Asta woke up with a start. There were people in the room, standing over her.
‘She’s awake!’ said one of them. ‘Go.’
Asta came to the hazy realization that the person who had spoken was Yixin. Before she could make sense of this fact, a rattling, tinkling sound filled the air, soon accompanied by what sounded like a spoon hitting the side of a mug tunelessly. As Asta’s eyes cleared of sleep, she saw that was exactly what it was. The spoon and the mug were both held by Gem, and his face was twisted with deep focus as he tapped out a jaunty rhythm. Yixin was holding a second mug with her hand over the top, shaking it like a maraca.
‘It’s Race Day,’ Yixin exclaimed in a forced whisper in rhythm with the percussion.
‘Race Day!’ Gem echoed in the same tone.
Together, they whisper-chanted, ‘Running down the track, yay!’
Yixin again. Her voice a little louder. ‘Race Day!’
Gem, following suit. ‘Race Day!’
‘Get out of the way, hey!’ They began to sway back and forth.
‘What is happening?’ Asta asked Carmine, who had popped his head through the hatch in the wall. The chant had reached a fever pitch.
‘Race Day!’
‘Race Day!’
‘Wake up, Asta, wake up, Carmy! We’re your special race alarmy!’
Asta couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You guys are so stupid.’
Yixin and Gem concluded their performance in a mania of percussion so loud that Carmine pulled his head back through the hatch with a scolding little bark. Asta covered her ears until they stopped.
‘Race Day!’ they said together and spread their hands in a frozen pose, as if expecting applause.
Asta humored them with a few feeble claps. ‘Very impressive.’
‘Thank you!’ Yixin said. ‘Oh, here’s your vitamins.’ She handed Asta the mug she had been using.
Asta eyed the pile of pills in the bottom of the mug warily. ‘So you two just came up with this little ditty on the fly?’
Gem shook his head soberly. ‘Oh, no. We’ve been practicing outside for the last hour. It took Yixin a while to keep the pills inside the mug. She has little hands.’
‘Thoseallwent on the ground,’ Yixin added.
Asta fished a pebble out from their midst. ‘So I see.’
‘Good for digestion,’ Yixin assured Asta. She raised her eyebrows at Gem.
Asta’s stomach was, in fact, feeling rather sour, but she did not think it had anything to do with her digestion. As Gem and Yixin had so exuberantly reminded her, it was race day.
She had tossed and turned all night trying to figure out what she was going to do, but there did not seem to be a good option. If she did what Hummer wanted, she would end the day a disappointment to everyone, including herself. If she didn’t, the consequences were unthinkable.
Could she ask Felix to help her? But he would never throw a race. He would want her to go to Flávia. Whether he liked it or not, he had become the Seraphin champion his parents had always dreamed of, and the reality he lived in had no place for what she knew she had to do.
She had seen what Hummer had tried to do to Pikki. The man could make all the jokes he wanted about her so-called promotion, but he wouldn’t hesitate to punish Asta if she failed. And Felix. He’d made that very clear. She really would have to do what he asked. What she wouldn’t give for one of those sedatives they gave Carmine last spring when he had a tooth pulled. That would knock Essie right out. Maybe she could tamper with Felix’s gear instead. But what if someone found it and fixed it before he went out– or worse, what if they didn’t, and he got hurt?
If only she had more time, she could come up with a solution to everything.
But it was race day.
‘Hey, you ever getting out of bed?’ Gem called to Asta. He and Yixin had migrated to the kitchen where they were laughing at each other doing dramatic readings of the corny promotional copy printed on Gem’s box of granola bars. ‘Your reporter person is going to be here soon.’
