Date: 16th of May, 201M2044BC

Location: Volcano High Sports Arena

Conditions: Warm, partially overcast

Objective: Stick it up to the meteor dodgers

 

I'm sitting on the tribunes, peeling my eyes at the track in anticipation of the most important sporting event of my life. 

Fang, sharing my expectancy and impatience for the upcoming struggle to a great degree, leans forward in her seat, almost poking the dino in front of her with her snout. The young raptor woman gives her the meanest side-eye, but Sweet Tooth does not care. 

Her eyes wide open, carefully gazing over the contestants, her face is tense with an expression that mixes a wide smile with a look of wild excitement. Finally, her eyes find what she's been looking for, and she nearly jumps in her seat.

"Amber!" She shouts, her face wild with excitement, like that of a soccer hooligan about to witness a goal scored by their preferred team. "AMBER! WOOO!" she waves her arms around. 

A human boy, sixteen in age, sitting right next to her, gives a start at her shouting and looks at her with a degree of embarrassment. He's tall, lean, has a head of lush silver hair and very plain, forgettable facial features. 

"Mom, come on, it's just a stupid school track day." He looks back down at his phone. 

"Josh, come on." I look over at him. "Amber made it to the finals, that's quite something." 

"I guess." He replies absent-mindedly. 

Fang glares at him, then at the phone. In a single move that is impossible to process by the monkey brains of mine and my son, she swipes his phone from his hand and tosses it into her bag. 

"Mom, what the hell!" Josh frowns with an angry glare. Raptor Jesus, he may have my face, but his eyes are one hundred percent his mother's. 

And so is his attitude. Like mother like son, that's how the saying goes, right? 

"Language, Josh." Fang glares at him. "You've been sitting with your nose in that thing for the whole day." 

"Yeah, I've been talking to my friends?" He extends his hand. "Give it back." He mellows out a bit under her stone-hard glare. "Please?"

She zips up her bag in response. 

"After the race." 

He throws his arms up with a great gusto and dramatic flair, then crosses his arms and slouches over with a leer that would put the meanest sons of bitches of Old Skin Row to shame. I can hear him mumble. I can only guess What he's muttering about. I'm sure it's nothing pleasant though. I nudge him with my elbow. He glares at me, daggers in his look. 

"Josh, Amber needs our support. Can't you be even a little bit enthusiastic?" 

"It's a stupid district event." He shrugs, watching the contestants mill about as they wait for the track to be cleared after a hurdle run. "Who cares?" 

"We care, Josh." Fang turns to him. "This is very important to Amber. Don't you want her to win?" 

He grumbles something, watching the events at the track. I follow his eyes. He's looking at Amber, talking with Rosa's daughter, María.

The young ankylosaurus is slightly shorter than her, but much more athletic looking. They're both in the school's track & sports team, and from what Amber tells us about her, they butt heads almost constantly. 

Competition breeds excellence. Mad Dan's Football taught me that so it must be true. 

I had a little pep talk with Amber in the parking lot before we went into the stadium. She looked tense and unsure, and I was having none of that. 

"Amber, they've been calling you names for who you are and making fun of you for it for long enough. Today, you will show all those…" 

I looked over my shoulder to see if Fang wasn't listening. Coast clear.

"Those motherfuckers that their insults ain't shit. You will win, I'm sure of it. Your mom's sure of it. We are so proud of you, Amby." I hugged her. 

She hugged me back. After that, she looked much more confident. Cocky even. Good. She has a good reason to be.

"Fffffine." 

Josh's groan pulls me out of my reminisce. I turn my head to him. He's sitting up straight and looking at Fang. 

"Might as well, right? Not like I have anything better to do." He shrugs. "Besides playing Flames of Warsapolis with the lads." He mutters. "But no, we just had to come here to watch people run around instead." 

I feel him. The latest Claw of Duty's DLC is god tier, but this is more important. Much more important than any damn video game. Even if the game in question is decent, with its DLC elevating it up to "good". 

My daughter is about to race for the most important trophy in this city, and Raptor Jesus be my witness, I shall support the hell out of her. And Josh will too, even if he will need a bit of convincing. 

"Okay, I see how it is." I lean towards him behind Fang's back, who's busy leaning forward and shouting encouragement at Amber. "I'll buy you that XM12 Spear bundle you showed me last week, if you at least act interested." 

He perks up immediately. He looks at Lucy, who keeps waving at Amber. Amber herself waves back, beaming with pride. 

"For real?" He narrows his eyes. "And the charms?" 

"Two." 

"Four." He bargains. 

"Three." I shut him down. "Last offer. Take it or leave it."

His consideration lasts only a moment. He nods, gives me a quick thumbs up, and before I know it, he joins Fang in shouting and cheering for Amber. He's not as enthused as her, but I don't hold it against him. He must keep up appearances after all. 

Nice doing business with you, son. Now you better support the bajeezus out of your sister, or I'll get that shitty Rasta bundle for you instead. And I will be at the forefront of making fun of you for having it.

The cleanup drags on for a long time. For some reason, there's only one guy doing it, which is absolutely asinine. I glance at Fang, who's gone hoarse with yelling and is now recuperating herself with a bottle of water. 

