No one saw Josh at school the following week. He was kept at home to recover from his cold and so he was delighted when Matthew turned up on his doorstep at the weekend.
“Thought I’d b..best come round to see how you are.”
“OK now, pretty much,” Josh said and then grinned. “A week off school does anybody good!”
“Yeah, guess so,” Matthew replied. “You fit enough for a b..bit of a kickab..bout on the p..park?”
“Sure,” he said, looking round quickly to check his mother wasn’t listening, in case she disagreed. “Just give me a minute to get my trainers.”
“And a b..ball!”
Josh reappeared in less than a minute, his trainers still untied.
“Let’s go,” he urged, tossing a football to Matthew and closing the front door quietly. “Before Ma finds out!”
They set out for the park on the trot, tapping the ball between them until Josh tripped over his own laces.
“Hold on!” he cried, kneeling down. “Let me do these up.”
“That happened to m..me during cross country this week,” Matthew told him. “Nearly lost m..my shoe in the m..mud near the lake.”
“Cross country?”
“Well, just round the p..park, like. We always do some running this time of year. Enid reckons it helps us keep fit over the winter. C’mon, race you to the p..park!”
Josh hadn’t even finished tying his laces. “Hey! Wait for me!” he cried as Matthew set off. “That’s not fair.”
He almost caught Matthew up at the traffic lights, but Matthew still beat him to the park gates.
“The winner!” cried Matthew, laughing.
“Huh!” Josh panted. “Only cos of my cold. And I was carrying the ball.”
“Looks like you’ll have to do some training if you want to m..make the team,” Matthew grinned.
“What team?”
“For the Area Championships,” Matthew told him. “I came tenth last year in m..my age group.”
“Tenth? Is that all?”
“Well, it’s not too b..bad. There were over a hundred runners.”
“Fair enough,” Josh conceded.
He kicked the ball on to the grass and sprinted after it. “C’mon, slowcoach!” he laughed, catching Matthew off guard. “We can practise our footie and running at the same time.”
They had a lively, boisterous game together over the next half an hour. They hardly noticed how messy their clothes had become until they stopped and sat on a bench for a rest.
“Look at m..my jeans!” moaned Matthew, examining the mud stains all down one side. “M..mam’ll do her nut.”
“Ma won’t be best pleased, neither,” admitted Josh, pulling a face. “She don’t even know where I went.”
“C’mon, let’s get b..back,” said Matthew, standing up. “It’ll b..be dark soon.”
They reached Josh’s house first and parted at the garden gate.
“Good luck!” said Matthew.
“And you.”
“Yeah, I’ll need it,” he grunted. “See you at school next week – if we’re b..both still alive!”
“Take it nice and steady at the start,” Mr Blyton told the runners. “Don’t charge off too quickly. Just go at your own pace.”
The teacher always gave the same sort of advice before any training run, but he suspected that this time his words might fall on deaf ears. The children knew that a good performance would earn them a place in the school squad for the Area Championships.
Mr Blyton set them off and Josh immediately surged into the lead, well ahead of the main pack. He felt back to full fitness and wanted to prove it to everyone, including the teacher.
Over the past fortnight, Josh had been doing secret training sessions on his own around the park and knew the course very well. They needed to cover the perimeter of the park twice, plus an extra circuit of the lake, and Josh was setting a hot pace out in front.
“Not so fast, Joshua,” Mr Blyton called out to him. He wasn’t sure whether the boy had heard him or not, for Josh showed no sign of slowing down. The lead, if anything, was increasing, and no one else seemed willing to try and close the gap. Most of the others were still bunched up, running shoulder to shoulder, with Matthew almost jogging along and keeping plenty of energy in reserve for the later stages.
On the second lap of the course, over on the far side of the park, Matthew put in a little burst of speed to overtake a number of runners. He was feeling comfortable and confident, and had Josh in his sights, when all of a sudden his world turned upside down. He had been tripped from behind and hit the ground so hard that all the breath was knocked from his body.
“You OK, Matt?” someone asked, pausing briefly to check.
Leela was standing over him as he knelt up and nodded. “Yeah – thanks – you carry on,” he gasped.
Most of the runners had surged past him by the time Matthew got groggily back to his feet. He began to stumble forward, determined to continue, but it took a while for him to find his usual rhythm.
Meanwhile, out in front, a tiring Josh glanced over his shoulder to see that some people were not too far behind. His legs felt heavier and his breathing became more ragged. “C’mon!” he urged himself. “Keep going!”
He was on a downward slope and was able to coast for a short distance until he felt more comfortable. But his lead had now been cut considerably and the chasers were closing in.
Josh saw Mr Blyton ahead of them, signalling for the runners to turn right and go round the lake.
“Keep it up!” cried the teacher to all of them as they passed him. “Not far to go now.”
It was still far enough, however, for plenty of places to change as some of the children faded and others found a late surge of energy. Mr Blyton stayed there long enough to ensure that even the backmarkers knew which course to take and then he jogged away towards the finishing area.
The mud around the lake took its toll upon many weary legs and some children were reduced to walking part of the way. From experience, Josh knew how to avoid the worst areas, but the nearest chasers followed him and there was nothing he could do to prevent two of them from overtaking him.
“Got you – at last!” gasped Joe.
Anil didn’t say a word, but the smirk on his face forced Josh to keep going. Somehow, he managed to stay close behind Anil as the leading trio rounded the eastern edge of the lake and made for the finish.
Matthew would normally have expected to be up at the front, too, but because of his fall he was some way behind. Overtaking some runners, he heard a familiar voice. “
Enjoy your trip?”
Matthew suspected it might have been Raj who tripped him up and he was sorely tempted to give him a dose of his own medicine. With difficulty, he resisted barging into him and ran on instead.
“B..best revenge is to b..beat him,” he muttered to himself.
There was certainly no way that Rajesh was going to catch Matthew now, and the same was true for Josh as far as the frontrunner, Joe, was concerned. But Anil was another matter entirely. Anil had been mentally unprepared for Josh to come back at him and could not respond when, with the finish in sight, Josh pounded past him into second place.
They were the first three boys’ names written in Mr Blyton’s notebook, half of the team of six needed for the Area Championships. Those did not include Matthew, who could only finish eighth, just behind the first girl, Leela.
“Bad luck, Matt,” Josh said, knowing that Matthew would only be picked as reserve. “I was expecting you to catch me up.”
“Yeah, m..might’ve done, if I hadn’t b..been tripped,” he scowled.
Josh was angry when he heard what Rajesh had done and tried to persuade Matthew to tell Mr Blyton what had happened.
Matthew shook his head. “Too late now – and, anyway, I’ve got no p..proof. Raj would only deny it.”
Josh sighed in frustration. “So that bully-boy gets away with it again. One of these days...”
“What?”
“I don’t know yet,” Josh said with a grimace. “But one of these days he’s really got it coming to him. I’ll see to that.”
