“You Can Call Me Speed.”
My name is Max, but you can call me Speed.
Yeah, that’s right, Speed. That’s because I’m the fastest ten year old boy you’ll ever meet. And I can prove it.
Me and all the other boys on my street do races every Sunday afternoon when our parents sit around doing nothing. Sunday afternoons are our time. Most of us want to get to the Olympics someday, so that’s why we run so much.
It was a Sunday in mid August, the hot kind of day where you can taste your sweat in the air. Me and all the other guys pulled off our shirts first chance we got, then we lined up at our starting line next to the J&E’s BBQ. The biggest boy, Ralph, shouted, “BANG!” like a gun, then we were off.
I had taken off my shoes, ’cause that helps me go faster. My toes splayed, kicking up dirt and grass.
One, two, three four, I counted in my head in time with my feet.
I looked up and in front of me I saw the thighs and dirty feet of the boys in front of me.
Dang, I thought, I gotta go faster.
I lowered my head like a charging bull.
Trees whizzed past on my left and right and the ground comes up to meet me.
One two three four one two three four,
faster, faster, faster.
My legs burned. Sweat trailed down my nose and into my eyes. My arms swung backwards, forwards, fists clenched.
That’s when I saw a wasp. A big one, big and black and coming right for me.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I ain’t scared of nothing. But wasps aren’t the friendliest, and this one was the size of a walnut and coming right for me with a vengeance.
I ducked my head, arms flailing to shield myself, but I didn’t stop running. I thought I lost the wasp.
I laser beamed my eyes on the boy in front of me and push myself harder. There was the finish line, just at the end of the road. There was just one boy ahead of me now.
I felt something crawling up my back through a layer of sweat.
“AARGH!!” I roared, trying to brush it away using my hands, but I couldn’t reach it.
The next thing I knew I passed the line and the boys are flocking ’round me.
“Dang, Max, I never seen you run so fast before,” Sam told me.
But I’m jumping up and down, madly trying to get that darned killer wasp off me. Sweat streams into my eyes.
Then it’s gone. I stop moving and watch as the black terror leisurely buzzes off.
“One minute, thirty seconds,” our watch-holder Jim told me. “You won, Max.”
And that’s the story of how I got my name. You can call me Speed.
About The Author
Abby
Abby is a teenaged writer who loves using her words for Jesus, to seek and point out beauty in the ordinary. When she isn't writing, you can find her jamming on her guitar, which she fondly calls "Raymond Fender the First", sitting on porches, or reading.
Oh so good!!