Finishing Kick

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I'm supposed to run with this thing? Callie thought. The rubber chicken sat heavy in her hand, squishy, limp, and cold, the red-painted legs and head flopping over the edges of her glove, jiggling in the air. Ick.

"Let me see!"

Callie turned toward Jenifer's voice as her sister's arm snaked around to reach the fake poultry.

"Very cool! Can I run the first leg?" asked Jenifer as she snagged the chicken from her sister. "It's naked!"

"I think you mean plucked."

"Nope, meant naked," said Jenifer with an impish grin, bouncing the chicken in front of her by a single leg pinched between her fingers. "See?"

Callie's lips twitched at the corners, and she turned away from Jen, who was jouncing over to show their parents. Across the road in the gravel parking lot, she saw the twins getting out of their minivan while at the other end of the lot Mark was parking his black Jeep. Turnout for the race was pretty good, with about sixty teams milling around, smiling as they recognized friends in the small crowd. Some runners were jogging up on the asphalt path of the levee, warming up. She watched them, noting the difference between the serious runners and the seriously talented ones. The latter seemed to glide and were nearly silent as they went by, their feet flicking the ground and propelling them forward with no wasted effort.

"Hey, you," said Mark, coming up behind her.

"Hey back," Callie responded.

"How are you doing?" Mark glanced over to her sister. "You running with Jenifer?"

"Yep. She's been pestering me all week. She's running the first leg."

"You running the other three?" The race was set up with four legs, each two miles, with the runners taking turns as they finished each elongated lap.

Callie shook her head. "Nope, she wants to do both of hers."

"Wear her out early. Good idea." The junior high and high school teams intermingled on the track, and Jen had been a regular at the cross-country meets, cheering for Callie and the other girls. He started to say something else but stopped as a gust of wind buffeted them and sent the entry forms at the registration desk scattering.

"I hate wind," said Mark.

Callie stifled a grin. The day was clear and crisp but was already into the forties, which for Thanksgiving Day in the northern half of the country was downright balmy. The wind was a different matter, gusting to twenty miles per hour.

After a particularly windy mile the previous spring at a track meet in Oregon, Mark had searched and found the equations for wind resistance and running. Using them, he reengineered the results to show that, absent wind, he had won. It hadn't changed the race results, but he said it made him feel better. Nobody bothered to double-check his figures.

Callie didn't like the cold but didn't complain. Even with the warmer temperatures, she was wearing black wind pants and jacket along with her gloves, multicolored with stripes of pink, green, and navy blue, and a beanie to match. When it came time to run, she'd strip down to shorts and the wind jacket. Overheating sucked but until it was her turn she planned to stay warm.

Anna and Hanna jogged over. Today, they were wearing matching black running capris with red stripes, Cloverland sweatshirts, and ponytails. The sweatshirts had just their last name printed on the back. Each had on one blue sock and one green sock and Asics shoes. For as long as Callie had known the twins, they had worn the mismatched socks.