Andreo's Race Read online




  Copyright © 2015 by Pam Withers

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, One Toronto Street, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2V6

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York, P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934267

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Withers, Pam, author

  Andreo’s race / written by Pam Withers.

  ISBN 978-1-77049-766-5 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-77049-767-2 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8595.I8453A65 2015 jC813′.6 C2014-900837-6

  C2014-900838-4

  Edited by Sue Tate

  Designed by Rachel Cooper

  www.tundrabooks.com

  v3.1

  For my father, Richard Miller, with love

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  You need the lungs and leg muscles of a giant to pump your mountain bike up a steep, twisting trail in the Canadian Rockies. Especially in pitch darkness, and even if you’re drafting your hard-sweating friend Raul Jones.

  It doesn’t help that we’ve had no sleep for forty hours and the blisters on our feet are weeping yellow pus under their mummy wraps of duct tape. It doesn’t help that we have another sixteen-plus kilometers (ten miles) to go. And that’s assuming we’re not already lost on this mountain pass. It does help that the first hints of dawn are beginning to backlight the wind-tossed trees around us.

  “You still awake, Andreo?” Raul’s voice bellows.

  “I’m awake,” I shout, blinking heavy eyelids to convince myself it’s true. “I’ll lead when we reach the top of this hill.”

  “Not.” His voice drifts back to me.

  In rhythm with my own haggard breathing, I work the pedals and focus on the reflective stripes of Raul’s yellow bike jacket. Like glowworms, they draw me slowly up to the crest, then wrinkle and shrink as my friend raises an arm in a victory punch and speeds downhill.

  I suck from my hydration pack’s mouth tube and lean into my handlebars. My aching knees amp up their piston work to reach the top. Then, praying it’s our last hill, I shift my weight back and lift my numb butt off the saddle, more than ready to enlist gravity for a while.

  Wind numbs my ears, and my body vibrates with the effort of swerving around rocks as my bike hurtles into daybreak. After half an hour of keeping every body part flexed for shock absorption, I find myself staring wide-eyed at my friend. He’s being swallowed by a blanket of fog so thick and low over the valley ahead that it feels entirely possible we’re entering a zone of suffocation. It resembles a giant lake heaped with fluffy snowdrifts, but in my exhaustion, I imagine that a feathery mattress awaits, eager to embrace me, bike and all.

  Instead of feathers, a cool wetness slaps my face, and visibility drops to—Screech! I narrowly avoid skidding into Raul. He’s standing beside his bike on the side of the trail, squeezing a pack of power gel between his chapped lips.

  “This fog’s bad, mon.”

  “Wrong,” I reassure him. “It’ll mess up the others. Not us. That’s a good thing.”

  Raul makes a face at me. “Yeah, but we lose this trail and we’re toast. I say let’s pull over. We’ve earned a little break. Maybe it’ll thin out.”

  “We rest, we lose. The compass and map say we’re okay. Besides, the last checkpoint should be bottom of this valley, beside the lake.”

  “Last checkpoint,” Raul echoes, brightening. “Manned by lots of cute chicas, I hope.” He re-straddles his bike and turns up his music. Bob Marley leaks from his earbuds through his now-bobbing dreadlocks. I grin. Sometimes I wonder if Raul thinks he’s black rather than brown.

  “Raul, we’ll be through there so fast, we won’t know if they’re chicks or dudes,” I say, pulling up beside him. “Remember, fog’s good. Dad says I have a sixth sense when it comes to navigation. A homing instinct.”

  Raul removes one earbud. “Homing instinct? He means you’re a pigeon-brain. But lead on, fog-man.” He lifts his bony butt back onto his bike saddle and we’re off.

  Down into the valley we careen, wisps of fog brushing our necks. An eerie cry rises from nearby peaks. Wolves. I shudder without lifting my eyes from the trail. Most other creatures up here must be getting ready to hibernate, especially after this October cold snap. I sigh. A long winter’s nap is what I need right now. I shake my head to keep myself alert.

  Unlike most of the competitors in this teens-only, two-day adventure race, I’ve been training for this kind of event all my life. Comes with having a mother who’s a former canoe racer and personal trainer, and a dad who spends every moment he’s not working at his construction firm tearing around the world, competing in adventure races. Adventure races, as I’m always explaining to my eleventh-grade classmates at Canmore High, are basically multisport races in the wilderness lasting anywhere from a day or two to more than a week. It’s a kind of insanity that only fitness crazies with an overload of testosterone and a need to “test their limits” go in for. Fitness freaks who also happen to have a fat wallet, since the big adventure races—not wimpy little two-day kid versions like this one—cost plenty.

  That’s my folks: rich, adventurous fitness fanatics. I go along with it ’cause I’m good at the navigation bit. And to fit in with my family, however hopeless that is. Raul does it to get away from his drunken parents.

  “Yes! The lake!” I shout even before I see it. The thicker air means water is nearby, and for just a microsecond, the fog delivers the faint sound of human conversation. Use all your senses, Dad always says.

