“Beat youuuuuu again, Kat!”
Kat. I absolutely hate that nickname and Angela Downer knew it. She just always had to rub something in somebody’s face. In fact, that was her primary job in life. She wanted everyone to know she was the best at everything, and you couldn’t ever cross her because her precious daddy was the principal at Milton Middle School. She already ruled the domain of academics, and she had to go for athletics too. It just wasn’t fair, especially considering Angela was really pretty stupid and slow, but you couldn’t let your own talents shine. Being better than Angela at anything? It just didn’t happen, or you paid big-time.
My real name is Katrina, and everyone wants to make it into some kind of nickname. Among friends, nicknames are fine. But Angela Downer is far from having that sort of honor. If I had to line up all the kids in the school from most likeable to least, Angela Downer would probably be the 550th, far, far away from inner circle privileges.
I stood there sweating, looking up at Angela’s taunting face and smug smile. She knew I was at a disadvantage and couldn’t do anything about it. She had the upper hand and all the power. I had always been very athletic and academic, but it was no longer fun to go to school anymore and stay silent and sullen while Angela shone because no one dared compete against her. You might as well say, “Here’s my life. You can twist it and shape it at your will.”
“Okay. Time’s up! Great run, Angela,” the PE teacher said. “And now I have an important announcement to make. The annual 5k run at our school is at Milton Park next month. I recommend you all participate in the run.”
I looked up. I didn’t remember hearing about any run before. Probably because I had spent too much time in my glazed world to ever wonder about anything. I was in eighth grade, and it had been more than two years since I’d been the chipper, competitive girl who had first walked through the doors of Milton Middle School. How I had ever let a slow thing like Angela twist me I don’t know, but it was way too late to start coming out of my shell.
Alexia, probably one of the only girls who dared to stand up to Angela, came over to me. I silently willed her away. I didn’t want Angela to group me with the troublemakers that challenged her. But Alexia walked right up to me. “Katrina, I remember when we were in elementary school together. You were so bright and cheery and competitive then. And just now, when you were running for the first couple of miles, you were so quick and way ahead of everybody else--even Angela. But just now, you slowed down, and let Angela pass you. Why did you hold back, Katrina?”
I looked at Alexia. Alexia looked back at me, waiting for the answer that I don’t have, waiting for the girl I used to be. I walked away, and let her wait.

At Milton Middle School, we kids had made our own map of how everything in the lunchroom is separated. It is a silent agreement that no one needs to hear about to know. The cool kids are over at the head of the cafeteria, like kings, throwing their prowess in everyone else’s faces. The geek kids are at the back, hovering around the edges of the hubbub, wondering what to do. The most-likely-to-be-famous kids are situated to the right of the cool kids. The rich kids are to the left of the cool kids. And the middle kids, which include me, are in the center of this entire jumble.
When I got to lunch, Kate and Alice were jabbering about boys and homework and bla bla bla, but my eyes and ears were all for Angela, who was, of course, at the cool kids’ table with the usual boys swarming about her. Though she was pretty, Angela didn’t have any spark to her personality, and, like I said, her brains were as underdeveloped as those of a sheep.
Suddenly, there was a big explosion of hooting and hollering. Voices rang out as everyone around me, some rather grudgingly, sang out, sweetly memorializing Angela’s observance of another year. I kept my mouth shut tight. But when I looked over, I saw that even Kate and Alice were moving their lips. I closed my eyes, drowning out the noise, thinking that no one not even Kate and Alice could understand what Angela had done to make another year mean nothing but another year of painful memories.
The day went by in a blur, my agitation growing, the feeling that I needed to crawl out of my shell expanding. I wanted, no needed to show everyone that I wasn’t just another one of Angela’s robots. I was beyond her control. I had something she didn’t--spark and flare. And if I didn’t get that spark and flare out, it would burn me alive.
And that spark and flare did come out… right on Angela’s lap, and it left her scorching hot. It was the last period of the day, and Angela was walking down the hall with her usual minions. Her smile burned sun hot, letting everyone know that, if they crossed her, they would get the heat of her spite.
That smile wasn’t enough to scorch me. I got right in her pathway and stared. She stopped, dramatically putting her hand to her heart as if she was in shock. When I felt like I had her full attention, I said forcefully, combatively, triumphantly, “I am going to run in the 5k and I am going to win it. And I won’t hold back. I won’t be one of your stupid, dull-witted robots that bow to your will, oh queen,” I said as dramatically as she might have. I turned on my heel and strutted away.
Katrina yelled after me, “You already are and always will be a robot. You don’t have the guts, let alone the support, to be anything else but robotic. And anyway, Kat,” she said. “I am naturally better than you. You don’t need to hold back for me to win. I’ll wait for you at the finish line. As you know, I always get there first.”
I looked around and saw Alexia’s face shining in the crowd of gawking kids. At that moment, I know Angela’s wrong. I do have the support, the courage, the wisdom to be myself. All I need is a few supportive words from a friend, the kind of friend Angela never was.

