Olympic Dream Page 8

  “Working out. Right. You must be down to just about a ton and a half now!” said Pepper. He burst into laughter at his own joke.

  Doug made a half-hearted attempt to join him.

  “Listen, me and the guys are going over to the ball-field for a pickup game of soccer later,” said Pepper. “You wanna play?”

  “Nah, I think I’d better get back home,” said Doug. “My mom’s got a list of things for me to do. My sister’s getting married pretty soon. Lots to do.”

  “Married? That’s cool,” said Pepper. He followed Doug outside the arcade.

  “See you,” said Doug as he unlocked his bike and drew it out of the rack. He could feel Pepper’s eyes on him.

  “New bike?” asked Pepper. “That’s the hottest thing on wheels any of the guys have. What’re you doing with such a hot bike?”

  “Like I said, I’ve been working out,” said Doug. He put on his helmet and slipped his feet into the toe clips.

  “Cycling, you mean?” Pepper called out as Doug took off.

  But Doug simply waved back and said, “See you!”

  A ton and a half! The words burned into his mind. Would the guys always think of him as just another lard bottom? He found he wasn’t as good-natured about the kidding as he used to be. Next time, he thought he might give Pepper Meade something to think about.

  He rode around aimlessly. There was no list at home waiting for him. He didn’t want to see the guys on the trails project. He just needed a place to chill out for awhile.

  Then he realized he was only a few blocks away from the clubhouse. Maybe there was something over there he could read or do for a little while till he calmed down.

  As he pulled up in front of the clubhouse, he noticed that there were no bikes parked outside. On the front door there was a notice that said “Closed on Mondays.”

  The day was starting to warm up. Doug took off his helmet and wiped his brow. What was he going to do? Where was he going to go?

  Since the guys were at the soccer field, maybe he ought to go to the beach. Nah, there’d be people he knew there, too. He didn’t want to see any of his old friends right now.

  But what about a new friend? Or at least someone he’d thought of as one?

  After the race, Doug had wanted to talk things over with Billy. He still couldn’t understand why Billy had given him the cold shoulder before the race and during the rest stops. Even on the platform, Billy had acted strange. Maybe it was just nerves, Doug thought. Anyhow, he wanted to congratulate his friend on coming in as one of the top three. But right after the awards were handed out, Billy had rushed off with some folks, probably his family. They hadn’t even stayed for the picnic.

  Doug remembered where Billy lived from his very first training session with Red—Cosgrove Street. It was a good ride from the clubhouse. Heck, it was worth a shot. If Billy was there, great. If he wasn’t, well, it was still a good ride.

  With his helmet back on, Doug started pedaling in the direction of Billy’s house. Twenty minutes later, he rounded the corner of Cosgrove Street.

  Doug pedaled down the street and pulled up in front of the Torrant house.

  He was wondering whether it was such a good idea to barge in on Billy, when he saw his bike parked in the driveway. The house looked really nice. There were bright red and yellow flowers in the window boxes and a low, neatly clipped hedge.

  Just then, Billy came out the side door and headed for his bike.

  “Hey! Billy!” he called and rode up the driveway.

  Billy’s look of surprise quickly turned into one of pleasure. He greeted Doug with a big smile, then threw out his hand for a high five.

  It was Doug’s turn to be surprised—but he held his tongue.

  “So what brings you over to Cosgrove Street?” Billy asked.

  “Wise guy,” said Doug. “I came by to see you, you know, to talk about the race and everything.”

  “Sure, great,” said Billy. “Hey, you want something cold to drink?”

  “Just water,” said Doug.

  “Come on around back,” said Billy.

  Doug followed him to a shaded patio behind the house. Billy went inside. He came back out a few minutes later with the woman Doug had seen after the race. “Doug, this is my mom,” he said.

  Doug got up and said, “Hi.” He wondered whether she thought he was kind of heavy, especially next to her slender son.

  “Nice to meet you, Doug,” she said. “Billy said you just wanted water, but I’ve made some fresh fruit punch and thought you might like that.”