She has the funniest way of drinking: she stuffs the tip of her beak inside the bottle and sticks her tongue out like a cat, using it to drink. I can't help but grin and snicker every time I see her do it, which earns me a smack on the arm and a "dweeb" thrown my way. Sometimes it's followed by the bottle itself, if I don't stop. 

"Why is there only one guy collecting the hurdles?" 

She shrugs. 

"Ask Mia. She teaches PE, not me. Organizing this is her department." She freezes, noticing someone climbing the tribunes. "Oh my god, Naser! Over here!" She gives a wide wave. 

There he is. The famous doctor, the beloved surgeon, the main star of the hit documentary TV show "Gray's Anatomy", Naser Aaron himself. He's not hauling his wife with him this time around, so I'm guessing he slipped off the set - or simply put, got off work. 

"Hey, Lucy, Anon!" He waves and quickly makes his way to us. Soon enough, he's sitting next to me. "A hot day, huh? Hey there, Josh." 

He squeezes my hand, then my son's. Even though over twenty years have passed since highschool, he's still strong as hell. 

"Where's Rosa?" Lucy asks. 

"Giving a pep talk to María." He nods with his hand. 

We follow his gesture with our eyes and see his wife, who's leaning over the railing at the bottom of the tribunes, shouting to the smaller version of herself. She soon joins us, taking a seat next to Naser. They rub snouts. 

"How's our little wonder doing?" Naser puts his arm around her. 

"A bit nervous, but ready." Rosa glances over at Fang, who's back to drinking her water. "Want a straw for that water?" She chuckles, seeing Lucy frown. 

Fang pops her beak out of the bottleneck.

"Very funny, Rosa, ha ha." She glances towards the track. "Oh, oh! It's starting!" She throws her arms up and nearly splashes Josh with water. 

"Hey!" He leans away, barely avoiding the droplets of the life giving liquid. 

"No, no, Cleveland, no rush, please take you fuckin ti-" the voice of Volcano High's PE teacher booms through the speakers. She cuts herself off, realizing it. "Oh shit, this thing's on?" She clears her throat. 

Josh is grinning. I am grinning too. Fang looks as if she was expecting something like this. Naser has a small smirk on his face, while his wife looks extremely displeased. She turns her eyes up to the heavens, gripping her rosary. 

"Dios del cielo, abate a esta mujer." She mutters. "Using such language! When there are children around!" She points at Josh with her hand. 

"I'm not a child, aunt Rosa!" He protests. 

"Hush!" She waves him off. "It's starting!" 

Mia's voice again thunders in the air, this time without any explicit adjectives aimed towards less than enthusiastic track staff. 

"Sorry for that little mishap, folks." She pauses. "Now, we are about to commence the final run of the day: Volcano High versus Grand Ridge Technical School, finalist of the Volcaldera Cup championship!" 

Fang whistles. How she's able to do that will forever be a mystery to me. I think it has something to do with her nostrils. Josh follows her example, putting two fingers in his mouth and whistling also. That's my boy. Work for those claw points. 

I turn my eyes to the track. A mixed group of boys and girls have already taken their places at the starting line.  

"Let's get this show on the road!" Mia shouts into the microphone. "On your marks!" 

In almost complete synchrony, all six of the kids on the track crouch. They move one of their feet forward. They put their knees down alongside that foot, then plant their hands firmly on the ground.

"Get set!" 

They all raise their hips, slightly above their shoulders. Remember that magic knee bend angle needed for the perfect start, kiddos. 

"Go!" 

And they're off. 

Amber and María shoot out as if out of a cannon, overtaking the competition within a heartbeat. The other four contestants become irrelevant almost immediately. All that matters is Amber, racing María. 

"Go! Go! Go!" Fang shouts, getting up from her seat, swinging her hands above her head, eyes wild with excitement, beaming with pride. 

I have to admit, her enthusiasm is quite infectious. Very quickly, I find myself standing, shouting and waving my arms like a caveman who had just brutalized a mammoth with nothing but a stick and a stone. 

"Amber, Amber, Amber!" It's Josh. He doesn't sound like he's faking it anymore. He actually sounds excited. "Come on, faster!" 

The two girls have already passed the quarter point of the track. They're rounding the turn now. Fuck, they are running so fast, at least fifteen miles per hour. How is María so fast? Must be Naser's blood in her. They're past the corner. Now the long straight. 

They're running head to head now, not slowing down, eyes on the track, razor-sharp-fucking-focus. They're bounding in leaps so long, gracious and rapid, that it looks like they're not even touching the ground. They're soaring above it. 

The last turn. The last straight. 

"MARÍA MARÍA MARÍA!" Rosa roars, jumping in place alongside Naser, who's watching the competition with a tense expression of an expert. 

" AMBER, AMBER, AMBER!" Me and Fang shout, our hearts pounding, our eyes burning from not blinking. 

"Come on, sis! GO! GO GO!" Josh screams. 

Finish line. 

The crowd erupts into cheers of excitement. Not long after, the rest of the competition arrives, their arrival welcomed by another burst of energy from the gathered audience. 

"And the winner of the final race of the Volcaldera Cup championship is Amber Mous!"