I know it's a wide open
field now, but what made me really interested is why the favourite
pulled out, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't that he had to dash down to
the shops for a new beard trimmer.
Let me back up a
moment. We have a roof running race every third year. This one,
everyone thought that the winner would be obvious. He's quicker and
nimbler than anyone I've ever seen, and he can get across even the
worst set of tiles like a scuttling lizard. But like I said, he
dropped out. Vanished. Vamooshed. Left the field of competition wide
open, and I could scrape up a bit of hope again. Or try to, because
too many of them were looking at me now and I couldn't be sure that
whoever nobbled him wasn't going to come after me next.
Which was how I found
myself following his trail across roofs and walls and fences until it
finally dropped to ground level in a tangled workshop district, next
to a tiny abandoned space - one of those nooks and crannies that all
its neighbours think one of the others owns, and is actually not
owned by anyone.
He was waiting for me
when I got there, his arms protectively round a couple of tiny kids.
I put my hands up and
out at once. "Not going to hurt you. Just wanted to check you
were ok."
He grinned, and the
shadows danced behind him like errant wings. "Go win the race,"
he told me. "It really isn't my scene."
I gave him a confused
look, because who wouldn't want to win the roof-race if they could?
Turns out, those
weren't shadows behind him. They were real wings.
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