  We ride at speed right up to some stacked crates and two folding chairs that serve as the checkpoint. Two girl volunteers from our high school smile and rise to stamp the team passport I hold out.

  “Anyone ahead of us?” Raul asks the prettier of the two, even though he knows it’s against the rules for them to tell.

  “My lips are sealed,” she replies.

  “Your lips are way too pretty to be sealed. But we’ll continue this conversation later.” He grins as he sprints his bike toward the mist-enshrouded beach. I follow.

  “Mother!” I drop my bike and rush toward her slender, broad-shouldered form beside the lineup of canoes at the water’s edge. She’s wearing several fleece jackets and a lavender ski cap, black Lycra tights and brand-new, hightech running shoes. She’s not a race official here or anything, just our self-appointed trainer and fan. “Was
n’t sure you’d be here.”

  “You’ve made good time,” she says, studying her chronograph racing watch. “I knew you wouldn’t get lost in the fog.” She reaches out as if to pat my shoulder, but fails to actually touch it. Other mothers would give their son a hug, but my mother isn’t the hugging kind. Not with this son, anyway. “Hurry now, boys,” she urges, nodding at Raul.

  Raul and I drop our packs into the nearest canoe and grab the life jackets lying inside. “Who’s ahead of us?” I ask.

  “Two teams,” she says gravely, leaning forward to buckle my life jacket like I’m still a kid, not a sixteen-year-old. “But you’re on their tail. Remember to stroke close to the canoe, let the boat glide—no lurching—and use your abdominal muscles.… ”

  “We know all that.” Raul leaps into the bow and picks up the paddle lying there. “Let’s go already, Team Inca.”

  A shadow flickers across my mother’s face. She doesn’t like our team name, and for a split second, I regret not vetoing Raul’s suggestion. But she’ll overlook our name when we win, I reason.

  “See you at the finish!” she shouts. “There’s a surprise waiting there!”

  “Food, I hope,” Raul says.

  “David?” I contemplate, stabbing the water, then pulling with long, clean strokes.

  “Nah, your brother’s too busy at that new private school of his,” Raul says.

  If there’s little love lost between David and me, there’s a whole lot less between David and my sharp-tongued, rough-edged buddy Raul, I muse. But now’s not the time to distract ourselves from hauling ass.

  Bob Marley’s crackly voice drifts sternward as our paddles slice through thinning mist and gray lake water.

  “Fog-brain, know where we’re going?” Raul asks.

  “Like a laser beam.”

  “But Team Torpedoes is to our right, veering east.”

  I squint as far as the vapor will let me and detect the outline of another canoe. “That’s their problem. Trust me.”

  Stroke, stroke, stroke. What’s left of my shoulder muscles burns cruelly; my eyelids can’t stay propped open much longer. Twenty minutes later, we come up on what must be the lead team’s canoe. Splashes tell me that the Adventure Aces are not paddling smoothly and evenly, but hey, they didn’t grow up with a mother-coach. We move into position to ride their wake. They swivel around to glare at us and unwisely pour on speed.

  Fifteen minutes of piggybacking on their efforts and my nostrils smell mud and vegetation, which means we’re approaching land. “Move it,” I direct Raul, and we dig in to pass the would-be winners, who lack the juice now to prevent our taking the lead. Even before our canoe slides onto shore, we strip off our life jackets, let our paddles clatter to the floor and re-shoulder our packs. A startled volunteer steps forward to secure the boat.

  “This is it,” I shout, and up a muddy hill we charge on our last dregs of adrenaline, taking short steps and staying off the balls of our feet, just as Dad has trained us to do on steep slopes. Sunrise is finally dispersing the fog with a tangerine glow.

  “Ay yi yi!” Raul shrieks in what he has decided is an Inca warrior cry. We grab hold of tree roots to pull ourselves over the top of the ridge and all but tumble down to the finish line. Breaking through the finish line’s thin strip of orange tape feels utterly blissful. Seeing Dad leaping about and surging forward to bear-hug us both is cool. Then I spot the still figure behind him. Resentment replaces my euphoria.

  “David,” I say tonelessly.

  “Congratulations, Andreo. First place.” The voice is equally flat, almost sarcastic; the eyes narrowed. I smell jealousy and find it nourishing. I notice he has put on a slight paunch since leaving six weeks ago. Boarding-school food must be good. But before I can say anything, a burly reporter steps between us and his cameraman aims a television news camera at Raul and me. “Team Inca. How does it feel to clinch first place?”

  “Awesome,” I say, my legs suddenly threatening to buckle.

  “And what’s the secret of your success?”

  “Hard training, good coaching,” Dad says proudly, forgetting for a moment that it’s not all about him.

  “Our Inca genes,” Raul says a little louder than necessary, throwing an arm around my shoulder and grinning into the camera. I watch Dad and David stiffen.

  “Your Inca genes?” The newsman looks curious.

