Cross-Country
CROSS-COUNTRY
Then
Kian had been at North Oak for two weeks when he finally spoke to Shirin, in the most unexpected of places: during cross-country running. They were to do two laps of the field, with boys’ and girls’ classes mixed. The PE teachers stood at different points around the running course, faux encouraging in their deep bellows as the students passed them.
Kian began at a steady pace, but while he was one of the best at Foxview, he was middling at North Oak. Halfway through the first lap they had to go up a mound, which he thought might finish him off. The girls’ PE teacher, a blond Swiss woman with a mole above her lip and eyebrows that naturally cast downward, told him to “hurry up,” clapping her hands as he passed her. He pegged it down the mound with a stitch in his side. Just before PE he’d eaten a cheese-and-bean baguette from the canteen. Knowing he wouldn’t be one of the first to finish wiped out any motivation he had to push himself.
Out of sight from the teachers, Kian jogged away from the track toward a line of trees. He planned to lean against one of them to catch his breath and soothe the ache in his side. He was thinking he’d sprint the rest of the way, to not lag too far behind, but for now he would give himself a moment to steady his ragged breath.
At first he didn’t see her. The ancient tree trunk was so wide it hid her from view. But when he looked behind himself at a certain angle, he caught a glimpse of her leg. Then he walked around the tree and she was there. Hair thrown into a bun on the top of her head, she wore a baggy blue polo top and long navy shorts. The other girls wore more form-fitting PE kits; hers looked like it was two sizes too big and made her look petite.
Shirin’s head whipped around to Kian, momentary panic plain on her face until she realized it was just him. Dangling from her ears were the wires from a pair of pink headphones, which she slowly removed, her eyes narrowed at him. She didn’t say anything though, and he broke his frozen stance by saying, “What are you doing?”
She looked from side to side, like his question was stupid. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
He kicked a bit of bark in front of him, and it jumped over the grass two times before landing pathetically not too far away. “Why aren’t you running?”
She shrugged. “I needed a break.”
He frowned. “You’ll get a really shit time, though, if you stay here.”
“Who said I care about what time I get?”
He was taken aback by the sharpness of her tone. From what little he had seen of her in the corridors, Kian had created an image of her in his head that was at odds with how she actually spoke. He thought she would be shy and timid, bullied, and not the kind of girl to be sacking off cross-country to listen to music.
“All right then,” he said, about to turn around.
“Sorry,” she said. She reached into the waistband of her shorts, produced a lime-green iPod Nano, and paused her music. “Phoebe was meant to meet me here, but she must not have been able to get away from the teachers.”
“What do you mean?”
Shirin looked off behind Kian, gestured for him to get closer to her and out of view. He took two steps forward, and she gently put her hand on his shoulder to guide him behind the tree. “I thought I saw Miss Kemp,” she said, before finally looking him back in the eyes. “We worked out that if we hide here for a bit, we can pretend we’ve already done one lap and come out, when no one’s looking, to finish the race.”
“That is so lazy,” Kian said, smiling.
“What they’re doing is cruelty; no one wants to do this. They get to relax while we struggle to breathe going up the mound.” She shook her head. “Nah, no thank you.”
Kian leaned against the tree. “What are you listening to, anyway?”
She gripped her iPod tighter. “This and that.” He raised an eyebrow. “Blink-182,” she said. “And Mary J. Blige. I have varied taste, before you say anything.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said, releasing a small smile at her defensiveness.
“Keep it that way,” she said, narrowing her eyes, though it was clear she was joking. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” Sadly, he thought. He hadn’t intended for this to show quite so plainly on his face, but it did.
She wrapped her headphones around her iPod and tucked it back into the waistband of her shorts. “So, how do you like North Oak so far?”
“It’s a bit shit,” he said. “I liked my other school.”
“Oh. Why’d you come here, anyway?”
He shrugged. “My parents thought it would be better.”
He somehow knew she knew about his brother. There was something in her eyes, in the way she looked down when he said this and didn’t push it further. “Don’t you all wear proper suits at Foxview? Like, a tie and everything,” she said.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t stop the small smile from growing back on his face.
“I think your parents were right. It’s too posh there. Why are they making you dress like you’re businessmen or something?” she said, smiling back.
“There were more people like us there,” he said.
Her head tilted to the right, and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Like us?”
“You know what I mean: Asian. But I didn’t know any Iranians there. You are Iranian, right?”
“How did you guess?” she asked.
“Your eyes,” he said.
They looked at each other a beat longer than was normal, and then Shirin looked away, cleared her throat. “Yeah, well, North Oak is pretty white and racist. So, welcome.”
“I heard you were in hospital after something someone did?” he asked slowly.
She was quiet for a moment, frowning. “Jordan thinks it’s hilarious to throw mud balls at some of us. He said he does it to everyone, but he only got me in the face, and there was a piece of metal in it. I’m fine now, so it’s like, whatever…”
“Jesus.”
They could hear a whistle in the distance and a teacher shouting, “One lap left!”
“Okay, give it a minute, and when Miss Kemp is out of view we need to run,” Shirin said.
Kian cleared his throat and as nonchalantly as he could said, “I was really good at running at my old school.”
“Do you want me to give you a round of applause?” she said, and then her face lit up. “Okay, I’ll race you the last stretch, and whoever loses has to give the other a quid.”
“I mean,” he began, “I’m obviously going to win.”
“Well, let’s see.”
Shirin looked ahead, saw the coast was clear, and began to run. He didn’t realize she meant right now, so he was a little behind her. He had to really leap as he ran to catch up with her; she was quick. In the end, she completed the run two seconds ahead of him. At the finish line she had her hands on her thighs for support, her face a tomato red. In front of everyone who had already finished, she didn’t acknowledge him. In fact she turned her body away from him while she caught her breath, and then went over to Phoebe, presumably to find out why she hadn’t met her as planned. Phoebe had her blond hair in a high ponytail and was about three inches taller than Shirin. He thought he heard Phoebe say that Miss Kemp wouldn’t bloody leave her alone.
When Connor had completed the run, he said to Kian that he hadn’t seen him on the course for ages. “You must have been quick,” Connor said. Kian mumbled something about him not kidding when he said he was good at running, deciding to keep what he and Shirin had done between them. Once everyone had finished, the boys and girls started to make their way back to their changing rooms. As Shirin passed Kian to go into the girls’ room she whispered, “You owe me a pound.” He couldn’t even be mad about losing, either, because inside he felt a lightness within him that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. And this lightness expanded, turned into something almost giddy, when he realized he’d likely speak to her again—had to, in fact, to give her the quid. He had never been so happy to have lost a bet.