The commotion in Class Nine continued for a long time and still hadn’t died down; everyone kept talking about it.

Thomas Reed listened to the discussion for a while, then grew impatient and started to find the speeches on the podium too tedious. Standing in the class formation under the blazing sun, she was so scorched by the heat that she didn’t even want to open her eyes. She used her sleeve to shield herself from the sun and squinted.

The girls in front were horsing around, not paying attention to their surroundings, and were about to bump into her. Thomas Reed stepped back to avoid their shoving, but accidentally stepped on the foot of the person behind her.

Behind her was Henry Clark, who steadied her.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

A footprint was left on Henry Clark’s clean white sneakers, very conspicuous—like a mark that anyone could spot at a glance.

Both Henry Clark’s 3000-meter run and Thomas Reed’s long jump were scheduled for the afternoon, with the long jump first.

Although Thomas Reed wasn’t very popular in the class—many girls thought she was too aloof and didn’t like to hang out with her—when she heard her name called over the loudspeaker for the long jump, the PE monitor, Heipi, still immediately led a group over to cheer her on. Besides her, there were two other girls from the class competing in the long jump.

Henry Clark also walked over, just having picked up her number for the long-distance run, standing to the side in those white sneakers with the footprint.

Thomas Reed glanced at her shoes and heard the teacher call another classmate’s name.

The girl looked a bit nervous, standing at the starting line. She accelerated, but failed to jump and fell straight into the sandpit, causing a burst of laughter from the onlookers. Even the scoring teacher laughed, but seeing how embarrassed the girl was, said, “You have three tries, give it another go.”

The girl climbed up, frustrated—probably discouraged. She hurried through her next jump, didn’t do very well, and buried her head as if she couldn’t face anyone, disappearing into the crowd.

Several more people went after that, with mixed results.

“Class 2, Grade 10, Thomas Reed, get ready.”

Thomas Reed exhaled, stepped up to the front of the sandpit.

She was quite tall, with long legs, not wearing the school uniform pants but a pair of stretchy jeans that made her legs look even longer. The slender, delicate feeling of a teenage girl was like a transparent bubble in the summer air—colorful, fragile, ready to burst at a touch.

She looked ahead and started running, her black hair flying, her open jacket billowing with wind like a sail. She leapt up suddenly—

Author’s note:

On a day off after they started working, Thomas Reed and Henry Clark talked about their high school days.

“Do you remember, back in Grade 10 during the sports meet, you wore a pair of white sneakers.”

“I remember. You stepped on them.”

“You remember that clearly? My accidental step left a mark on your snow-white shoes—wasn’t that uncomfortable?”

“No. When I was running, I kept looking at the footprint on my shoe. I don’t know why, but it made me really happy.”

“My stepping on your shoes made you happy?”

“I don’t know why I was happy, either.”

Chapter 12: Running

Thomas Reed made a pretty good jump, ranking second among the dozen or so competitors so far.

She stood up from the sandpit, silently walked back to the starting line, this time taking off her jacket and tossing it on the ground. She looked ahead, started running again, jumped, and landed.

“Not bad!” the scoring teacher called out.

The PE monitor, Heipi, led a few others in cheering from the side, drawing glances from the crowd.

The scoring teacher recorded the result and asked, “That’s the best score so far. You have one more try—want to go again?”

Thomas Reed brushed the sand off her shoes, picked up her jacket. “No, thanks.”

Heipi waved at her. “Hey, you get three tries—why not keep going? What if someone beats your score?”

Thomas Reed: “If they do, they do. That’s as far as I can jump, it’s already my best. You can’t expect me to get first place.”

From the stands in the distance, someone shouted, “Class 2, Grade 10, runners, come gather!”

The 100-meter and 400-meter races were first, then the 3000 meters.

The big sports field was packed with people, groups clustered everywhere, and plenty of parents watching from outside the track. Honestly, high school sports meets weren’t very formal—many events had teachers filling in at the last minute, and even the rules weren’t always clear, but it was lively enough.

It was so lively that Thomas Reed felt a little dizzy. She didn’t like big crowds or this kind of feverish excitement, just like she didn’t like endless rainy days.

The class had prepared a box of bottled water for participants, and the vice class monitor sat there watching over it, writing a script for the school broadcast at the same time. The script would earn extra points and be read out by a student in the broadcast booth on the podium.

Thomas Reed didn’t want to get water there. As she made her way through the crowd to buy ice water outside, she heard the broadcast echoing across the field: “Submission from Tian Xue, Class 2, Grade 10…”

A sudden burst of screaming and cheering drowned out the rest of the script—it was the 100-meter dash. Not only were the runners competing for speed, but the classmates acting as cheerleaders on both sides were also shouting to see who could be louder.

Thomas Reed bought her ice water but didn’t return to the field right away. She sat quietly for a while on the stone steps in the grove. At this time, she couldn’t go back to the classroom—teachers were patrolling and students weren’t allowed to stay there, and the dorms were off-limits too.