I collected followers one by one until there were only a few runners ahead to chase. Then there were none at all. That happens sometimes – not because they are all behind you, but with so many to chase, some are bound to get away.
When there weren't runners around to admire how easily I passed them, there were cows to show off to. They pretended not to be impressed, but they all came to the fence to watch me anyway.
When there weren't cows, I started to notice that it was getting warm. My tongue drooped as my paws got heavier. Just when I thought my paws might get too heavy to lift and a cow might catch me walking, I heard music and saw a shelter up ahead. Runners and not-runners were wandering around, browsing the picnic tables and handing out cups.
"Look, Mom! Oscar fans!" I picked up the pace to meet them sooner. I bet they couldn't wait for me to get there.
As we came closer, Mom's keen sense of sight picked up something my dog-eyes couldn't detect.
"Oh brother," she said from behind me in a voice like an eye roll. My collar dug into my throat as she reeled me in a little closer.
"What? Whose brother?" I asked.
When I looked back at Mom's face, her bottom teeth were bared and her eyes were fixed on the crowd gathered around the picnic table ahead.
I studied the crowd closer, searching for what Mom was so spooked about. Runners stood in front of the table hurriedly shoving snacks into their mouths as if their moms might come in and catch them eating off the counters at any minute. Mom almost never ate during races, so it couldn't be that she was afraid they'd finish the snacks before she could get there. So what else could it be? Were they serving purple Gatorade?
A few ladies with perky ponytails and fireworks for hands jumped up and down screaming, but that couldn't explain the sudden stiffness in Mom's stride. Even she was smart enough to know the difference between cheering and screaming in fear. Sure, no one ever cheered for her, but she followed me everywhere, so she'd seen it before.
A man behind the picnic table whacked at something with a big knife. He sliced at whatever-it-was with precise viciousness. Was he cutting up the bodies of his victims? I sniffed the air for blood, but there was only the scent of bananas.
The lady ahead of us reached out to take a cup from a wandering server. She missed, knocking the cup onto the server's chest.
The server's mouth opened in a silent scream. She looked down at the dark liquid soaking down the front of her shirt. The runner froze.
I slowed down and tried to decide whose side I was on in case I needed to referee a fight.
Instead, they both laughed. The server got another cup from the table and gave it to the runner. The runner made a big show of drinking it fast so that most of the drink dribbled out the corners of her mouth to stain her own shirt. She threw the cup sorta close to the trash bin and ran away.
I turned to smile back at Mom to show her that it was okay. "Don't worry, Mom. They're just playing. Look, they have snacks and ev— GAH!!!"
A monster stepped out of the shadows to block my path. Its head was an explosion of frizzy curls. Its bottom legs billowed over bever-tail-shaped shoes. Its grotesque lips swelled to cover half its face.
It leered at me. "What a cutie," it growled.
"I WILL TEAR YOU TO BITS LIKE A STUFFIE!" I barked. "I WILL RIP OUT YOUR SQUEAKER WITH MY BARE TEETH!"
The Monster leaned in to show me a mouthful of square teeth, no doubt dulled from gnawing on so many dogs before me. In one gloved paw it held a bundle of... strings? sticks? ...each with a ball the shape and size of a human head bobbing at the end of it. When it leaned over to reach its spare claws at me, the heads bobbled unnaturally behind its back, as if straining to escape into the sky.
"Please don't come any closer," Mom shouted. "My dog is afraid of costumes."
"Whaaaaa?" it screeched. It took a step closer.
"DON'T MAKE ME SICK MOM ON YOU!" I shouted in my most ferocious bork. I veered wide to put Mom between me and It.
"BACK OFF!" Mom punched out a stay hand and held it at the end of a straight arm. She looked assertively into the Monster's weepy eyes. "MY DOG IS AFRAID OF CLOWNS!"
At the sound of Mom's fearsome bark, the monster faded back into the shadows.
"Phew! That was close." I settled into the shade under the table while Mom helped herself to the drinks on top of the table.
She drained one cup and threw it at the trash. It missed.
She drained another one and took a second to aim. This time it bounced off of the pile, knocking another cup down with it. Only Mom could lose points when she made a basket.
Finally, she got one in.
"We have a kiddie pool for the dogs to cool down," the lady with the stained shirt said. She waved an arm at the biggest water bowl I'd ever seen.
"I can't drink all that," I said modestly. But I tried anyway.
"He can climb in," the woman told Mom, like she thought I needed coaching.
"What terrible manners that would be," I slorped. "I can reach it from here."
"He's not much of a swimmer," Mom explained.
"It's not a triathl—" BAFF!
"Excuse me." A furry streak bumped me out of the way and landed like a cannonball in the middle of my Big Gulp. Water sloshed up my nose and splattered into my eyes.
A vizla thrashed in the middle of my bowl, oblivious that she was in the presence of greatness.
"Rude!" I growled.
"C'mere, Cinnamon. Let's go," the man at the end of her leash said.
"You can't just splash a dog's drink in his face and run away like that," I whined. "Let's get 'em, Mom!"
Mom drank her last thimbleful of water. By the time she actually got the cup into the trash on the third try, Cinnamon was a block ahead (or what would have been a block if anyone but cows lived in this part of town).
I tried to sprint the gap, but Mom was like an anchor behind me. "Hurry!" I pulled.
"Slow your roll, Oscar. We've still got several miles to go."
Mom could be such a loser sometimes. "But she's getting away!"
"You don't want to pass her too fast and then have to walk, do you? Right in front of her where she can see you?"