  “Andreo and I are Quechua Indians, descended from the mighty Incas. We were born in Bolivia and adopted and raised by Canadian parents,” Raul proclaims. “That means our lungs are descended from generations of high-mountain warriors. That’s why locals here have no chance against us.”

  I’m too tired to roll my eyes, let alone wince on behalf of Dad, his face frozen in shock, or David, whose raised eyebrows reek of ridicule. There are two unspoken rules in our household: Never mention the A word and always pretend that David and I are natural brothers.

  “I see,” the reporter says politely.

  “And you must be Nick Wilson,” he says, swinging toward my dad, “a well-known adventure racer yourself. How does it feel to have your, er, son and his friend here place first?”

  “I’m proud as hell,” Dad says, averting his eyes from Raul. “And this is my other son, David, also sixteen.… ”

  But the reporter and his cameraman have swung back to capture the Adventure Aces sprinting for the finish line.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Your friend Raul could do with a little more restraint,” Dad says in a friendly but measured tone from where he sits, muscle-toned and hairy-chested, across from me in the Canmore Country Club whirlpool. I look out of the tall window behind him, the one that frames a panorama of rose-colored, snowcapped peaks. I’ve slept all day and hauled myself out of bed just in time for this “spa and dinner night out” celebration of my adventure-race win.

  “Yeah, like he’s the least classy guy at Canmore High you could possibly choose to hang out with,” says David as he lowers his pasty white self in baggy swim shorts into the pool in a squeeze between Mother and Dad.

  Sitting across from their tight arc of three, I feel for a moment like someone being interrogated rather than celebrated.

  “Raul is Raul,” I state.

  “Raul is a nice boy,” my mother speaks up, patting the bun into which she has wound her long dark hair to keep it dry. Her black one-piece glistens as she rises to press the power button for more Jacuzzi action. “He does well considering he’s from a disadvantaged family.”

  “Disadvantaged?” My father scoffs as bubbles surge about us. “His folks used to be pretty well off.”

  Dad should know. My parents referred Raul’s parents to the adoption agency that handled us both.

  “Don’t know how they manage to keep their jobs, though,” Dad adds. “Their employer must turn a blind eye.”

  “Working drunks,” David inserts helpfully. I feel like shoving a wall of water at him.

  “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” my mother points out. “Anyway, Raul means well. He just has a lot of …,” she pauses, “spark.”

  “Anyone up for the steam room?” Dad asks. One by one we step out of the whirlpool, file through cold showers and enter the steam room. For an instant, I’m transported back to the early-morning fog of my race. But my sore muscles are happy for the room’s searing heat.

  “David, tell us more about how school is going,” my mother says, her voice all but gushing. “He was placed on the honor roll already,” she informs me.

  I feel my jaw tighten. That would be in contrast to my all-Cs report card, with the exception of Spanish, where I managed an A minus. Truth is, like Raul, I’d way rather be outside doing something fun than inside doing homework.

  “School’s awesome,” David says. “Teachers are way better than at Canmore High, and there are lots of clubs: Math Club, Chess Club, Current Events Club, Science Club.… ”

  “But you’ve left plenty of time for sports, too?” Dad asks as he stretches his body full-
length on the top bench, metallic blue swim trunks sparkling in the steam. Beneath him is a fluffy white towel with a gold-threaded Canmore Country Club monogram on its corner.

  “Yeah, um, I signed up for track, but missed the deadline, so I’ll get on the team next round,” David replies.

  “Missed the deadline?” Dad says, rising on one elbow. He quickly lowers his voice at a signal from Mother. “Want me to talk to someone there? That was silly to get a date wrong, son, but surely they’ll make an exception for you.”

  Missed the deadline? I wonder. He was probably too busy getting on the honor roll and beating everyone at chess. But it’s true that David is a decent runner when he’s training.

  “And have you made friends, darling?” Mother asks.

  “Yeah, I got elected student government leader,” David says, his chest puffing out a little as he sits swinging his legs through the hot mist.

  Power doesn’t buy happiness or friends, I am tempted to say. But Mother is all smiles and pride.

  “I joined the Spanish Club,” I hear myself say, even though I usually avoid competing with David on anything academic.

  “Yes, your Spanish is getting very good,” Mother says, a little too hurriedly.

  “Well,” David says, standing to stretch his tall frame and tracing a line in the steam on the glass door, “people kind of expect Andreo to speak Spanish, don’t they?”

  I bite my lip. It’s as close as David will ever come in front of Mother to referring to the difference in our skin color.

  “You haven’t told me yet why you’re home this weekend,” I address him, moving up to plop down beside Dad. Like why you’ve shown up unannounced to spoil what should have been my weekend. He has no idea how six weeks of his being at boarding school—and me having Mother and Dad to myself for the first time in my life—has given me a real taste for being an only child.

  “Dad told me to come. Said he’d explain it tonight. And Mom drove all the way to the train station to pick me up.” David slips his arm around her; she responds by giving him a firm hug and a peck on his cheek. I have no idea why David calls her Mom while I’ve always called her Mother.