Jackson was still coughing quite a bit by the end of the week and every time he practiced running his cough got worse. He prayed every day that God would take his cough away in time for the big race but it didn’t seem to be working. The day of the Twilight Race was getting closer and he didn’t know if he would be well enough to run in it. He gazed out of the bus window at the grey clouds that were gathering in the distance and hoped he would finally find a way to convince his parents he should enter the race.
Beyonce plopped down beside him in a puff of perfume and pink stuff. She dropped her pink backpack on the floor of the bus and turned on her pink iPhone. “Yes!” She exclaimed. Jared imprinted on me. I’ve always thought he was the hottest. Did you know he’s Cree?”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jackson as the bus lurched down the road. “Who’s Jared?” Jackson could hardly believe that Beyonce was sitting right there beside him on the bus. That had certainly never happened before. Come to think of it no girl had voluntarily sat down beside him anywhere. But Beyonce seemed to be enamored with this Jared person who was imprinting on her or something.
Beyonce looked up from her iPhone in surprise. “You don’t know who Jared Cameron is? From ‘Twilight’?”
Jackson still looked blank.
“He’s in the wolf pack on the ‘Twilight’ movies.”
Jackson didn’t want to admit to Beyonce that his family didn’t really approve of the ‘Twilight’ movies. Mom and Kokum had a tendency to go on and on about vampires and shape shifters being nothing to make light of or focus on. They said we didn’t have to disappoint God by spending money to look at things that made him angry.
Beyonce didn’t seem to notice Jackson’s hesitation as she rattled on about her movie crush. “I just did a quiz on line about which one of the wolf pack would be most likely to imprint on me and it was Jared.” She squealed. “When you run in the race tomorrow will you run with your shirt on or off?”
“What?” sputtered Jackson his face draining of color? “Is that what the Twilight Race is all about?”
He had thought it was just named that because the days were getting shorter and they would all be running the race at twilight. Is that why his parents looked kind of strained whenever he mentioned getting better in time for the race? Jackson took time to cough into his sleeve. It gave him a moment to recover his composure. “My shirt?” he croaked.
“Yes,” smiled Beyonce right into his troubled eyes. “I just love it when those super hot guys run with their shirts off and then burst into their wolf phase.”
The bus lurched to a stop and Jackson had to tear his gaze away from Beyonce’s to gather up his back pack and his composure so he could get out at his driveway.
“Absolutely not!” Jackson was helping his mom dry the dishes after supper. He had just asked once again if he could run in the race the next day. “You know how we feel about the ‘Twilight’ movies. You’ve had experience with evil. You know that it’s nothing to play around with. For heaven’s sake, you were screaming for God’s help in the middle of the night not too long ago. And now you want to run a race that honors vampires and werewolves?”
Jackson had been drying the same blue dish for a long time.
How could he explain to his mom about Beyonce sitting next to him on the bus for the very first time because he was going to run in the race . . . possibly without his shirt? Nope. He couldn’t mention that.
How could he tell her that running was the only thing he could do well and that he needed something to impress the kids at school with? That didn’t sound like a topic he could discuss with mom either so he just kept drying the dish.
“You’re going to rub a hole in that plate.” Jackson’s mom said dryly.
“Werewolves aren’t even real mom.” Jackson managed to sound sarcastic as he put the blue dish in the cupboard and picked up a wet one from the rack. “I just like running, that’s all.”
“I know you do my son. And you will have plenty of chances to run in races that honor God. Besides, you aren’t really over that cough yet. I don’t want you to get sick again by stressing out your lungs.”
Jackson didn’t say anything for a long time. He knew it was useless to argue with his mom when her mind was made up. Drying the dishes gave him time to come up with an idea though.
The next evening he had to pretend to be sick again. He coughed his guts out after supper and hardly even had to fake it ‘cause his cold hadn’t really gone away. His mom had sent him to bed early. Now he was in his room preparing for the Twilight Race.
Jackson got out his dark brown toque, stuffed it with a t-shirt and laid it in the hollow that his head made on the pillow. Then he packed his blanket with bunched up clothes. He stepped back and looked at his handiwork, stuffed another pair of jeans into the place where his hips would usually be and nodded his head in satisfaction. Next, Jackson put his iPad underneath the brown toque and turned on the coughing app. It sounded real. So worth the three dollars he spent on it!
