Part 2: Building the Team

John Lofranco presents the second part of his six-part fictional serial. The story of a young female high school runner takes an interesting twist.

Karina loved to run. Anytime, anywhere. Races, practices, runs through the park, whatever. She also enjoyed winning. In Grade 9, she had won every race, including the OFSAA championship. She had been a little sad though because while she always got the gold, her team didn’t always win. There were three other girls on the WTA junior girls cross-country team: Kathy Reingold, Alison Hatashida, and Philomena Murby. They were Kat, Ali and Phil for short. Kat, Karina and Ali had run in the opening meet at High Park. Karina won of course, but she was disappointed that they did not get a team score.

“You need four to score,” Coach Terry explained. “So, go find someone for next race.”

Adolescence being what it is, cross-country running is not the most popular of sports. Philomena Murby was not the most popular of girls, mostly because of her name, but also because she was short and chubby and had an oddly shaped head. Phil did not do very well in school, either, but she had learned very quickly that in life people are judged on how smart, good looking and nice they are. If you were smart and good looking, people didn’t care if you were nice to them, but if you were ugly and stupid, you’d better be nice.

Phil was pretty surprised when three of the smart, pretty girls walked over to her at the end of gym class.

“Hi girls!” she exclaimed hopefully, but a little unsure. “What’s up?”

Kat, Ali and Karina weren’t mean girls, but they were teenagers, so they were quite calculated in their social movements. They’d asked all the other girls to join their team, without any luck. Only Phil remained.

“We want you to join the cross country team with us.”

“Really? Why? I mean, I can run, a little, but I’m really not that good.”

“It doesn’t matter, we need four girls for a team, but no one else will do it. Will you join our team?”

“Ok, but I hope you’re not counting on me to win anything.”

“We’re just counting on you to finish the races. Coach Terry will train you, and you’ll get faster. That’s how it works.” Kat was precocious in her knowledge of distance running training.

As she lay in her hospital bed, Karina remembered how excited she had been when, long after she herself had finished, Phil had wandered across the finish line, dead last of course, but scoring for WTA. The girls had squealed and hugged when the meet director read off the team results. With her first place, Kat’s 5th and Ali’s 15th, their score was enough to beat a couple of schools, even with Phil’s 50th on the board. Their reaction to their 5th place team finish (out of seven) was louder than the cheer for the winning school from St. Ursula’s Prep.

Karina had won the 3K race by about two minutes, a pretty ridiculous margin, according to Kat. But Karina didn’t think of it as beating the field. She thought of herself as a big white bird, pulling the rest of the field along behind her, as if they were her baby birds, or kites. The faster she ran (or flew!) the faster they would run. And now, it looked like there might not be a team anymore, and it was all her fault that she ended up in the hospital.

To be continued…

Return each Friday for the next installment of John Lofranco’s six-part serial. Coming up next — Part 3: A Stranger Presents a Possibility.

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