His name tiptoes across Dinah’s lips as she fights the tide of sweating bodies. Their success rests on her shoulders. The students exit the classrooms, making their way into the corridor; the skeletal belly of a whale.

“Peter!”

An arm tows her through the crowd. His hair is uncharacteristically messy, sticking out in tufts like a hatchling; a dark shade of coffee. His shirt untucked, eyes bright and alert, playful almost as he touches the lapel of her polo neck; the required Sport’s Day uniform.

“Nice kit!” She doesn’t know if he’s being genuine. He moves in, until their faces are almost touching. Eyes like evergreen forests, consistent and secure.

“Kary twisted her leg, and we need you to run in her place, Peter. Hurry! It’s us two, Violet and Tony.” She garbles, pulling him with all her might towards the doors but realises he isn’t budging.

“You haven’t asked me nicely yet.” He grins, highlighting the slight dimple in his left cheek, sharp green eyes sparkling with mischief.

“I’ll ask you nicely.”

Alex Kirby blocks their path, his group of followers with their gangling legs and leering smiles, like vultures Dinah thinks, as they crowd round his six-foot frame. They follow his every whim and request with eagerness, watching his emotions intently, mirroring, every action tied to his. She has never seen them existing alone.

Put on report for disruption and violent behaviour, Alex is egotistic and arrogant, heavily built with flint eyes that impale the unsuspecting student with its gaze; one brown the other with a green pigment mutation. A spec, unnoticeable until you got too close, and by then it was probably too late. It reminds Dinah they are in the belly of a machine. For the school was a machine of well-oiled cogs, a breeding ground for rebellious youths to exercise their rights and reinforce subordination. Training for the future…

He takes a step closer and Peter moves instinctively, with a quickness that is not down to chance, but years of measured practice. “Push off Alex!”

“Oh yeah?” Alex smirks. “I admire your gallantry, but the odds don’t seem in your favour.” He gestures to his gang. Then, quick as an arrow; “you get my note sweetheart?”

“Why don’t you go and find another classroom to trash? Cos we know that’s all you do nowadays.” There’s an edge to Peter’s voice, strained.

“Note? What note?” She asks quickly, as Alex’s knuckles clench into formidable rocks. Peter had paid for too much on her account.

Alex exchanges glances with Ewan. Ewan the mutilator they called him, and it makes you wonder really, as nobody gets a nickname like that undeserved.

An onlooker peering at the scene, worriedly chewing their lip and wondering if they should help, would realise it was a battle of wills. Neither side would yield, nor wave their hands up in the air, brandishing a white flag of surrender.

“The note I slipped into your locker, days ago. You know…” Alex insinuates. On ya, va encore une fois …here we go again Dinah thinks in French.

“Kirby!”

Alex turns swiftly, composing his features into one of innocence; all in vain, for Mrs Kinsley had been exposed to Alex’s devious ways for too long. Their head of year stands, a titan whose shadows itself seems to obscure all light from entering the corridor. “Alex. Come to my office now. And Josh,” She turns to a boy sheltering behind Alex, a look of terror mixed with orange hair, too slow to scarper. He turns a shade of beetroot after the mention of his name.

“I want one good reason why you didn’t hand in your Chemistry yesterday, and if it’s not satisfactory, you can join your mate in detention.”

*

Sport’s Day. The track is cleared; turf ploughed straight like newly dug graves. Sky a saturated grey like an overburdened sponge. The metallic batons glint in their box, winking with possibility. It is the faces of the racers though that everyone watches; fierce and determined. The splintered screaming, banners waving from the bank to support their house. Dinah’s pulse is beating in the level of her stomach. Somewhere thereabouts as if one cough and her heart will come speeding out and land, pumping on the ground.

Violet’s smoky blue eyes look even more doleful and tragic on the field. Violet, the girl who draws historical figures on lunch break instead of eating; paper her food. Her mind filled with kings and queens of yore, and battles that, at this moment seemed preferable to what they had to do. “I’m running against Alice. Why do I feel like Lady Jane Gray before her execution? I don’t think I can do this…” Then three voices are speaking at once.

“I can swap with you.” Dinah says; her compassionate soul reaching out to her best friend and confidante.

