Katharine shook her head. “Just deposits around an old vent. But it seems to be worse today.”
The astronomer frowned. “Are you sure?”
Something in his tone set off an alarm in Katharine’s head. “I think so,” she said. “I assume it has to do with the rain we had this morning.”
“Or maybe the earthquakes opened up a pocket of gas,” Howell replied.
Katharine’s gaze shifted worriedly to Rob. “Earthquakes?” she repeated. “What’s he talking about?”
“The volcano,” Phil Howell said before Rob could speak. “Looks like it’s getting ready to kick up again.”
Katharine’s heart skipped a beat and she looked at Rob again. “You said it was extinct!”
“It is,” Rob assured her. “He’s talking about Kilauea on the Big Island.” He could tell by the look on her face that Katharine wasn’t convinced. “Tell her, Phil. She obviously doesn’t believe me.”
Katharine listened silently as Phil Howell explained the volcanic movement under the Big Island. “It’s not just the earthquakes,” he finished. “If it really gets going, it spews so much dust into the air you can’t see anything even if the scopes are holding still.” He paused. “Makes you wonder if mountaintops are really the best places for observatories, doesn’t it?”
Katharine made no reply, but as she began showing the site to the astronomer, she found herself glancing toward the hole in the side of the ravine that marked the ancient volcanic vent. All but lost in the tangled vegetation of the rain forest, it certainly looked harmless enough.
As she tried to concentrate on what she was saying, she kept thinking that the smell of sulfur was growing stronger.
Should she mention it to Rob and Phil? But no, they seemed unconcerned.
It must be her imagination.
It had to be.
The hostility from the two guys on the bus followed Michael around all day long. Wherever he was, they seemed to be there, always together, always watching him. During the break between his last two classes, they’d shoved him up against a locker.
“Another hour,” the bigger one had growled. “Then you’re dead meat, haole.” So far, though, they hadn’t actually tried anything, and if they were planning to wait for him after school, they were going to have to wait a long time, for today Michael was going to do something he’d never done before. Today, for the first time in his life, he was actually going to go out for a team.
He made up his mind during gym class. He’d been checking his breathing all day, and there hadn’t been any problems. In fact, he felt better than ever. “Just wait,” Josh Malani told him as they’d jogged around the track. “Sometimes the trades die down, and they start burnin’ the cane fields, and the mountain on the Big Island goes off. Man, you could choke to death around here!”
But his breathing had been deep and easy, and even after he’d finished three laps, he barely felt it. So when he’d seen the track team practice schedule posted on the bulletin board in the locker room, he decided. Today was the day.
Now, as the final bell sounded and he left his last class, instead of heading out to the side of the school where the buses — and the two guys — would be waiting, Michael went the other way, toward the locker room.
Stripping off his clothes, he put on his gym shorts, still damp from P.E. class that morning. He laced up his shoes carefully, making sure they weren’t so tight his feet would start swelling before he even got warmed up, then left the locker room and trotted out to the field, where the track team was already starting their warm-up calisthenics.
Should he go over and join them, or warm up by himself?
What if he went over just like he was one of them, and then didn’t make the team when he tried out? Better just to take a couple of laps around the track.
He finished the first lap and was a hundred feet into the second when he felt a sharp elbow dig into the ribs on his right side.
“What do you think you’re doin’, jerk?” a familiar voice said.
Michael glanced over without turning his head. It was the bigger of the two guys from the bus. And he was wearing a track suit.
Saying nothing, Michael kept running.
The other boy, towering half a foot over Michael, shortened his stride enough to match Michael’s pace. “Can’t you talk, asshole?”
Michael remained silent, but kept running, concentrating only on his pace, determined neither to change it nor to break stride. If the guy was going to shove him off the track, so be it. But he wasn’t going to quit.
They rounded the last turn. As Michael dropped his pace back to a walk and approached the coach, the other boy kept going, stepping up his own stride with an ease that made Michael question whether he shouldn’t just head back to the locker room, take a shower, and go home. Then he saw the other guy from the bus, his lips curled into a contemptuous sneer, as if the guy knew exactly what was going through his mind.
With perfect clarity, Michael knew that if he walked off the field now, he’d hate every single day he had to come back to Bailey High. Taking a deep breath, he walked up to the coach. “I’m Michael Sundquist,” he said. “I want to try out for the team.” He felt the coach look him over with appraising eyes, and easily read the doubt in his face. “I’m a sprinter.”
“I think I can make up my own mind about what you can do,” the coach said. The team, except for the one guy who was still running around the track, laughed, and Michael tried to ignore the burning in his face. But when he didn’t flinch from the words, the coach relented. “Okay, what do you want to try?”
“The hundred meter, or the two hundred,” Michael offered.
“How about the four hundred?” the coach asked.
Michael bit his lip, then decided he’d better tell the truth. “I had asthma. I’m not sure I can last that long, full-out.”
The coach raised a brow, but when he spoke, his voice carried no note of judgment. “Okay. I’ll tell you when to go.” Pulling a stopwatch out of his pocket, he set it, then handed it to the second of the guys from the bus. When the timer had reached the mark a hundred meters down the track, the coach nodded to Michael, who moved out to the starting blocks. “On your mark.”
Michael dropped to a crouch, putting his left foot against the block.
“Set.”
Michael tensed, ready for the coach to utter the final word.
And waited.
What on earth was going on? Was the coach pulling some kind of joke on him? His legs began to ache. Jaw clenched, determination tensing every muscle, he crouched low to the track. His left foot still braced, he remained tensed to take off. Then, as he heard feet approaching from behind him, he understood.
Sure enough, just as the guy who’d elbowed him a few minutes ago passed him, the coach shouted, “Go!”
As Michael launched himself off the block, he could see the bigger boy, already ahead of him, increase his pace. Swell! Not only was he going to have to try to catch up with someone who had a head start and was bigger, but he was going to have to eat dust, too.
Well, if that was the game they wanted to play, fine!
Sucking air deep into his lungs, Michael lunged forward, hitting his full stride in the first two steps, then pouring on as much speed as he could muster.
After he’d gone ten steps he realized the runner ahead of him was no longer widening the distance.
In fact, the gap was narrowing.
Then he heard a voice yelling from the bleachers and glanced over to see Josh Malani jumping up and down. “Go, Mike! Go!”
Clenching his fists as if to squeeze even more energy out of his body, Michael focused on closing the gap. After they had run forty meters, there were only four meters between them.