Racing in the Rain Read Online Free PDF Page B

someone’s crushing my skull,” she said. I couldn’t respond. I had no words. There was nothing I could do. “Someone’s crushing my skull,” she repeated.
    And quickly she gathered some things while I watched. She shoved Zoë’s clothes in a bag and some of her own and toothbrushes. All so fast. And she roused Zoë and stuffed her little-kid feet into her little-kid sneakers and— bang —the door slammed shut. And then— snick, snick —the dead bolt was thrown and they were gone.
    And I wasn’t gone. I was there. I was still there.

Chapter Ten
    I deally, a driver is a master of all that is around him, Denny says. Ideally, a driver controls the car so completely that he corrects a spin before it happens. He anticipates all possibilities. But we don’t live in an ideal world. In our world, surprises sometimes happen, mistakes happen. Incidents with other drivers happen, and a driver must react.
    When a driver reacts, Denny says, it’s important to remember that a car is only as good as its tires. If the tires lose their grip, nothing else matters. Not engine power, speed, or braking. Nothing else counts when a skid starts. Until the tires regain their grip, the driver is unable to control the car. And that’s a bad situation.
    It is important for the driver to override his natural fear. When a car begins to spin, the driver may panic and lift his foot off the gas. If he does, he will throw the weight of the car toward the front wheels. Then the rear end will snap around, and the car will spin.
    A good driver will try to stop the spin by turning his wheels in the direction the car is moving. He may succeed. However, at a critical point, the skidding stops, and suddenly the tires grip the road but his front wheels are now turned in the wrong direction. This causes a counterspin in the other direction. This secondary spin is much faster and more dangerous.
    If, however, when his tires begin to break free, our driver increases the pressure on the accelerator, and at the same time eases out on the steering wheel ever so slightly, this will lessen the lateral g-forces at work. The spin will therefore be corrected.
    So, our driver is still in control of his car. He is still able to act in a positive manner. He still can create an ending to his story in which he completes the race without incident. And, perhaps, if his creating is good, he will win.

Chapter Eleven
    W hen I was locked in the house suddenly and firmly, I did not panic. I quickly and carefully took stock of the situation and understood these things: Eve was ill, and the illness was possibly affecting her judgment. Also she likely would not return for me; I knew that Denny would be home on the third day, after two nights.
    I am a dog, and I know how to go without food. For three days I took care to ration the toilet water. I wandered around the house sniffing at the crack beneath the pantry door and fantasizing about a big bowl of my kibble. I was able to scoop up the occasional dust-covered Cheerio Zoë had dropped in a corner somewhere. And I did my business on the mat by the back door, next to the laundry machines. I did not panic.
    During the second night, approximately forty hours into my solitude, I think I began to see things that weren’t there. I heard a sound coming from Zoë’s bedroom. When I investigated, I saw something terrible and frightening. One of her stuffed animal toys was moving about on its own.
    It was the zebra. The now-living zebra said nothing to me at all, but when it saw me it began a dance, a twisting, jerky ballet. It began to tease and taunt a Barbie doll. That made me quite angry, and I growled at the evil zebra, but it simply smiled and continued, this time picking on a stuffed frog, which it rode like a horse, its hoof in the air like a bronco rider, yelling out, “Yee-haw! Yee-haw!”
    I stalked the zebra as it abused and humiliated each of