“Now, to get out of here,” he almost said out loud.
With a lot of grunting and groaning Jackson pushed the old fashioned window pane as far up as it would go and thrust a leg out into the cool evening air. But just as he got ready to roll his body and other leg over the ledge, the window slammed shut onto his back. There he was; stuck on the window ledge with one leg in the house and one leg outside.
“Great,” thought Jackson laying his head on the splintered window sill. Now what am I going to do? If I yell for help I’m in big trouble once again. If I don’t yell for help I’ll have to spend the night hung up on this window sill! A cold gust of wind made him shiver.
At that point, Jackson’s iPad app decided to cough. Then Jackson coughed. For the next few minutes Jackson and the iPad took turns coughing. It was really uncomfortable trying to cough while he was sandwiched between the two pieces of wood. Every time Jackson coughed, his chest would strain against the window. Then all at once it came unstuck and Jackson tumbled the rest of the way out of the house.
“Are you all right in there Jackson?”
Oh no! Mom was at his bedroom door!
“I’m fine,” Jackson assured her as he stifled a cough. Then he held his breath until he heard her footsteps disappearing down the hall. His iPad gave a pitiful little cough as he ran off into the fading daylight.
When Jackson arrived at school everyone was already lining up for the relay. While Beyonce and Rayna watched and giggled, he took off his shirt . . . and quickly put on the school t-shirt he was given. By that time his face was beet red. Then he walked down to the edge of the playground to take his place with the other boys he was competing against.
The race was marked out with white flags that were tied to trees and fence posts along the way. It wound through gullies and over hills, through little groves of trees and around a few old granaries.
Jackson was the second runner in the relay. A teacher from another school gave him the baton he was supposed to hand off to Austin. A shiver of excitement went right through Jackson’s spine. This was it. He was in a real race. He jumped up and down just like Husain Bolt did before his races. It actually helped to settle his nerves a bit.
“On your mark!” He heard the principle yell through a megaphone. “Set!”
Jackson tensed up as he heard the starter gun and the cheers of the crowd. He tried to keep calm as he watched his team-mate run toward him with his baton extended. The hand-off went smoothly. Jackson tucked the baton against his arm and ran like a deer in hunting season. As he tore down the path toward the next white flag he realized that if he veered off the path and went through a little stand of trees on the right, he could shave a few feet from the race without going out of bounds.
Jackson’s blood was pounding in his ears as he hurdled over a fallen tree and crashed through the bush. He jumped over a bundle of old clothes and nearly tripped on a man’s foot in
the middle of the path.
What was a man’s foot doing in the middle of the path? Was someone in trouble? Jackson knew he was way ahead of the other runners so he stopped for a second to see where the foot led to.
What he saw next made his blood run cold. The foot and old clothes belonged to a man he didn’t know. His eyes were staring vacantly toward the tree tops. He was lying in a pool of dark blood.
Jackson didn’t stop to examine the body and he sure didn’t need any more motivation to run as fast as he could. He burst out of the trees with terror-wide eyes. He couldn’t seem to get to Austin fast enough. “There’s a dead man in the bush back there,” Jackson managed to gasp out as he passed the baton.
Leaning his hands on his knees Jackson gave in to a huge coughing fit. He didn’t even notice that Rayna, Beyonce and a few of the other girls from school had appeared beside him.
“I’ve never seen you run that fast before,” said Beyonce with real awe in her voice.
“You looked just like Jared Cameron,” sighed Rayna. “I like the way you made your face go all white like that. How did you do it? Is it vampire make-up?”
Jackson just stared at her. Even though she was standing close to him she seemed to be far away somehow. He suddenly didn’t think impressing her or Beyonce was that important. He had to get home.
In spite of his constant coughing, getting back in the window was way easier than getting out of it. Jackson crept into bed, turned off his iPad and pulled the covers over his shoulders. He felt miserable. He should have listened to his parents. Why did he always have to learn things the hard way? Now he was really sick and terrified too.
“OK God,” he croaked, “Jackson here. I’m sorry I disobeyed my mom and dad. I should have trusted them. Mom was right about me not being well enough to run tonight and you prob’ly didn’t answer my prayer to get better in time for the race so you could spare me stumbling over that dead guy. I sure wish I had never crawled out of that window tonight. What am I going to do now God?”