Beverly Hills Maasai (18 page)

“His name is Koyati,” my mother said.

“Yes, Koyati.”

“And it sounds like you enjoyed the website,” she said. “I’m the webmaster.”

“You did an amazing job!” he exclaimed.

“Thank you,” she said, beaming. “That was the first website I’ve ever constructed.”

“That’s even more amazing! You really have a talent!”

“Again, thank you so much.”

“How did you find out about the website?” I asked him.

“I googled the official site and the Maasai marathon site came up right below it, so I just looked. A lot of people have looked.”

“There have been quite a lot of hits,” my mother said. “It surprised me how it just sort of took off.”

“It’s a great story and a great website, so it’s no surprise that people are clicking on it,” the official said. “I think your friends’ involvement has captured a lot of people’s attention. Everybody along the whole route is so excited about them being in the race!” he exclaimed.

“I don’t know about
everybody.”
That certainly didn’t include the race director.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Everybody. They’re the talk of the race. Didn’t you hear the cheer as they went by? The crowd is loving them!”

“Yeah, I guess they are. Speaking of which, we have to move along. We’ve got to get to the ten-mile mark before they do.”

We started to walk toward the rope, keeping an eye open for random motorcycles and runners.

“Hold on!” the official called out as he caught up to us. “I have an idea. Just wait by the rope.”

“We don’t have time to wait. We have to get to the car, find a route to the ten-mile mark, and then get through the crowd again, so—”

“Just wait a minute. Maybe I can help.”

Before I could even ask him how, he turned away and started walking down the rope. He pulled out his big walkie-talkie and was calling out for somebody on the other end.

“What do you think he’s doing?” Olivia asked.

“I’m not sure, but I’m a little bit nervous. Maybe we should just slip under the rope and get back to the car.” His back was to us and he was still talking on the walkie-talkie. “He won’t even notice we’re gone.”

“No,” my mother said. “We should wait. I have a good feeling about this.”

“Does he have a good aura?” I asked.

“Yes, he does, but he has an even better attitude. Let’s wait.”

“I don’t know. If we don’t leave soon …”

“Let’s give him two minutes to do the right thing. If it doesn’t work we’ll just have your father drive faster. You know how much he’d love an excuse to drive that sports car really, really fast.”

“I guess we’re okay for a minute or so,” I agreed.

I looked up. The official had stepped out from the rope and was waving his arms in the air like he was trying to bring in an airplane. There were more and more runners, and then I saw a little vehicle—it was a golf cart. It was streaming along the side of the roadway. As it approached I could hear the high-pitched whine getting louder and louder. Boy, was that guy ever travelling fast.

The official stepped out, putting himself in the path of the cart to block it. That was probably smart. Somebody needed to stop that guy before he ran over
one of the runners. The golf cart came to a squealing stop right in front of us.

The official turned to us and smiled. “Your chariot awaits,” he said as he bowed from the waist.

“A golf cart? But we have a ride. My father is waiting for us just over there.” I gestured in the direction of our car—a really, really nice, expensive car.

“The big difference is that the car is over
there. The
cart is right
here.”

“Maybe the cart could take us to our car,” I suggested, trying to not sound mean or ungrateful.

“You don’t understand. You don’t need your car. The driver will take you right along the course. You can follow your runners every step of the way. You can tell them their times,” he said to me. “And you can take more pictures for the website,” he said to my mother.

I was speechless. This was amazing.

“But you’re free to go and take the car, if that’s what you want. It’s up to you, but the cart is yours to use.” He paused. “Well?”

I threw my arms around him and gave him a big hug. I still couldn’t find any words, but I could give him an answer.

The driver tooted his little horn, and a few of the people got out of his way—some didn’t.

“Hang on!” he called out.

I grabbed the sidebar and held on as he swerved to the side to avoid the remaining spectators. We weren’t the only people who had wandered onto the wrong side of the rope.

“Do you see them?” Olivia asked.

