He woke up with a groan. His body was racked with never ending throb of pain that was coming from his foot. He fell on the ground as he was jumping over a log during cross country practice. He could still feel the log rolling causeing his foot to get lodged in a hole in the ground and the popping noise that followed with Martin yelling in pain and rolling off the path in the dry crunchy grass below. He looked up and noticed his team mates running past him and he got up and limped slowly to the finnish. His coach looked at him and screamed.

"What the fuck do you think u are doing Martin?" Martin looked at his coach and shook his head and collapsed on the ground. His coach came up to him and looked at his leg and then said.

"Get that checked out and if u can not run then all hope of getting that trophy are off. You can stay home on the Farm and work it for the rest of your life." Martin limped to the doctor and the doctor looked at him and said.

"Come to the clinic the morning of the race and I will fix you up nice and good and that trophy will be ours for the first time."

Martin went home on the bus and the bumpy ride gave him shocks that made him bite him toungue in pain. This was bad, he knew that he would not be able to run in two days time. He could not for the life of him put any weight on his foot at all. He looked at it and saw that it was getting bigger and it was turning a new shade of purple. He looked at his brother and shook his head and said.

"I can't run and if I do not the school will be mad at me. My coach thinks that I did it deliberatly and I think he is racist too." His brother shrugged his shoulders

"Welcome to the world. This is how it is for us. Just hope that next life time u are the same color as the people that own the world." Martin shrugged his shoulders.

This is how his brother always was. He was right in the sense that it was not far and just for a trophy he was being told to do the impossible. He sighed and looked up to the sky, he loved the cloud patterns and always thought of them as great armies that were fighting above the head of the human race, saving them from impossible doom.

The bus learched to a stop causeing Martin to crash on the floor. The pain was so bad that it caused him to become dizzy and he groaned. His brother helped him to his one foot and Martin blinked away the tears and when he was free from the bus he broke down. His heart hurt far more than is leg because he knew that the school wanted this trphy more than he did. He limped home and changed and went to do chores.

He hated doing chores, Martin had so much to do and he little time to do it. He had music and sports and studying and his mother made him work. He knew that he had to do the chores or he would get a beating so he changed and limped to the barn to milk the cows. He then feed the steers and the chickens and picked the eggs and limped home and sat outside. He loved the sounds of the animals when he studied.

He finnished his homework and then tried his foot. It was seeming to be getting better. He tried to extend his foot and found that it was also getting better. He jogged around and then his foot was starting to hurt and limped home. He went to his room and lay down and stared at the ceiling. He breathed in and listened to his breath and then let it go and soon he was dreaming. He was racing and he was ahead.

He turned around and then turned back as his leg hit the same log that he twisted his ankle with and he rolled and then fell and got up and he found that he was flying now. He laughed as the flew past the other competitors and then he near the finnish line and he crashed on the ground. The other competitors looked at him and pointed and starting laughing. He got up and fell down.

He woke up and his leg was throbbing. He had hit it against the wall and the pain was unbearable. He limped up and hopped to the freezer and got out ice and got out a pan and placed his foot into it. The ice felt wonderful and soon he was asleep with his foot in the pan. He woke with a cry and opened his eyes to see his adopted mother slapping his face.

"How dare you spill water on the floor. Who do you think that you are?" he looked around and mumbled.

"I hurt my foot in the middle of the night and then-" He screamed as his mother smashed his foot on the ground with her hand.

"There at least I know that you are hurt. Now clean that up and go do chores." He mumbled yes and limped to the sink and poured out the water and ice mix and then mopped the floor and went to do chores. He looked at his throbbing foot and realized that he would not make the meet. He limped to his coaches office and the look that he gave to him told him all. He limped back to class and sat down for class.

The next day he limped to the doctors office and the doctor gave him a shot of something. He started to walk immediately. He got on the bus and his coach looked at him and he nodded his head. At the meet he was last to race and he warmed up. His foot was tingling but there was no pain and he started the race and found that he could run. He was going around the last loop when the shot started to wear off. He was so far ahead that he hopped the last one hundred metres, tears streaming down his cheeks and he could hear screams and he leaped for the finnish line and he had won. He was picked up and put on the shoulders of his team mates. They let him down and he collapsed. He could not put any weight on his leg. After the ceramonies he went home and then changed and went to bed and wept. He went to school the next day and he was hero. In his heart he didn't feel like one though. The school didn't even care that it was him that won. He sat down and a girl that he had never noticed before passed him a note.

Martin,
The school loves u and so do I.

He grunted and smiled at her. This was so stupid he thought that this is how the world works. He laughed then and started studying.

The end