Sakruti

In eighth grade I won all of my middle-school events at the All-District meet. A bunch of the high-school coaches wanted me to come to their schools, but Mom had other plans. At the last meet of the year, she introduced me to the head coach from Christopher Academy. Christopher was offering a full scholarship, if I wanted it.Wanted it? Christopher was one of the top private schools in the city, with one of the top track teams in the country. If I did well there, I could write my college track ticket. Better: nobody in my school could afford it. Nobody. And nobody else was getting a scholarship. TestKing My teammates didn't talk to me, but I heard everything. They would have told the world if they had gotten into the Christopher Academy. It was out of their reach. Christopher kids were like Beverly Hills kids on television, clean and expensive gods and goddesses. Nobody at my school would dare to talk to them. There wouldn't be any whispers in those expensive hallways. When she saw I wanted this school and this chance, Mom went a little nuts. Over the summer, we moved from the old family apartment in the Village—and wasn't my Aunt Cynthia happy to take it when we left—to a squinched-up little place on the Upper East Side. Mom took a second job, tending bar at night, to cover the new expenses. Our apartment was near the school and near Central Park, where the Christopher runners trained. I could practice with the team and not have to worry about taking the subway home after dark, Mom said,310-055 putting her altar up in a corner of her tiny bedroom. I felt guilty. Mom and her sisters were true believers in the family religion. She wasn't happy with just a medallion, not even a proper hunt-goddess figure, instead of the shrine in our old place, but this was only for four years, I told myself. Maybe the apartment wasn't so much, but I could have friends, and bring them over, and only have to explain horseshoes over the doorways. Anyway, I wasn't RH302 a believer in the family goddess after middle school. If their goddess was so wonderful, why didn't she fix my life? She protected maidens, right? Wasn't I a maiden? My dad was right about that much—the worship was screwy.After all that, ninth grade still wasn't exactly a popularity explosion. It was made clear to me that while I had a track scholarship, ninth graders did not show up the upperclassmen. They trained and they waited for their turn, their chance. They ran with the team. If I heard it once during those first weeks, I heard it a dozen times: I belonged to the Christopher team, the Christopher tradition, the Christopher way of doing things. I warmed a bench and kept my mouth shut.