“Not yet.”

I was riding beside the driver. Olivia and my mother were sitting on the back of the cart, facing backwards. My mother was furiously snapping pictures.

We’d called my father to tell him what we were doing. He was going to meet us at the finish line—he was really hoping to find Dakota there, waiting. I would have liked to have been there myself to hear
exactly what my father was going to say, but I was sure he’d tell me all about it afterward. I almost pitied Dakota. Okay, not really. He was going to get what he deserved.

“Do you think we could have passed them?” Olivia suggested.

“No chance. I would have had to miss them coming, and you and Mom would have had to miss them going.”

“They’d be pretty hard to miss,” the driver said. “I’m sure they’re still up ahead. Do you know their pace?”

“They did the first five in twenty-five minutes,” I answered.

“There’s the seven-mile marker just up ahead,” he said.

I saw the big clock. It read out thirty-six minutes and twenty-five seconds. If they had kept up the five-minute-mile pace, then they would be just a few hundred yards ahead.

“Are they really running with tire-tread sandals?” the driver asked.

“Yeah. How did you know that’s what they’re wearing?”

“The website. It’s got all kinds of graphics and information!”

“I heard.”

I wish I’d actually looked at it one of those times my mother had asked me to. That would be the first thing I’d do as soon as I got home.

“Can you get on your walkie-talkie and ask where they are?”

“It’s supposed to be used only for official race business.”

I’d been listening to the constant static-filled conversation that was coming out of it, and a whole lot of it didn’t sound business-related.

“This is race business, if you think about it,” I suggested. “Couldn’t you just go on for a second and ask?”

“I could, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. I think they’re just up ahead. In fact, I’m sure. Listen.”

I wasn’t sure what he expected me to hear. Between the voices over the walkie-talkie, the whining of the engine of the golf cart, and the cheering of the crowd … The crowd—why was the crowd cheering so loudly?

“There they are!” the driver yelled.

Instantly I saw them. Those red costumes were just so bright and so different from the sea of spandex that surrounded them that they were incredibly easy to pick out.

As we closed in I could see—and hear—how the crowd reacted to them. It was like a gigantic wave sweeping down both sides of the road as the spectators saw them and burst into applause and cheers.

“We need to get closer,” I said.

“I’m driving as fast as I can.”

“But can’t you swing out into the middle of the boulevard?”

“That I can’t do. I have to stay at the side of the course.”

We were almost parallel with them, but too far
away to tell them much. They hadn’t even noticed us, and my voice would have just been lost in the swelling sound of the cheers.

“Get us far enough in front of them and then stop. I’ll run out to see them,” I suggested.

“That I
can
do.”

He pushed down the pedal, and I was pressed back into the seat with the acceleration. That little golf cart could really move. Now we’d just have to get far enough ahead.

“Do you know where the front runners are?” I asked.

“Not exactly sure, but my best guess, judging from the time—it’s about forty minutes since the start—they’d be just past the eight-mile mark.”

“Then they’re not that far ahead!” I exclaimed. That was good news—no, it was great news! But our driver kind of squashed that good feeling.

“One mile is a big distance. Races are won and lost by seconds and yards, not minutes and miles.”

“But at least they’re in shouting distance … more or less.”

“That’s a lot more than it is less.”

Olivia leaned over the seat. “So what place would they be in?”

“Place?” he asked.

“You know, how many runners are still in front of our Maasai?”

“Now that would be very hard to tell, but again, my best guess, maybe three or four.”

“Three or four hundred?”

He laughed. “Three or four
thousand.”

“That’s really not that bad,” I said. I was trying to sound optimistic.

“That’s not so good, either,” Olivia countered.

“It is, if you think about it. Let’s take the worst case and say there are four thousand runners in front of them. That means that they’ve already passed seventeen thousand.”

“Twenty-five minus four equals twenty-one. The math makes sense, but it still doesn’t sound good,” Olivia said.

