Play By The Rules

• Joshua Harry, Grade 5, Glenview State School
• Short Story
• 2016

Finalist in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

“You are just not fast enough yet!” Lucy shouted from the other side of the track.
“You will never win at that pace!”
Every day after school Jake practiced his sprints. He would go to the running track behind the school with his friend Lucy and practice. One day he hoped to beat Harvey, the fastest runner in the school.
Jake was about to go home when he saw an amazing pair of running shoes just sitting there beside the sheds. They had spikes around the soles.
“Look at these Lucy! I wonder who they belong to?” said Jake.
They asked a couple of people at the sports field if they knew who owned the shoes but no one knew.
“Maybe I’ll try them on” Jake whispered to Lucy.
They fitted him perfectly so Jake and Lucy went back to the track, Lucy started the clock, and Jake took off! He ran two whole seconds faster than he ever had before.
“Wow!” said Lucy, excited. “You could easily beat Harvey with those shoes on.”
The next day at school Jake told everyone about his new, amazing shoes that he’d found, but Harvey overheard the story of the shoes with spikes and decided to steal them from Jake’s locker. At the end of school Jake went to his locker. The shoes were gone!
“Oh no” thought Jake “I will never beat Harvey on Sports Day without those spiky shoes!
It was Sports Day. The day that Harvey and Jake would compete in the 100m sprints. There was a special judge helping run the events and make sure everyone followed the rules. It was a man who worked at the sports track behind the school.
Harvey and Jake lined up on the starting line. From the corner of his eye, Jake caught a glimpse of the running shoes. They were on Harvey’s feet!
“Take your mark, get set!”
The gun gave a big BANG! The boys ran very hard but Harvey was quickly in the lead. Jake was coming second and he could not catch up no matter how hard he tried. Harvey had won and Jake finished in second place.
The judge came over to give the ribbons out to the puffing boys.
“Right, well done boys. I’ll just check that you all wore the right shoes for this running track”. The man looked down at the boys’ feet.
“Woah, hang on!” said the man when he looked at Harvey’s feet. “These are not the right shoes to be wearing on the track young man! You got a note the other day saying that you had to wear shoes like... well... like Jake. HIS shoes are right.”
The boys started laughing at Harvey because his face looked so surprised.
‘This was awesome!’ thought Jake. Now Jake was to be awarded first place and Harvey was disqualified!
Jake was very thankful that he had played by the rules. He wouldn’t forget this victory for a long time.