Scarlet in Glezentine

Chapter 9 - Gum

I calm down a little, knowing it's almost over. I glance behind me and count no more than 35 people. That's almost half of what had started.

To my amazement, people start trying to talk to Christopher. After a while, everyone else was behind me, almost too exhausted to continue.

I was not.

I wanted to give him a piece of my mind. He was being so rude when everyone went up to talk to him, but he did nothing. Not even a hello.

I speed up and make it to him in no time.

"You're so rude." I say. I mean for it to sound less rude, but I don't have time to think it through. He turned his head a little and looked at me. He raises an eyebrow.

"You are! All those girls come up just to tell you something, but you don't react. You don't respond. You don't even acknowledge their presence. And that's just rude." I say.

I have to take more breaths to keep at the same pace. The prince shrugs.

"That's even ruder! Not caring." I pant, angry.

Before I can do anything else I'll regret, I spot the finish line up ahead. Christopher takes off, and so do I. He's much faster, but I still get second. Third place is father back.

Once over the finish line, I see people marking my number down. I see James with his bright blue hair, easily and go over to talk to him. Adam and Caroline are with him too. They have huge grins on their faces.

"See?" I pant. "Told you I could do it."

I limp over and James sees my leg and his eyes go wide. "What happened?" He asks.

Both Caroline and Adam look down and see it too. Caroline sits me down and gets a wet cloth, meant for the runners after they have finished.

"Are you ready?" She asks. "It might hurt a little." Caroline yanks out the tooth and stops the bleeding. I yelp in pain as it gets yanked from my leg, but it's nothing compared to what it was before. Caroline wipes up the rest of the blood that was previously trailing down my leg.

"Thanks." I say, gratefully.

I look over to the scoreboard. So far, a total of 17 people have finished.

The pressure increases on my leg, and I look down to see Caroline pushing the cloth harder, and some blood seeps through. Caroline has another cloth ready. She's also holding the tooth that was embedded into my leg.

"Can I see the tooth?" I ask.

"Of course!" she says, handing it to me.

It's very sharp, with one side jagged edge and one side smooth. It's about the size of my pinky finger, and is about the same width as the width of my thumb. It is beautiful, yet dangerous, and I instantly love it. I see a little bit of blood on the tip, so I wipe it away. Now it looks perfect.

"Does anyone have any string?" I ask. All three shake their heads.

"Why?" Asks James. "What for?"

"I want to put this on a piece of string so I can wear it on my neck."

"Oh," says James. " If you only need that much, then I have some."

Suddenly, a river nearby pokes up like a finger. James walks over, un phased. He pulls out a small box, opens it, and extracts a thin piece of yarn. He puts the box back and the river returns to normal.

I gape at him as he walks back. "How...? What...? Wow!" I say.

He hands me the string, ignoring my stuttering. I take it, and it feels... strange. I mean, it feels like string, but it feels weird. Something is different about it.

James sees me inspecting it and says, "There's a legend that string burns princesses, because the one who made it, String N, hated princesses. The details are different everywhere, but it's mainly either that she was a princess, or that one of them married her brother and he was killed because of it. So, some string is illegal in Glezentine."

"Wow," I say, shocked.

"It's just a legend though." Says James. "But some say they avoid getting burned by telling the truth. They say it only burns when they're lying. And if they're really good, then the string might even grant them a wish. I know it's not true, but I still think it's cool."

I nod. "That's kinda cool."

I look over to Caroline, to hear what she has to say about the story. I see she's looking behind me, and turn to see lots of people finished, but many were bleeding, and hurt much more than I was.

For a moment, I got really mad at the prince. Everyone here that got hurt, had gotten hurt for him. That meant it was all his fault. Then I remember the halfway flag. They could've stopped there, if they wanted to. Instead, they kept running, not knowing what was ahead.

Only knowing that it was going to be hard. Everyone who survived deserved a prize. I get up to go see the list, but pain shoots up my leg. I groan and sit down.

"Here. Chew on this." Says Caroline, taking a piece of gum from the table and handing it to me. "It'll help."

I pop it into my mouth and feel the pain seep out from my fingers and toes, leaving me feeling peaceful and relaxed.

"You have a plain one, and once we find you a good flavor, then it'll work even better. Do you have a favorite flavor of gum?" Asked Caroline.

"I like strawberry or honey, but I'm not that picky."

She nods. "Okay. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. Once you spit out the gum, or it runs out of flavor, the pain will come back. So if you get better or worse, it'll be more or less pain."

"That's fair," I say, and try to stand again.

"Wait," says Caroline. "I need to put a band-aid on your leg." She quickly puts three on the wound, and says, "you can walk, just be careful."

"I will, I'm just going to the list over there." I walk slowly to a digital screen in the wall that updates as each new person crosses the finish line. I'm surprised to see Scarlet S. in first place. Then I realize that the prince can't compete for himself, so I came first.

So far, 28 people have finished, but I see at least 5 more people who finished, and see all of them have a mixture of exhaustion and relief on their faces.

A crowd of people suddenly arrive. All girls, and I even recognize a few that tried to talk to the prince in the first half of the race. I think it's everyone who stopped at the halfway point.