I don’t believe that will be today, sir. You have no faith in your own words, you’ve just demonstrated, sir. But, sir, I can vouch that I’ve been put in my place many times in the past and am situated in it, Mister. It sucks.”
That last comment earned snickers from my house sisters and classmates, but an annoyed scoff from one snoot.
Mifflin held my eyes, his receding hairline about to burn off. Let’s hope the red of his face didn’t hit it.
He backed off and turned away.
“Front-and-Center, Hayes! Listen Up! Hayes here, in her arrogant brand of ignorance, has dug herself in a hole! She will run the Jungle III in no more than three square minutes, and not a millisecond over, or Hayes here will labor till her butt falls off on stable duty. All by her lonesome until she graduates!”
Oew.
Not only did he tack off two minutes, but he added that crude tidbit.
I thought about it and shrugged. One, after all, wasn’t the loneliest number, and I fancied myself an independent bumpkin anyway.
“And if I do that successfully you’ll pass me for the entire trimester and not waste my life, I mean, time. I need to hear it, Mister Mifflin, or this is all pointless. Like I said, I learn more from my teachers.”
I’d quit otherwise.
“If you can do it Hayes, and I doubt that you can, then I’ll pass you for the entire trimester. You’ll have a free period until next trimester.”
Ah, a promise of hardships.
I let my smile lighten a bit. “That was all I needed to hear.” I turned off Flu and stuffed it back in my back pocket.
I walked past him to the yellow line and began to warm up.
“Kachow!” the gun went off without warning.
I rolled my eyes.
He knew I wasn’t ready. He was supposed to call it off.
I started running down the dirt path, turning to stick out my tongue. I wouldn’t even use my powers.
This was personal.
First I came across the logs. Rain slicked and inclined, I ran up them, then held both arms up for balance as I slid across three long beams, the slant of each increasing in degree.
The thing about the jungle is if I fell anywhere on any obstacle I’d have to start over from the beginning no matter how much progress was under my belt. Failing anything after the first obstacle was a big no-no.
I jumped down into the mud.
Move it, Hayes!
Next came the beams. Over the high one, under the low one. Over the high one, under the low one, over the high, under the low, into the concrete tunnel. Out of the twenty-foot long tunnel into the mud pit to crawl under the barbed wire. Then from the pit to the swing. Swing over the water to the cargo net. Climb the cargo net to the, um… Ah, to the poles.
Normally, with these poles, I’m guessing you’d have to hug and crawl along the poles, but that wasn’t a set rule and I’ve always been equilibrium’s embodiment. I jumped up, all 120 lbs of me and crossed over the mud, easily walking along the poles. I jumped down, braced my arms and feet against the logs, and pushed myself up the slide.
By now, I was relishing the burn. It’s been a while since I had a challenge like the Jungle.
I got to the top, grabbed the rope, and swiveled down.
Next to last on the course was the bleachers.
Ten thin beams going up. Five green, five orange, the two colors alternating. I was supposed to climb it, under green, over orange, like a weave.
After I got two weaves up, my hand slipped on green and my entire upper body fell, my calves quaking with the effort to hold me up.
“Priestess… give me strength. I will get through this or so help me, I will clean horse poop for many years to come.”
“Ready to give up Hayes!” Mifflin called. “You’re out of time!”
“Nope!”
I pushed my core to the burn maximum and lifted myself until I got my fingers around the beam. I lifted my other arm to the green beam and weaved my body between the two beams, to the next weave.
I rolled when I was done and let my feet find the wood planks and climbed down. I smiled, wanting to bend over and hurl. Man, I was shaking.
I shook my head, getting into it. Bearing with it.
I was now faced with the killer and my old nemesis.
Monkey Bars.
I ran and jumped and grabbed the first bar, swinging to the next, feeling milky acid burn into strained arms.
This… Is… Nothing!
After all: Three months ago I saved the world.
I touched the last bar.
I swung over the gap and let go, touching ground. I ran to the target, jumped and tagged it to finish. Then I bent over, not quite wheezing, but dang near close.
“Time!” I called out when I caught my breath.
Mister Mifflin sucked his teeth.
“You got lucky, Hayes!”
I smiled. I thought I was out of time.
“Time... Mister?”
Oh, man, I needed a new name for the red color of his face. Mifflin Red.
“CALL IT!” Mister Mifflin barked at Chandler
“Two minutes and twenty-nine seconds! Record time, sir!”
“Bull!” Mifflin roared, storming over and snatching the stop watch.
The sudden taste of strawberry licorice in my mouth made me blink and look around.
I heard claps and woots alike, but I was too alarmed to blush or acknowledge it. Hah, blush.
I took one last deep breath as the taste dissipated, then straightened up. Then I saluted Mifflin who was mifflin red.
“As per agreement, Mister, I am returning to my quarters, sir. I will see you again in Spring, Mister!”
“Woohoo! Go Hayes!” people cheered.
“Hayes!”
I felt my temple pulse.
“Sir?” I dialed down, preparing for the worst.
“You are to report the stables at exactly hour 1200 each day for clean up duty for the next six trimesters for insubordination!”
Well, I knew that was coming.
I gave him a bored look. “Mister, whatever, Mister,” I dried my throat. “Frankly, dealing with horse crap is preferable to dealing with your brand of excrement, Mister. If it’s any consolation, I was raised on a farm. I love horses.”
I walked away.
Insubordinate.
I sighed.
“Hayes! Hayes!”
Horses were one of the few animals that didn’t seem to have it out for me. Humans, nm, not so much.
Suddenly, there was that taste so very sweet and overpowering in my mouth again. Licorice.
While I looked around, Aka Ichikawa stepped out of line as I walked by. He made a big deal of clapping.
“Impressive,” he said right in my ear, though I couldn’t be bothered with him. But then he said, “And you did that without using your powers.”
I continued walking by without reacting.
I mean, my brain fired up and my heart seemed to want to have a smack-down rumble with my chest, but I didn’t let it show. Of course not.
Yup. He got no rise out of me and I carried on normally.
“What the heck is his problem?” I asked myself so he’d hear. He needed to know he was weird.
“Y’know! Your powers to finish with a bang? No? Man, I’m lame.”
Without looking I shook my head.
“Licorice.”
Now I knew.
Aka Ichikawa’s arrogant brand of ignorance.
Him, his mother, General Aina Ichikawa, as well as his sister, Aoi Ichikawa. I now knew to keep an eye on them.
Something had shifted when he spoke to me just now.
A new Triple A threat, I hoped they were not.
But I’d investigate them later.
Tonight. Well. I had things to do.
I looked up at the clouds.
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