6 This Sign Can’t Stop Me ’Cause I Have Dyslexia
THIS SIGN CAN’T STOP ME ’CAUSE I HAVE DYSLEXIA
SEYOON
Pitfalls? I eat those for breakfast. A suspended bridge over the water? Balance beam was my favorite event in gymnastics. I was right. I have this race in the bag.
… Okay, I did fall in one of those holes, but I got out faster than anybody, so I still have every right to be confident.
“Cocky,” I spit, remembering Dean’s taunt. “I’ll show that mousy prick what cocky really looks like when I’m waiting for him at the finish line. That rodent-looking… blond… little…” Ugh, forget it. I’ll come up with a good insult later.
My feet hit the dirt of the hiking trail in a quick, rhythmic pattern.
I revel in the reverberations through my legs and the humid, summer air filling my lungs with every breath.
I’ve found my perfect rhythm. Nothing can break it, not even the sight of camera operators slinking out behind bushes to follow me.
There’s no one else ahead of me, and only the boy with the sunburn was anywhere close to being on my tail.
I’ve hardly broken a sweat when the path suddenly diverges into three. A wide tree sits squat in the middle of the fork, and when I get closer, I realize there’s a wooden sign nailed to it. What is this?
I squint to make out the faintly engraved words.
TO FIND THE QUICKEST PATH TO FLEE,ANSWER THE TREE THESE QUESTIONS THREE:
1. THE WINDIEST ROADS DON’T OFTEN LEAD TO—
Oh, fuck me. It’s a riddle. I hate these.
It’s a herculean task getting through the whole thing.
I use my full concentration, swearing when I mistake a d for a b and when I finally get through a sentence only to realize I didn’t understand any of it.
The letters seem to jump, so I do what Appa drilled into me and hold a finger below each squirming word, but it still doesn’t help.
“Shit, shit, shit, come on,” I mutter, staring harder at the sign like sheer willpower can cure my dyslexia.
Maybe it will. Appa certainly thought so.
Why the hell would we have to read in the middle of a race, anyway?
Okay, focus, damnit. I’m suddenly aware of a boom mic subtly shimmying over my head. When did that operator get here?
What’s the point? Even if you could understand it, it doesn’t mean you’re smart enough to solve it. Forget it.
That’s the first thought I’ve had in the last five minutes that doesn’t hurt my brain.
“Screw this,” I say, stepping back. I wasted too much time trying to figure out the puzzle when I should’ve just picked a path and counted on my speed to get me there before anyone else.
If I’d ignored the sign and still gone the wrong way, at least it wouldn’t be because I couldn’t solve the riddle.
Now, people will see that I tried, which is worse.
It’s better to not try at all than to try and fail.
I shut one eye, lick my thumb, and hold it out to the wind. Eeeny, meeny, miny… yeah, let’s go with that one.
Veering to the farthest right path, I take off as fast as my legs will go.
Unfortunately, even with me at a dead sprint, the path seems to go on endlessly into the woods.
Shit. Definitely chose the wrong road. My ears warm.
That’s fine, Seyoon, just keep running, one foot in front of the other, don’t trip over the pebbles, ignore the camera peeking out behind a tree trunk, watch that turn there—
Finally, I break out of the path and onto a grassy bluff.
High above me is an elevated wooden platform.
A dozen cables extend from it and disappear into the foliage of the woods below.
They’re like zip lines, I realize, but not the kind with harnesses.
Instead of being strapped into a seat, you hold on to a rope and stand on a circular disk that rings around the bottom.
My excitement is dampened when I spot Stuart Little’s human counterpart climbing the ladder up to the platform.
“You beat me here?” I yell, making Dean startle and look down at me. His eyebrows jump like he’s just as surprised as I am. I hurry to clamber up the ladder and catch him, but he beats me to the launch platform.
I pull myself up and pause at the row of zip line cables.
There’s a wooden sign in the middle with a big red Warning, but like hell I’m going to try and read the rest of it now.
Which one am I supposed to take? It might be like the fork in the road, where they all lead to the same place, but through different routes.
Dean runs to the one in the center. How does he know which one is right? Was it included in the riddle? Fuck.
He puts one foot on the mini circular disk at the bottom of his rope and glances back at me, still frozen with indecision. He cocks his head.
