Three hours and an unknown number of miles later, Bicycle repeated, “Yes, how lost can we get?” They’d gotten back on pavement and left the dirt roads behind, but so far, none of the towns they’d spotted were even on the map of Kentucky that Bicycle had brought. The cars she tried to flag down didn’t stop. Around five o’clock, Bicycle heard a hullabaloo in the distance, so she pointed Clunk’s front wheel toward that, hoping for some clues about their location.
Before long, they were at the edge of a huge assemblage of people. Everyone Bicycle tried to ask for directions was in too much of a hurry to respond. She gave up asking after a few minutes and decided to go along with the crowd.
She dismounted her bike and followed the streaming throng through a parking lot into a courtyard where one heck of a party was going on. A brass band played. Women wore the most astonishing hats: giant swooping affairs several times larger than their heads, some with ostrich feathers, some with ribbons or veils, glittering with color and flair. Men counted thick wads of money and made notes in glossy pamphlets. Bicycle murmured, “Where on earth are we?”
A boy no older than Bicycle overheard and answered, “You’re at Churchill Downs racetrack. Today’s the Kentucky Derby, duh! It’s only the most famous horse race on the planet! Where did you think you were?”
The name rang a bell. Bicycle was pretty sure Sister Wanda had mentioned the Kentucky Derby when they’d done a math unit comparing the average racing speed of different animal species. She could remember that horses were a lot faster than humans and that cheetahs could outsprint them both, but she couldn’t remember the name of the city where the Derby took place. She was going to ask the boy, but he was staring at her as if she were the stupidest person he had ever seen. So instead, she turned and wheeled Clunk away, cheeks red.
She leaned against a fence surrounding a grassy paddock and tried to get her bearings. “Griffin, tell me if you see a sign that says INFORMATION anywhere,” she said.
“I can’t see a thing but fancy dresses and fancy pants,” Griffin said.
The crowd pressed closer around them, faces turned expectantly toward a line of horses clip-clopping into the paddock. Bicycle turned around to look at them, too.
The horses were grand, magnificent animals. Each one wore a different-colored saddle blanket with a big white number on it and was led by a handler wearing a matching numbered apron. Horses 1 and 2 had coats of a deep shiny brown. Horse number 3 was the color of a cloudy gray sky. Number 4 was truly enormous, midnight black, and walked with a proud, strutting gait. He was almost yanking his handler along until his gaze fell upon Bicycle and Clunk.
The black horse snorted and reared, muscles rippling. The crowd gasped. Ladies clutched their complicated hats, and men made more notes in their pamphlets. Number 4’s handler pulled on his lead line and patted his neck to calm him down, but the horse rolled his eyes, showing the white around his dark pupils. He dragged his handler over to the fence and leaned his head over the top rail, breathing hot snuffling breaths down onto Bicycle’s head. She looked up at him and he whinnied right at her. If he’d been a zebra, she would have been nervous, but as it was, she was more surprised. Finally, three extra people came to help his handler, and he was pulled away from the fence and back toward the other horses.
A dozen more horses joined the ambling parade. A bugler in a red coat trumpeted a brief melody, and the jockeys were boosted onto the horses’ backs. Most of the jockeys sat easily, but Number 4’s rider had to work to keep him under control for a final stroll around the paddock.
The parade proceeded toward a cordoned-off pathway. The big black horse kept turning to stare over his shoulder at Bicycle and Clunk, and his jockey pulled one rein to point the horse’s nose in the right direction. Bicycle was startled away from watching him when the folks around her began to sing in unison about the sun shining bright on their old Kentucky home, and she felt Clunk’s handlebars vibrate as if Griffin was humming along. When she looked back toward the pathway, all the horses were gone.
The mass of people standing around the paddock finished singing and thinned out. Bicycle glanced around for a friendly face—not a snooty boy—to ask for directions. Suddenly, a woman with the craziest hat of all, shaped like a life-size snow-white swan, came running up. The swan hat wore a tiny sequin-covered swan-shaped hat of its own.
“Oh my dear, my dear, you simply must come help us!” the woman exclaimed breathlessly, grabbing Bicycle’s arm with both hands and pulling. When she said “dear,” it came out in two syllables with no r on the end: “dee-ah.” “It’s The Cannibal! He’s gone mad—you must help us!”
“Who’s gone mad? A cannibal?” Bicycle shook the woman’s hands off her arm and dug in her heels. “I’ll listen to you if you need me to, but you aren’t making any sense.” The Mostly Silent Monks would have been shocked to hear her say that—they trained everyone to listen patiently to people whether they made lots of sense or none whatsoever, but Bicycle didn’t like being yanked around.
The woman fanned herself with her hand, letting out little distressed gasps of air. Her swan-shaped hat was starting to slip to one side of her head. “Oh, oh, there’s no time to explain. The Cannibal saw your bicycle and he’s in a state. They can’t get him near the gate. We’re going to lose the race!”
She tried again to tug Bicycle along with her, but Bicycle hung on to Clunk’s handlebars and stood her ground.
The lady let go of Bicycle and resettled her swan hat more firmly on her head, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I am, but we’ve put every last cent of our money on The Cannibal to win the Derby, and he was sure to win until he saw y’all,” she said. “When we bought him, the breeder warned us that bicycles might make The Cannibal act peculiar. He was raised in France, right next to the route where bicyclists ride that Tour de France race thingy. You know, where the cyclists race for weeks and weeks and miles and miles?”
