It is hard to believe Lloyd was ever out of shape. Especially when he demonstrates how to do the obstacle course.
He has set things up behind the Life Sciences Building, where there is a large concrete terrace and two sets of stairs leading to a rooftop vegetable garden. It is a quiet spot, so we are not likely to get in anyone’s way.
Stacey approves of the garden’s rainwater collection system. “That’s for harvesting rain,” she says, pointing to a giant barrel. It seems weird to use the words harvesting and rain together, but there isn’t time to discuss that with Stacey, even if I wanted to.
Lloyd is doing ten push-ups on the terrace. His back is stick straight, and his elbows are slightly bent. When he is done, Samantha tosses him a red medicine ball (“Those things are a lot heavier than they look,” Nathaniel says), and Lloyd runs up and down the stairs—twice. Next he bounces the medicine ball, slamming it against the concrete five times before catching it again and dashing to the next station. The guy has not even broken a sweat.
Nathaniel nudges Mason. “How’s your stomach?”
“Not so good.” Mason looks pale. Maybe it is from the thought of having to do ten push-ups.
Next Lloyd crawls through two narrow, ten-foot coiled tubes that are set up on the terrace.
We can see the outline of Lloyd’s elbows as he pushes his way through the tubes. “That looks really hard,” Stacey says.
“You think that’s hard? Wait till you see him jump over the wall!” Samantha tells her.
“Jump over a wall?” Mason gulps. “You’re joking, right?”
“Do I strike you as the joking type?” Samantha asks. “But hey, don’t worry—the wall here is only four feet high. You’d have to jump a lot higher than that to get into the police academy.”
The wall is actually a concrete divider at the shady end of the terrace. “I want you to watch Lloyd’s technique,” Samantha tells us. “He’s going to use his upper body strength to lift himself up and over.”
We all watch as Lloyd places both hands on top of the wall, a foot or so apart. He hoists one leg up, then the other. He seems totally calm and focused. But when he swings his legs over the wall and drops to the other side, he makes this wild whooping sound, and we clap and cheer for him.
“Don’t think this obstacle course is over yet!” Lloyd shouts back at us.
We follow Samantha under the stairway so we can catch up with Lloyd and see the final obstacle.
“Oh my god,” I say when I see what is lying on the concrete: a life-sized rubber dummy. Why are its wrists wrapped in duct tape? I figure out the answer when Lloyd, who has finally started to sweat, grabs the dummy by its wrists and starts dragging it over the concrete. I guess the duct tape gives him something to grip.
“Do you see how he’s bending his knees?” Samantha says. “That’s because he’s letting his legs do most of the work.” Lloyd’s calf muscles are twitching.
When he has dragged the dummy past a yellow chalk line on the concrete, Lloyd squats down and shakes out his arms. When he looks up at us, the sweat is pouring off his face. “You guys think you can do that?” he pants, still trying to catch his breath.
“No,” Nico says, “but it’s nice of you to ask.”
Samantha checks her cell-phone stopwatch. “The obstacle course took Lloyd precisely two minutes and forty-two seconds.”
Lloyd has stopped panting. “Any of you think you can beat that?” he asks.
Nathaniel straightens his shoulders. “Maybe.”
Muriel eyes the dummy. “If you don’t mind my asking, how much does that thing weigh?”
“One hundred and fifty pounds,” Lloyd tells her. “Say you’re a police officer and your partner falls unconscious. You have to be strong enough to drag him—or her—to safety.”
Muriel shakes her head. “One hundred and fifty pounds? That’s double what I weigh.”
“You guys only have to drag the dummy as far as the chalk line—which is about three feet. If you ever do the police-training obstacle course, you’ll have to drag him a lot farther than that.”
“Are you doing the obstacle course too?” Stacey asks Samantha.
“I’m not dressed for it,” Samantha says, pointing down at her gray skirt. “Otherwise I would. Definitely. What about you, Mason? You up for it, or are you still feeling queasy?”
Mason drops his eyes to the ground. “Yeah, I’m still kinda queasy…”
The counselors allow Mason to rest on a shady bench. They ask if he wants a bottle of water, but he says no.
Samantha uses the stopwatch on her cell phone to tell us each when to start. She is timing it so there will not be two of us at the same station. “Go!” she tells me, and I start doing the push-ups. I have never done ten in a row before, and when I get to six, I collapse on the ground.
“You can do it!” Samantha tells me, and I manage to complete the other four though I know my back is sagging.
Bouncing the medicine ball is harder than I expect. “You’re doing great, Tabitha!” Lloyd calls out, only his voice sounds like it is coming from far away.
Nico is ahead of me. “Lemme out of here!” I hear him call from inside the first coil. “I’m getting claustrophobia!”
Which doesn’t exactly make me look forward to that station. But when I get to the coils, it’s not the narrowness inside that bothers me; it’s the heat. The nylon coils have been baking all morning in the sun, and it is boiling inside them.
Somehow—don’t ask me how—I manage to get over the wall on my first try. But I don’t know how I’ll ever pull that dummy. I tug with every ounce of my strength, but the monster refuses to budge. What’s inside it? Lead? “Bend your knees!” Samantha hollers, but I am too tired even to do that.
“Bend your knees!” she shouts again, and when I do, the dummy begins to bump along the concrete. “Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds,” Samantha says when I manage to get the dummy’s head as far as the chalk line. “Maybe you’ll be able to trim some time on your next go!”
My next go? I hope she’s kidding!
But Lloyd has a different plan. “This time we’re going to make two teams. And there’ll be a prize at the end.”
“What’s the prize?” Nathaniel asks.
“I don’t know,” Lloyd says. “I haven’t figured that out yet. What do you say—boys against the girls?”
“We can’t make teams. Five’s not an even number,” Stacey points out.
“Shoot,” Lloyd says, “I forgot about that.”
Everyone is looking at Mason. Am I the only one who knows he’s faking?
“Teams would’ve been cool,” Nathaniel says in a loud voice.
When Mason gets up from the bench, I actually feel a little sorry for him. He hates team sports, probably because he is so bad at them. “Okay,” he says, “I’m starting to feel a bit better. So I’ll do it.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “Just don’t get mad if I mess up.”
I know how hard this must be for Mason. But he is doing it. I have to admit I am ever-so-slightly impressed—not that I’d ever tell that to Mason.
Nathaniel punches Mason’s arm, and Mason punches Nathaniel back.
“Come on, Tabitha!” Muriel yells.
“Let’s show those boys!” Stacey adds.
Somehow, being part of a team makes the obstacle course less grueling.
I can hear Nathaniel and Nico cheering Mason on. From the corner of my eye, I can see him lumbering up the stairs with the medicine ball.
“Girls rule!” Muriel high-fives me when I finish.
Mason is trying for the third time to climb over the wall. “Use your upper body strength!” Lloyd reminds him. We all clap when he finally gets over. It is going to be painful to watch him trying to drag that dummy.
But Mason has no trouble with the dummy. He grabs hold of its wrists, and the dummy slides along the floor like it’s filled with feathers.
Lloyd claps Mason’s shoulder. “You’re not fast,” Lloyd says, “but man, are you ever strong. And that’s on a day when your stomach is bothering you.”
Mason isn’t used to compliments. He throws back his shoulders. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know I was strong,” he says with a grin.
“Never underestimate yourself, dude,” Nathaniel tells him.
Which makes me wonder, Have I been underestimating Mason?