  She put down a pitcher and two glasses and then left the boys to themselves.

  As they sipped their drinks in the cool, shady backyard, Doug relaxed. He decided to come right out and ask Billy about his behavior at the race.

  Before he had half-finished his question, Billy interrupted him.

  “I know, and I’m sorry,” he explained. “You see, I get really uptight sometimes. I guess it’s from having kids call me ‘Stringbean’ and things like that. So before the race, I just shut my mind to everything. All I could think about was what I had to do to get it over with.”

  “And afterward?” Doug asked,

  “My stomach was still tied up in knots. I couldn’t eat anything. I almost lost it up on the stage!”

  Doug couldn’t imagine that there was room in Billy’s stomach for a knot, but he understood about feeling nervous and tense. So he simply said, “Well, I thought you rode a great race. Yeah, I know we’re not supposed to think of it as a real race, but there were three winners, weren’t there?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Billy. “And we were two of them.” He raised his glass of punch and the two boys drank a toast.

  It was at that moment that Doug realized how much fun he had hanging out with Billy. Where Pepper Meade seemed to want to use him as a punching bag, someone to make fun of and to be the butt of his jokes, Billy took Doug seriously. Before, Doug had been willing to put up with Pepper. But this summer had shown him that he deserved better. Billy—and Red, too—had helped him see what real, honest friendship was.

  Doug settled back more comfortably in his chair. With his new friends, his biking regimen, the Rails to Trails project, and his sister’s wedding, he figured the weeks ahead were going to pass by swiftly.

  11

  But all that changed the next week.

  It was the second Monday in August. Doug jumped out of bed, grabbed the first T-shirt he found in his drawer, and slipped it on without looking at it. When he saw what he was wearing, he blinked.

  Hanging loosely on his frame was an orange T-shirt with green letters spelling out the words “Rails to Trails.” It was the same shirt he had barely been able to squeeze into at the start of the summer.

  “Might have to trade that in for a size medium,” Red joked when Doug rode up beside him on the way to the project. “The way that’s flapping in the breeze, you’re creating too much wind resistance!”

  “Guess I’ll just have to slip behind you and draft for a while,” Doug said as he did just that. “You don’t mind pulling for me, do you?”

  Red laughed. “Oh, no, not at all!” With a sly grin, he increased his speed and broke away, leaving Doug in the dust. Doug gave chase. He had almost caught him when they reached the site. He hopped off his bike and trotted over to where Red stood. Billy pulled in a moment later.

  “You could at least pretend to be winded!” Billy said. With a start, Doug realized Billy was right—he wasn’t gasping for breath even after the impromptu race. Red smiled knowingly, then turned away.

  Well, what do you know about that? Doug thought as he rolled his bike to its usual resting spot near a big tree. Leaning it carefully against the trunk, he remembered his first day on the job. He had fallen asleep under this very tree and had a wonderful dream. An Olympic dream. Then, that dream had seemed unreal, impossible. But now …

  Doug could hardly believe he was the same person who had had to dust off his old three-speed at t
he beginning of the summer.

  Others felt the same way. He was no longer just a “gofer” on the Rails project. He readily lent a hand with some of the tougher jobs and was praised by his coworkers for his willingness to do the dirty work. When he looked at the newly cleared sections of the path, Doug couldn’t help feeling good about all he had helped to accomplish.

  Doug’s thoughts were interrupted by a call from the work crew leader. It was time for another morning of work. For Doug, it had become a labor of love. He knew how proud he was going to be the first time he used the bike trail he had helped create.

  Jimmy Bannister, the project’s leader, chased that happy future event away in the next moment.

  “Well, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to give this speech, but I don’t see any way around it,” Jimmy said. “Folks, we’re just about out of money for this project. You can probably tell by looking around you that our volunteer numbers have dropped since the beginning of summer,too. There are five miles of trail left to clear and pave but no one to help do it. It was my hope that we’d be using this path by Labor Day weekend. But that’s not going to happen. Not this Labor Day, anyhow.”

