View Single Post
Old November 30th, 2019 #29
Jerry Abbott
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: In the hills north of Hillsboro WV
Posts: 1,048
Default

Divine Heritage, Chapter 3, section 4.

My track class was held alongside a general PE class, from which I was exempted because training for a sport, such as track, was considered to be an acceptable equivalent. The event we were training for at the moment was the 400-meter relay race. I was one of four girls who had to run 100 meters with a baton, which I was to hand off on the run to the next girl, unless I were the last girl, in which case I carried it across the finish line.

The girls in the PE class were doing their exercises in the middle of the football field. They were subdued today because yesterday the coach had scolded them for chanting, while doing their push-ups, "We must! We must! We must increase our bust! The bigger the better. The better the bigger. The boys are depending on us!" Repeat. Coach Braun thought it was immodest. I thought it was just girls will be girls.

The coach was pleased with me because I was the fastest girl on the team. I'd been careful not to let my speed-up get out of hand. Warp two was plenty speedy enough. Cheating? Of course it wasn't cheating. Cheating was something like using drugs, such as amphetamines or steroids. Being a demi-goddess who could bend time wasn't against the rules at all.

I heard Coach Braun call "On your mark." The girls crouched into their starting positions. "Get set." Looking on from the other side of the track, I saw six butts rise several inches each, as muscles tensed in twelve thighs. "Go!"

Off they went. Coming around the first curve, the half-dozen girls in the first relay caught up with those in the second, who snatched their batons and took them on around the track. Beth Griffin was the girl with the baton I was to take. I started off as she got close, let her catch me. I went on double-time as I took the baton. My team had been in last place due to a near-fumble of our baton on the first hand-off. I remedied that to the extent of tying with the leading team at the third hand-off. Our final relay girl, Tamara Cook, crossed the finish line in second place.

Oh well.

I jogged over to the finish line on normal time rate. Coach Braun kept shooting quick glances at me. He was holding his stopwatch in his right hand. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I might have run my hundred meters faster than I should have.

The relay race is a team sport, and it isn't polite to ask one's coach about one's individual performance. It would sound too much as if one were trying to take a bigger share of the credit for winning or avoid some of the blame for losing. And that isn't good sportsmanship. So I jogged on by the coach to the bleachers, while the next twenty-four girls took their places around the track for their event.

I swear that my hearing is getting better. Or, I should say, when I want my hearing to improve, it does. When Coach Fuller came out to the track, Coach Braun had a quiet word with her. I tuned in.

"Keep an eye on Brenda Jones," he said. "I timed her in the relay. Perhaps I made a mistake with the stopwatch. But if I didn't, then she ran that hundred meters in ten point two seconds."

"Not possible," said Coach Fuller. "That would be a world's record for the women's 100-meter sprint, and it would be almost a record for the men's."

"As I said, I might have made a mistake with the stopwatch. Just keep an eye on her. Even without timing her, I can see that she's easily the fastest girl we've ever had at Brookstone. And..." I looked away just in time. "I have the feeling she's holding back. As strange as that sounds."

"Well, all right. I'll observe her for you while you're at Glisson Camp. But if she's that fast, then she's from another planet."

"I've been training boys and girls for a long time," said Coach Braun, who was in his sixties. "I can usually tell when a student isn't giving an event his best effort. And while it would be utterly ridiculous for me to find fault with Brenda's excellent event times, it does seem to me that she isn't trying as hard as she can." Coach Braun gave his class over to Coach Fuller and headed off to wherever it was he had to go.

Hm.

All right, then. My IQ had made me famous. And now I'd probably become doubly so, since, now that my coach had discovered (some of) my speed, I could hardly avoid becoming Brookstone's track star. I'd only meant to make up for the sloppiness of two of my teammates in the relay race. I hadn't intended to earn the "fastest woman in the world" title. Maybe I could convince the coach that he'd made a mistake with that darned stopwatch.

The answer turned out to be simple. I reduced the speed-up to about fifty percent above normal. That way I could still go as fast as I needed to, while looking as if I were trying harder, which I was.