“Okay, try this, then. They have already passed 84 percent of all the runners in the race.”

“And 16 percent are still ahead of them,” Olivia said. “Even I can do simple math.”

“Here’s the good part. With every mile they ran they passed 12 percent of the participants. That’s over three thousand runners every mile. So that means that at their present speed, they should be at the front in less than two miles. So by the time they hit the ten-mile mark they’ll—”

“Still be way behind at least a thousand runners,” the driver said, cutting me off.

“No, that’s not right. I’ve done the math and I know my numbers are right,” I protested.

“She’s always right with numbers,” Olivia said to the driver. “If Gucci made a calculator it would look like Alexandria.”

That was quite the compliment!

“I’m sure your friend is very good with numbers, but she’s wrong here.”

“I am not wrong!” I protested indignantly. “I’ll try to explain it to you. Approximately every quarter of the mile is one percent of the race,” I said.

“Every .26 of a mile,” the driver said.

“I said
approximately
every quarter of a mile. So every .26 of a mile is one percent of the entire race. And assuming they have passed twenty-two thousand people, which is 84 percent of the race, and they have done that in seven miles, which is 26.93 percent of the total distance, then—”

“Did you just do that in your head?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You should see her at a shoe sale. She can calculate the sale price of a pair of Prada pumps faster than the cash register,” Olivia said. “Alexandria is never wrong about math.”

“I’m not arguing with her math. Her numbers are correct.”

“How do you know that she’s right?” Olivia asked. “I don’t see
you
using any calculator.”

“I don’t need a calculator. I teach differential equations in the engineering department at UCLA. Math is my life.”

“I’m confused,” I said. “If you know my calculations are correct, then why do you think my result is wrong?”

“It’s not your math that I’m contesting. It’s your understanding,” the driver said. “You’re assuming constant variables that are, in fact,
not
constant.”

“What?”

“Let me explain. You’re assuming that all twenty-five thousand race participants are equal, but they’re not.
Your runners have thus far passed the twenty-two thousand
slowest
runners. They are going to find it increasingly difficult to pass each participant who is in front of them. And they will need increasingly larger quantities of time and distance to pass every successive participant. Does that make sense?”

“Not at all,” Olivia said. “Alexandria?”

“I’m afraid it does,” I reluctantly admitted.

“And that doesn’t even take into account that you are not certain if they can maintain this pace for the entire length of the race,” he said. “They have already expended a great deal of energy to gain ground on the front runners, who, realistically, have run almost two hundred yards less than the Maasai because of the stagger between the first and tenth grids. So, logically, mathematically, for them to actually win this race the odds are staggeringly against—”

“But this
isn’t
just about the numbers,” I snapped. “You don’t know about the Maasai, or you’d never bet against them.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t betting against them. I’d love to see them win. It’s just that logically—”

“Logic is the same as numbers. What they’re doing isn’t about the head; it’s about the heart.”

“I hope you’re right. I’m going to stop just up ahead at the ten-mile marker.”

I looked up. I’d been so busy arguing that I hadn’t been paying attention to the road or the runners. I saw the clock. It was coming up to fifty minutes. And looking down the road, beyond the clock, I realized that I couldn’t see any runners ahead of us.

“Has anybody passed this marker yet?” I asked.

“Not likely,” the driver said. “Do you see those runners to our side?”

I looked over. “Yeah.” There were three men running one after the other with only feet between them.

“The man in the lead won the gold medal in the last Olympics.”

“Wow.”

“The two men behind him, they’re the current and former world record holders. Between the three of them they hold the records for the fastest times in over eight marathons, including Boston and New York.”

“Double wow.”

They were running fast and apparently effortlessly. I looked back, hoping to miraculously see Nebala and the boys closing ground. There was a clump of runners, maybe fifty or sixty men, two hundred yards back, but no Maasai.

“Do you think your runners can catch these guys?” the driver asked.

I had an answer. I just didn’t want to say it. Or even admit it to myself.