  Everyone was silent. They had all worked hard over the past weeks. To Doug, the news was like a punch in the stomach.

  Red spoke up. “So we’ll just find new sources of manpower and knock on the local shopkeepers’ doors for donations a second time. We did it before, we can do it again!”

  Doug looked at Jimmy hopefully. But Jimmy shook his head. “If there was just one mile of trail left, I’d say let’s go for it. But it’d take at least two weeks to collect enough money and gather the people. By that time, everybody will be thinking ahead to school. Shopkeepers won’t want to donate to an end-of-the-summer project. They’ll want to spend their money sponsoring school teams, or some holiday event scheduled to take place in a few months, not in a year or so. Parents and students will be busy with school, with fall and winter projects, so they won’t have time to help out. No, I’m afraid that in a week, we’ll have to wrap things up here. At least until next summer.”

  Jimmy turned away sadly, leaving a stunned and disappointed crew behind him.

  That afternoon, Doug and Billy rode off together. They had established a daily routine where they worked out on the Rails project in the mornings, ate a quick lunch, then biked on a carefully mapped-out route on the side streets. Every day they did at least twenty miles. Doug was seeing parts of Lakeridge he’d never known existed; and he had never felt or slept better in his life.

  It had been such a lackluster day’s labor on the bike path that for the first time all summer, they were happy to get away from it.

  “Boy, I sure wish I had a million bucks to donate,” Billy said.

  “Yeah. I hate thinking that all our hard work was for nothing!” Doug replied. They pedaled along quietly for a while. Toward the end of their usual loop, they put on steam and rounded the corner of Doug’s street at full speed. When they reached the driveway, they coasted to a stop and dismounted, huffing but feeling better for the exertion.

  “Hey, isn’t that Red?” Billy asked, pointing toward the carriage house.

  “Yeah. Let’s go say hi.”

  Red was sitting in the driveway, surrounded by bike parts.

  “Why’d you take your bike apart?” Billy asked with curiosity.

  “Cleaning it,” was Red’s reply. He finished greasing the part he was holding, then looked up at the boys. A wide grin spread across his face. “Got some news for you.”

  Doug’s heart soared. Maybe the bike path project had been given new life.

  “The Lakeridge Cycling Club is planning a trip to the Westwood Velodrome on Saturday. They’re holding pre-Olympic trials!”

  “Oh,” Doug replied, disappointed. Then Red’s words sank in. “Wait, did you say Olympic trials? Are you going?”

  “Yep,” Red replied. “And so are you and Billy.”

  Doug blinked. “We are?”

  “Your folks all agreed that if you two wanted to, you could come with me. We’ll be traveling by bus really early Saturday morning. We can be in the stands by ten o’clock, watching the indoor races.”

  “Indoor races?” Billy asked. “What’re they like?”

  “You’ll see this weekend. Are you game?”

  Doug and Billy were.

  “I’ve heard that track races are a whole different world from racing outdoors,” Doug said. “I can’t wait to check it out!”

  “Me, either,” Billy agreed.

  When Saturday morning arrived, Doug, Red, and Billy were all in need of some cheering up. The Rails project had officially closed down the afternoon before and each of them was feeling a sense of failure.

  Their moods lifted when they boarded the bus along with other members of the Lakeridge Cycling Club. Everyone was excited about seeing the races. Three hours later, they were seated in the stands at the Westwood Velodrome, eagerly waiting for the Olympic trials to begin.

  The Velodrome was a cavernous building. Below the bleachers was a special oval track. Its sides were steeply banked so that it looked like a long, shallow bowl. It was marked off with lanes and different start and finish lines for races of various lengths. Cyclists in all sorts of uniforms were warming up, talking to their coaches, and checking their equipment. The air was thick with anticipation.

  Doug consulted his program for the order of events. There was to be a series of sprints first, then a series of time trials. Last, they would see the individual pursuit races.