"No! I'm gonna pass her so good that she won't want to show her face around this town again. She'll won't dare pass me back after I show her how it's done!"
"I don't think it works that way."
"Not with that loser attitude."
We ran and we ran, always with Cinnamon the same distance ahead. Each time we came to another snack bar, my nemesis was just stepping out of my water bowl as I got there.
I was starting to suspect that Mom was trying to throw the race. If she kept it up, Cinnamon would claim my rightful title of Second Dog.
There was only one snack station left on the course. It sat at the top of a gradual half-mile hill that only a wimp would walk on. Knowing Mom, she would probably walk. Here. This close to the finish. With Cinnamon just out of reach of my leash.
The hill caught Cinnamon first. I reeled her in with each step as the hill tipped under her paws.
I wasn't fooled. I knew how running worked. Mom would get heavier when I reached that part of the hill, too, and Cinnamon would pull away again. I pulled a little harder to build up Mom-mentum for the fight.
But when I reached the place where Cinnamon had slowed down, Mom wasn't as heavy as I expected. Ahead, Cinnamon wasn't pulling away as badly as I thought. Instead, she seemed to be coming even closer. And closer still. She was so close now that I could hear her toenails on the pavement and her man's panting.
"Mom, don't fail me now," I thought as the last snack station came into view and the ground started to flatten under Cinnamon's paws. A moment later, it flattened under mine.
When Cinnamon reached the top of the hill, she pulled in her tongue to be more streamlined and let loose with a burst of speed.
I pulled alongside her.
She gave me a look that said, You again?
I realized my mistake too late. I'd passed her on the wrong side. Curses! Now she was between me and the water bowl.
She ran forward a step farther than she needed to, just to make sure that I would have to take three extra steps to get around her. Quick as a whip, she pivoted and made a bee-line for the bowl.
BOI-OI-OINNNNGGG!
Cinnamon's man started to walk.
"Ack," Cinnamon choked as the leash pulled her back.
I pulled easily around her. "Suckah!"
Beside me, Cinnamon refused to give up the sprint. She leaned hard into her collar, trying in vain to keep the sprint alive. "Kaaah, kaaah, kaah," she gasped.
I was ahead by a nose when—NYOINK!—my collar pulled me back, too. It pulled my nose away from the water bowl and tugged my attention back to the road ahead. When I turned my head the way it was pulling, Mom was already running away.
Mom wasn't throwing the race after all! She was just faking like she was slow and weak. It was all part of a cunning plot to outsmart Cinnamon and her man. Who would ever think that not having a snack was the path to victory?
"Eat my dust!" I gave Cinnamon one last look over my shoulder before she disappeared behind the crest of the hill.
"Okay, I'm done now." I slowed up and let Mom do the pulling for a change.
"But the finish line is right there!" Mom punched the air toward the hullabaloon arch in the middle-distance.
"The fun part is over. There's no one else to chase." I gave her a moment to look at the empty road ahead and count to zero. "Why don't we just take our time and enjoy it?"
"That's not what races are for." As if she knew the first thing about racing. "Come on. It can't be more than half a mile. Go, go, go."
No matter how much she begged and whined, I made Mom do the hard mushing until the crowd was close enough to roar. Every screaming human in the crowd was looking at me. Their applause was like a tailwind, making my paws feel as weightless as they had when I walked up this same road from the car kennel earlier this morning.
"Look! Look! It's a dog!" my fans cheered. Some aimed their arms to point, others raised both arms to the sky in celebration.
"That's right, ladies and gentlemen. It is I! Your beloved Second Dog. Come back in triumph." I stepped back in front of Mom for the first time since I'd ditched Cinnamon to soak up more of the attention.
"First dog in the half marathon," I thought I heard over the thunderous applause.
My heart dropped. First is the worst! How could I let Second Dog slip through my toes? "Mom! Your strategery didn't work. Who stole my title?"
"You messed it up when you passed Cinnamon back there," Mom taunted. "Now she gets to be Second Dog."
"As if I could predict that passing Cinnamon could make me lose Second Dog!" I howled. "How could you let this happen? Now I won't be able to fix it until next year!"
"Some people prefer first, you know," Mom said. "Most people, even."
"You're just saying that to make me feel better! Don't lie! Everyone knows that first is the worst."
"If second is so good, it's all yours." Mom surged past me. "Suckah!"
"Why you little..." I matched her surge and pulled ahead easily. The crowd went wild.
Mom put up more of a fight than I thought she had in her, but I beat her over the finish line by a nose.
I stopped running as soon as I felt Mom's weight on the leash, but there was no holding back my smile.
"What a good runner you are!" A lady holding something dangly in her patting hand leaned down to my height.
"Treat?" I sniffed. It smelled like ribbon and metal, not very appetizing at all. She reached out to scratch my ear. I licked the sweat off her wrist as she hung the not-treat around my neck.
"They're grilling hot dogs and hamburgers over there." The woman aimed her eyes at a delicious-smelling cloud on the other side of the field.
"Look, Mom! They're cooking snacks for — Hey. What are you planning to do with that?"
The face sock was back, and aimed it at my snout. "No!" I twisted my face away from the smell of pockets and Momsweat. How would I eat hot dogs and hamburgers with my mouth taped shut?
"Oh, he doesn't have to wear that anymore," the lady said. "If he were going to bite someone, he would have done it by now."
"You heard her, Mom," I said. "Come on, Mom. Those hot dogs and hamburgers aren't going to eat themselves." I had work to do if I want to make sure that there were none left when Cinnamon got there.
First is the best.