“You got the riddle wrong, didn’t you? Or else you wouldn’t be looking so confused,” he says.
I grit my teeth and run to the cable on the left. No… maybe the one next to it? “Shut up. I didn’t even read the riddle, so there.”
The corner of his lips turn up, a glimmer of mischief flickering in hazel eyes that have been stoic up until now. I glare at his rope. That must be the right one.
I need to get on that one.
Dean grips his line and taunts, “Guess you won’t be beating me after all.”
He shifts his other foot onto the disk, and—without thinking—I leap at him and cling to his rope.
My stomach shoots into my throat as we soar over the bluff.
“What the hell!” he screams as the disk swings wildly under our combined weight. “Why would you get on this one?”
“I don’t know!” I shout back, clutching to the rope for dear life. “I figured you’d choose the right one!”
“Well, get off!”
“I can’t now, genius!”
The cable above our heads ducks below the line of foliage.
We glide through a cleared row between the trees, hovering a few feet above the ground as the wind whizzes past us.
My guess was right; I can see where the other cables twist and turn in longer paths before becoming parallel with ours again. This was the most direct route.
Because of how narrow the disk is, Dean and I are nose to nose, stepping on each other’s toes to stay on.
I hold myself closer to the rope, wincing when my palms sting.
Dean’s hands are practically on top of mine, gripping so tight that his knuckles turn white.
The line swings, and I bump against his chest.
“Shit,” he gasps.
He falls back. Before I can think, my hand shoots forward to fist in the fabric of his hoodie and pull him back on.
The gash on my palm tears open at the movement, but I hardly notice, distracted by Dean’s wide-eyed look of shock.
My face burns. I wrap my fingers around the rope again, focusing on the path ahead.
I see it now, a few hundred yards away: the end of the race.
Camera crew, Garrett, and Blake cheer and holler behind a checkered banner.
In front of them is a low platform where all twelve cable lines brake, and then a short dash to the finish line.
Glee bubbles up my throat and escapes as laughter.
No matter how much better at riddles or reading instructions or any of that boring stuff Dean is, I’m faster.
I’m going to win.
Then the cable above us snaps.
We scream as our line gives out. It’s a short drop, but the air still punches out of my lungs as my back smacks the forest floor. Dean is flung farther, rolling and tumbling to a stop ahead of me.
Through the ringing in my ears—did I actually hit my head this time? Damnit—the metallic whizzing of a hanger gliding down the neighboring cable makes me twist up from the ground to see who it is.
It’s Sunburn.
As he zips down and passes me, he smirks. Something in his hand flashes.
It’s the gold utility tool he had back at camp. A beam of sunlight glints on a sharp edge.
The realization of what happened helps me suck in a gasp of air, enough for me to put my hands in the dirt and push myself up to stand. Ahead of me, Sunburn hops gracefully off his rope and trots across the finish line.
Fuck! I can still get second, at least, if—
Where the hell did Dean go?
Instead of wasting time like me, Dean’s already up and racing toward the finish.
A symphony of metallic whirring and whizzing surrounds me as the other contestants catch up, some zooming ahead, others shouting in complaint as their cables lead them through long, winding detours.
Several others zip to the finish line now.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I kick up clouds of dirt. The straight shot path is like any hundred-meter dash I’ve run a million times before, but now it feels as if I’m sprinting through water.
My breath escapes in uneven, jagged gasps.
My tailbone and back twinge in pain every time my right foot hits the ground.
Two more people fly past me on their cables, and I barely dodge getting rammed into by another coming in hot from behind.
Everyone’s ahead of me—but there’s still a chance. Twenty feet ahead. Fifteen.
I’ve never had this view before. I’ve never been this far behind.
I can’t lose. I can’t be a loser.
Adrenaline screams through every vein, every muscle, every joint in my body, and I push myself faster than I ever have. I hurry past three people who are slow hopping off their zip lines. Come on. What if Appa sees this? You have to prove him wrong.
Mere feet away from the finish line, I catch up to somebody who’s running hard, but not as hard as me. Because I want it more. I need it more.
I lean forward on my very last stride and cross the finish line just in time. Seconds later, a few people run after me. I glance around and count. Two… Five… Seven…
My knees nearly give out as relief washes over me. I came in eighth. I made it.
Shame licks at my sides like hot oil. I tried so hard, yet I barely made it.
I may as well have lost.