“I’m sorry guys. It’s too late for that. The order’s fixed.” Kary swallows her golf ball of fear. Don't you throw up now she commands herself. “I'm sorry.” She repeats, offering no more to the pale faces of her friends but an apology for her injury on the field. She plaits her auburn hair tight into a ponytail, moving to get a better view of their competition. Alice Bennett shines a star of contempt in the crowd; a nasty, vain girl who loves to cause drama and pain at others' expense. She simpers by the band stands, Alex’s top cheerleader, stretching and posing, squealing with laugher that could be heard fields over. Those two were a dangerous combination at the best of times. She likes Peter too, but that is stuff of rumours.

“So, this may not be the right moment to admit, but I think I have the flu-”

“I hope you’re joking Tony,” Kary snaps, eyes flashing.

“Oh come on! It’s not like I won’t race.” Tony says defensively. He elbows Peter and winks wickedly. “Let me go to the medical room and say ‘can I have a few painkillers please’ and I’m all yours Kary.” The sound of sniffing trails away with his size 10 feet. He doesn’t make it far before a teacher points him back. “Starting positions!”

“Have some faith.” Peter takes a big gulp of air. “It will be over before you know it,” he reassures Dinah, who looks as if she’s trying hard to stop her breakfast from resurfacing. “You'll be fine. I promise.” Then, when she nods reluctantly- “Did I tell you about the stick insect I used to have?”

“It fell down the back of the radiator? You had to use a pair of chopsticks to carry it out. Right?” Dinah asks.

“Well you've practically told the story now.” He grins.

Kary turns to Violet, whose blonde ringlets billow like a candyfloss cloud around her pale face. She warns, “Alice’s team will try their best to cheat with Alex on her side. We’re on the outside lane, so it appears we have longer to run. But we start further ahead. When you pass the crowd, try to stay on your feet.”

“What do you mean?” Violet stutters.

“Alex will get someone to trip you up. So be careful-” A whistle pierces the rest of her warning. The cheering of the crowd finally reaches a crescendo, surging and swelling like a battle cry, then silence. Kary hugs Violet and Dinah, punches Tony on the arm and gives Peter a quick salute. She hobbles to the baseline to watch.

“This is the reason I didn't put my name down to race-” Peter admits. “They won't fight fair.”

“So, you would leave us to race alone without you?” Violet is not impressed.

“You know I would never do that. But there were only 4 spaces, I talked to Tony about it-” And she knows he speaks the truth, he has never let them down. At this point, Violet’s mental landscape looks like this: Panic and the image of broken bones and an animalistic wrestle to the finish line. Defeat, followed by hours of cursing, if not days in Tony’s case; and Kary’s hatred filled binge eating of chocolate and anything high in carbs and sugar. They needed all the luck they could get.

*

There is a loud blast and smoke flies from the gun. The race begins. Peter shoots forward, the blue baton weaving, legs pummelling the air. He is a speck travelling across the field, gaining ground, as passes it on to Dinah, his arm an extension of his being. So fast…Violet barely has time to blink. Like a hummingbird’s heartbeat, her own legs are carrying her past the line in momentum, arm reaching backwards to catch the baton from Dinah; skin brushing. Her fingers curl around the cold metal, and she is off. Breath in, out, eyes forward.

And there! She barely has time to swerve, the leg a buttress root, part of the earth, part of the track itself. As Violet winds back onto the track, she knows for Dinah and the rest of the friends this is more than a race; it is a message, to Alex. They are a team, and as a team they have the strength to fight. 

‘Give me the egg and spoon any day’ she mumbles breathlessly, as the baton slips and nearly flies out of her hand. Alice is catching up fast. Violet passes it onto Tony like it is a bomb, she would have thrown it to the finishing line if she could. She stumbles to a halt, inhaling deeply as Alice’s gold baton is passed on. A boy in a green T-shirt meanders into Tony’s lane, his shoelaces flapping with a life of its own. They are shoulder to shoulder now.

Realising at last that it is down to him, Tony sets up the pace, bursting forward with renewed strength he had not known he possessed, knowing this was now or never. His mind is clear. No thought of the months of training that took him to this moment; or the spectators' eyes like needle heads. Setting his sights on the approaching silver ribbon, something elusive, yet attainable. His long legs slice the air, bending his body forward.

As Tony passes the finishing line in first place, the triumphant roar of the crowd is deafening.