“Sophie! Come on!” Fatima called impatiently. “Chloe’s on the last leg. Don’t you want to cheer her?”
“Coming,” Sophie called. She wanted to figure out the mystery of the scarf a lot more than she wanted to watch some race.
But she didn’t want to let her friends down, so she hurried with Fatima to the handover point.
When he came around the corner, Omar had gained the lead – but only just. His face was bright red and his arms and legs were pumping.
Chloe for the Yellow team and Charlie for the Reds were waiting at the end of a pair of plastic pipes. The runners had to crawl through them. Omar dived head first into his pipe without stopping. A couple of seconds later, the baton was the first thing to emerge.
“Now run! Run!” he screamed at Chloe. Chloe took the baton, turned, ran – and tripped right over a root hidden under the leaves.
She landed with a thump and a cry. The baton flew through the air, straight at Sophie. Sophie caught it automatically.
“GET UP!” Omar yelled. He couldn’t control his anger. He’d worked so hard to catch up and now they were going to lose. He looked as if he would explode. But Chloe’s face was twisted with pain and she was holding her knee. It was obvious she wasn’t going anywhere.
Charlie was already on his way, disappearing down the track. And Sophie had the baton. She took a step forward to help Chloe but her friend waved her away.
“I’ll be fine. You’ve got the baton! Use it!”
Sophie held it up for the umpire to see. “Can I …?”
The umpire nodded, and Sophie ran. She was going to do this part of the race to her best ability – and she was going to do it for Chloe.
She fled down the track, pursued by the shouts of the Yellows.
Charlie was just disappearing around a bend. Her feet pounded after him. The trees shot past. The cheers were just a roar in her ears.
Sophie came around the bend just in time to see Charlie’s back disappear around the next one. She had got a little closer. She could do this!
She stepped up the pace until her feet were a blur beneath her.
One more bend, and there it was. The final clearing.
Charlie hadn’t realised how close behind Sophie was. He had slowed down and was just jogging to the finish, cheered on by his team. Their cheers suddenly turned to shouts of warning. Sophie was still going full pelt and she didn’t slow down. Charlie shot her a look of alarm and started to speed up, but she had already overtaken him.
But there wasn’t a finishing line. Just one of the leaders standing next to a table with two plastic tubs. in it to win it was painted on the side of each in large red letters.
There was something in the tub that Sophie needed to win the race. One last obstacle. She took a look inside her tub and paused just long enough for Charlie to catch up.
“Oh, gross!” he exclaimed.
It was full to the brim with maggots. Live, writhing maggots, like zombie rice trying to escape.
Charlie’s hand hovered over his tub for just a second. A second too long.
Sophie remembered Bear’s words.
“Don’t knock a maggot!” she said, and plunged her hand straight in. The maggots felt dry, and a bit tickly.
She felt the prize, and pulled it out. Behind her, the Yellows exploded into whoops and yells of victory.
It was just a laminated card that said WINNER, but Sophie was so pleased that it could have been made of solid gold. She hadn’t let the team down – and bugs didn’t scare her any more!
“Yellow wins!” the umpire announced. Everyone gathered around Sophie, all giving hugs and high fives.
Almost everyone.
Omar came over to Sophie.
“Well done on winning,” he grunted. “Only, we were twenty-two seconds off the record. We could have got that too, if you hadn’t fallen off. There’s a special prize for beating the record.”
“Oh, well,” Sophie said lightly. “We did our best, and we won the race.”
Omar glared at her.
“Not the point,” he muttered and stormed off.
The leaders then broke open a crate of snacks for everyone. People were chatting and laughing in the free time before the next activity, but Omar stayed away.
Eventually, Sophie took a juice carton over to him.
“Like a drink, Omar?” she asked.
“Thanks,” he muttered. His bad temper seemed to have gone.
“You know …” Sophie wasn’t sure what to say, but she wanted to say something. “You took the race pretty seriously, didn’t you?”
“I just …” he snapped, then stopped. Sophie was surprised to see tears in his eyes, before he quickly looked away. “I just like to win. Is that so bad? I just want to win – whatever the cost. So why am I always surrounded by slowcoaches?!”
He stormed away.
Sophie watched him go. Those tears. It obviously was more than simply wanting to win. Something was really upsetting him.
She took the compass out of her pocket and looked thoughtfully at it.
Her adventure in the desert had been real. She knew it. She had the shemagh to prove it. The compass had taken her to a guy who could help her get over the problem that was holding her back. And now she wasn’t afraid of bugs any more.
Maybe it could help someone else?
And if she was wrong, what was the worst that could happen? She might look stupid. But not as stupid as all the times she had screamed at an insect.
And so she followed after him.
“Hey, Omar?” she called softly.
She held the compass out to him.
“I just want to give you this,” she said.
He looked at it, confused.
Sophie said with a smile, “Just consider it a gift …”
The End