Bicycle nodded. She sure did know the Tour de France thingy. It was the most important race covered in her cycling magazine every year. Zbig had won it on his first try.
The lady continued, “As a foal, he used to gallop along the fence whenever those Tour de France fellas came by, like he thought he was part of the race. I don’t rightly know what’s come over him now, but he seems to have gone out of his mind since he saw you. Can’t you please come with me? I think if he sees you with your bicycle nearby, he’ll settle down. It’s the only thing I can think of!” She wrung her hands in frustration. “Please? I’m begging you.”
The woman’s distress was so clear, Bicycle couldn’t just walk away. And her mention of the Tour de France had piqued Bicycle’s interest. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Where do we need to be?”
The woman cried out in relief and grabbed Bicycle’s elbow, rushing her and Clunk past a side gate and through an underground tunnel. Coming out the other side, they were now standing on a huge circle of grass in the middle of a large racetrack. A white rail separated them from the area behind the starting gate, where the horses and their jockeys were milling around.
A bright and brassy trumpet fanfare cut through the air. Men in white uniforms guided several of the horses into the stalls of the starting gate. Bicycle saw The Cannibal rearing, kicking out with his front legs, and snorting, his jockey working hard to stay balanced in the saddle.
The woman put a lace-glove-covered hand to her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. The black horse twisted his head toward the sound and his hooves fell back to earth. He focused on Clunk and trotted over to the rail, flapping his lips at the bike. The woman said, “I think he wants to touch your bike, dear, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Bicycle wheeled Clunk right up to the rail, and The Cannibal touched his muzzle to the handlebars. He rubbed the handlebar grips with his nose, making a contented grumbling noise. The swan-hat woman stroked his forehead, murmuring encouraging things. The jockey on the horse’s back raised his eyebrows at Bicycle. She shrugged as if to say “I have no idea what’s going on.”
An official came over and said to the woman, “Miss Annabelle, we need to get them in the gate. If The Cannibal won’t go, we’ll have to scratch him from the race.”
Miss Annabelle nodded. The Cannibal, much calmer now, let his jockey lead him around toward the starting gate. Miss Annabelle leaned down to Bicycle and hissed in her ear, “As soon as he’s out of the gate, we’ll get your bike to the finish line. When he spots it from across the track, let’s hope he decides to kick into high gear and sprint toward it.”
They waited until every horse was in his slot at the starting gate. A bell rang, the gates opened, and the horses exploded forward in a tidal wave of pumping legs.
“And they’re off!” called an announcer, and Miss Annabelle ran with Bicycle back into the tunnel until they emerged outside, near the white pole topped with a gold ball that marked the racetrack’s finish line.
Miss Annabelle looked down the track to watch the race and clutched her swan hat, wailing, “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”
The Cannibal had made it through the first stretch but was far behind the pack. He was jerking his head in all directions. The rest of the horses were racing single-mindedly along the inside curve of the racetrack, but he was running diagonally across the track. The crowd groaned to see this horse losing the race so terribly.
The announcer called out, “Mellow Johnny takes an early lead, followed closely by Jensie and Big Mig. On the inside, AlwaysComesInThird is moving up, neck and neck with Master Jacques and edging ahead of Cuddles, Bernard the Badger, Froomey, and long shot Red Lantern. Coming into the backstretch, trailing the rest of the pack by more than twenty lengths, is the favorite, The Cannibal.”
“Don’t you give up now, horse!” Miss Annabelle yelled. She put her fingers in her mouth and gave that piercing whistle again. Even though he was on the far side of the track, The Cannibal snapped to attention and looked their way. Bicycle thought his eyes lit up when he glimpsed Clunk. The enormous horse lowered his head and started charging down the track.
“Mellow Johnny is still in the lead with Jensie. Big Mig is falling back while Cuddles moves up and…Wait, hold on!” called out the announcer. “The Cannibal is gaining ground! He’s caught the pack and is relentlessly moving up. As they turn for home, the Cannibal is passing Bernard the Badger and Master Jacques on the outside. AlwaysComesInThird is trying to edge over, but The Cannibal will not be stopped! Mellow Johnny and Jensie have dropped back two lengths and The Cannibal is on the rail now, on the heels of Cuddles. They’re into the final stretch, and it’s Cuddles and The Cannibal, it’s Cuddles and The Cannibal, and at the wire—it’s THE CANNIBAL BY A NOSE! THE CANNIBAL HAS WON THE KENTUCKY DERBY!” The crowd in the stands rose to its feet, yelling and screaming, throwing tickets and lavish hats until the air was a blizzard of color. Miss Annabelle jumped up and down, her swan hat shedding feathers.
When most horses cross the finish line at a race, they gradually slow down to a trot and then a walk. The Cannibal, instead, sped up and wheeled to the outside track, his eyes on Clunk. He jumped the rail that separated the track from the spectators, did a little wriggle and twist that caused his flabbergasted jockey to fall off in midair, and grabbed Clunk’s frame in his teeth. Without even thinking about it, Bicycle seized the horse’s thick black mane and pulled herself up into the saddle. Horse, bicycle, and girl galloped right through the crowd and away from Churchill Downs.