Hurricane Power Read Online Free PDF Page B

simple. Each week we’ll have a sprint. The top five go to the meet; the slowest two don’t. That way, if you miss one week, you’ll have a chance the following one. And none of you in the top five will get lazy about keeping your spot. Any questions?”
    None.
    â€œGood,” Coach Lewis said. “This will be a practice run. It will give each of you a good idea where you stand and how much work you need to do. Tomorrow you’ll race to see who competes in the meet.”
    He lined us up in the blocks. I fingered the small silver cross that hung around my neck and concentrated on what I’d learned the day before. Crouch, rise, push off. A lot of our training time had been spent on form. Shaving a tenth of a second off at the blocks might mean the difference between first and last.
    As Coach Lewis jogged to the finish line, Jason spoke to me out of the side of his mouth.
    â€œHey, loser,” he said. “Remember our little deal. I don’t expect to see you here tomorrow.”
    What he didn’t know was that he couldn’t say or do anything to make me afraid of him. Not after what I’d gone through with my dad the year before.
    â€œKeep talking,” I said. “You’ll just make me run faster.”
    He laughed. So did the others. Again, I should have wondered why.
    Coach Lewis was now a hundred yards away. He had his stopwatch in one hand and a starter pistol in the other.
    â€œTake your mark...,” he called out.
    We moved into a ready position in the blocks.
    â€œSet...”
    We got set.
    Bang!
    I was up and running!
    I didn’t look to either side. I pumped my arms. My whole world became a tunnel of motion, a tunnel that sucked me forward as I seemed to fly.
    I’d never really known how fast I could run until yesterday, testing myself against the others. It had seemed so easy and natural to pull away from them. That had amazed me.
    This time was no different.
    Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw no motion. No other flying arms or pushing legs that signaled I was losing ground. I easily held my spot in the lead.
    Twenty-five yards. A heartbeat later, thirty.
    Then...
    PAIN. Shooting pain in the balls of my feet.
    I stumbled, not understanding what had happened.
    But I wanted to win so badly, my legs kept pumping. They seemed to be working apart from the message of pain in my brain.
    Fifty yards. Sixty...
    It felt like someone was jabbing knives into my feet. The harder my feet hit the ground, the harder the knives stabbed me.
    But I wasn’t going to quit.
    The pain began to make me angry, so angry that I screamed.
    But I kept running. I let the anger push me into a rage that drove me harder.
    Seventy.
    I saw someone reaching me on the left. Then on the right.
    I screamed louder. Pushed harder. More pain. Sharp, killing pain on the bottoms of my feet.
    Eighty...
    Ninety...
    I screamed again.
    A hundred yards. I finished first, barely ahead of Jason.
    But the pain drove me to my knees. I let myself fall, skinning my knees on the track. I rolled over and over and over, feeling the track shred the skin off my shoulders and elbows.
    When I finally came to a stop, I took a couple of deep breaths.
    My feet felt like I’d been running on nails.
    I pulled off my shoe and saw blood.
    I turned the shoe over. And I saw three thumbtacks that had been pushed into the sole.
    In a flash, I understood.
    Someone had gotten into my locker. Someone had put tacks in my shoes. It wasn’t until the pounding of the sprint that I had driven them through the soles and into my feet.
    It didn’t take too much brainpower tofigure out who had done it. And that a bunch of the others knew about it too.
    My first thought was to show the shoe to Coach Lewis.
    My chance came as he walked toward me with a worried look on his face.
    â€œYou all right?” Coach Lewis asked.
    Behind him I could see the other guys. They were smirking. Like they had just played a great