  Doug thought back to the book he had read on track racing. Sprints, he knew, were 1,000-meter-long races, or three times around the track. But the cyclists were timed only for the last 200 meters. For the rest of the race, they were supposed to try to get in the best position for the final push. “Tactical maneuvering” was what Doug’s book had called it. He wasn’t really sure what that meant.

  He looked up when the announcer called for the first race. Two cyclists lined up at the start. The flag went down and the race was on.

  To Doug’s surprise, the riders didn’t seem to be pedaling hard. Instead, they looked to be concentrating on swerving back and forth, trying to outguess each other. Then, in the middle of the second lap, they came to a complete stop.

  Billy almost fell off his chair.

  “What happened?” he asked excitedly.

  “Quiet down,” Red said softly. “They’re trying to psych each other out. It’s part of the strategy. Whoever pulls out in front creates a slipstream that the other guy can draft on. Nobody wants to be the one doing the work only to have the other guy benefit from it.”

  Finally, just when Doug thought he couldn’t stand the suspense any longer, one of the bikers bolted ahead and the race continued. During the final lap, their legs were a blur. Doug sat on the edge of his seat and yelled with the rest of the crowd. The noise was deafening, but it didn’t faze the bikers. They powered across the finish line almost neck and neck.

  Doug slid back into his seat. It was one of the most exciting races he’d ever seen. He couldn’t wait for the next one to start.

  For the next hour, he, Red, and Billy watched the sprinters. To add to the fun, Doug and Billy chose a biker to root for during each race.

  “Red Shirt is going to out-psych his opponent,” Billy whispered. “He looks determined.”

  “Nah,” Doug whispered back. “Purple Shorts will blow him out of the water in the last lap!”

  Sometimes Billy’s man won and sometimes Doug chose the victor. Red just shook his head and grinned.

  When the sprints were over, Red asked the boys if they were hungry. They were.

  “Then let’s head to the concession stand. Oh, and I have a treat to give you afterward, too,” he added mysteriously.

  They wove their way through the spectators and found the snack bar. After some turkey sandwiches and a banana apiece, Red disappeared with a brief, “I’ll be back.”

  A moment later he reappeared. “Well, h
ere’s the treat I promised!” Red called to them.

  Doug saw that Red was no longer alone. A cyclist dressed in tight black shorts and an electric-blue top was standing with him. Doug recognized him as one of the sprinters they had watched earlier.

  “This is Eric Sanders, an old cycling buddy of mine. Eric, this is Doug Cannon and Billy Torrant.”

  They all shook hands. “Red thought you guys might like to take a closer look at an indoor racing bike,” Eric said. “Would you?”

  Doug’s eyes widened. “Would we ever!” he said excitedly. Billy nodded eagerly.

  “Well, follow me to the locker room, then,” Eric said. He led the way.

  Eric’s bike was different from anything Doug had ever seen. The wheels had no spokes. Instead, colorful disks filled the space between the tires and the axles. The front tire was just a bit smaller than the back one. And instead of the curved handlebars of a ten-speed or the straight-across ones of a mountain bike, Eric’s jutted out in front of his bike, curving just slightly upward at the end. Doug noticed something else, too.

  “Where are the brakes?” he asked.

  Eric laughed. “There are no brakes,” he replied. “Not really. If you want to stop or slow down, you have to pedal backward.”

  Doug recalled that Red had told him about that at the beginning of the summer, when he was showing him his different bikes.

  “Hey, and you have to keep pedaling all the time, right? Because there’s no freewheel or gears!”

  Eric nodded. “Right. And get a load of this.” He slipped his index finger under the top tube of the bike’s frame and lifted the bike easily. “It weighs less than fifteen pounds!”

  “It’s a beauty, Eric,” Red said quietly.

  Doug looked at him quickly. He realized for the first time that Red and Eric must have met when Red was still cycling competitively. He wondered how Red felt now that he was just a spectator.

  Then a bell rang, signaling the start of a new series of races. They all thanked Eric and hustled out of the locker room.

  But Doug couldn’t stop thinking about Red. What would it be like to have a dream snatched out of your hands? Was it worth even trying for a distant goal if something like that could happen?