I walked down the steps of school, feeling uneasy. I had expected Angela to go whining to her daddy about me. The call to the principal’s office hadn’t happened, though. I had thought I knew Angela’s moves so well. I was in trouble if her plans didn’t unfold in usual fashion. Something had to happen. Angela would never run a fair race against me. I didn’t like walking into unexpected trouble. I wanted time to prepare. Her father was her usual go-to, but her daddy, principal though he was, couldn’t just drag me out of the race. He couldn’t really do much. Maybe Katrina knew that, or maybe her challenge was sincere. Maybe she honestly thought she could still win the race even if I didn’t hold back. “Well if you think that, Angela,” I thought, “game on!”

The funny thing is Angela and I used to be best friends. Back at Crossford Elementary School, we did everything together and were the main gossips. Back then, I was a “cool kid” not a low middle kid to whom nobody paid attention. Back then, the kids who routinely forget my name now wouldn’t have dared to ignore me. Now, they take every opportunity to do just that, giving me a taste of my own medicine.
My best-friend bond was broken in fifth grade when Angela got smart for just a second and cut her ties with me. Actually, I finished the snip snip, but I knew she would end it if I didn’t. Angela had the same personality then as now. She wanted to be the best at everything, the one most in control. When she realized I was getting too powerful and too good at things (much better than her), she made clear her intention. She hadn’t actually said anything, but Angela’s actions said it all. She started hanging out with this girl Silvia and didn’t call me to go shopping with her at the mall anymore. When I sat down at her table, she gave me a look, and finally, in art, she spilled paint on my picture. She had said “Oops! Sorry, Katy, didn’t mean to.” But I knew the truth. I started hearing dirty rumors about myself and knew it was the work of Angela, the queen of gossips. I knew it was a silent message to back off and make myself scarce. I was no longer a cool kid anymore.

I walked up Greenburg Street, dreading the disappointed look my mom had given me ever since sixth grade when I had become a different person. She never actually said anything, but I could see my failure reflected in her eyes. Today, she wouldn’t have anything to hold over me, for I had come out of my shell and given Angela some of my stuff. When I walked up the stairs and into the house, I heard the usual sounds of my little brother Henry. All I had to hear was the tell-tale signs of Bob the Builder playing to know that everything was fine. Henry was in second grade and still watching that show. It was familiar and comforting. I may have changed, but the sound of home hadn’t.
I watched him, my brother who held nothing back. Henry could just be himself anytime, anywhere. He never hid from who he was or wanted to be. He was truly happy.
The ringing of the doorbell broke my thoughts. I should have known my mom would be on the job. She rushed to the door. “Katrina, it’s Angela.”
Why was she here? What did she want? My mom knew nothing of my trials at school or that Angela and I hadn’t been friends for a long time. She didn’t know the real reason for the shell that had built around me. My mom, in whom I used to confide everything, knew nothing except the fact that I had become an outsider to myself, as well as her.
I would have to answer the door if I didn’t want my mom to suspect anything. But it turned out, my mom did it for me, revealing Angela with a falsely sweet smile glued to her faced. Beneath that smile, an icy blizzard surged. “Hi Katy,” Angela said. Katy was her old nickname for me, the one that I liked when she ranked higher than 550th. “Can I come in? You know we need to finish that school project we’re working on.”
Before I could reply, Angela stepped in. In front of my mom, I would have to play along with Angela’s act, but, after that, I would not be afraid to give Angela my stuff. “This way,” I said, leading Angela to my room. Once inside, I closed the door and whirled around to face Angela. To my surprise, Angela was rummaging through my closet.
“You know your sense of fashion needs some serious editing,” she said.
“What is she playing at?” I thought.
“Katy, if you’re going to rejoin my circle, then you need to make some serious wardrobe changes.”
Now I got it. Angela was afraid that I was capable of beating her in the race. She was afraid of me. In exchange for my pretending to get beat, or better yet, not entering the race at all, she was offering me an opportunity to rejoin the “cool kids.” Join her? No way. “What are you playing at, Angela?” I said, even though I knew the answer. “You and I are finished. Done. Over with. I will never join you and your snide little group of followers.”
“Kat,” she said, going back to her real voice. “You don’t really mean that. Aren’t you tired of being beat and run down, not getting the position you deserve? Aren’t you tired of being a pretender?”
“I will be an even bigger pretender if I act like one of your friends,” I said.
“Well,” Angela said, “I see you’ve made your choice. And you will regret it. I assure you, you will never get another chance.” And with that, Angela Downer walked out of the house without getting what she had come for, an unusual circumstance for her. It was just the beginning of the revolution that would topple the queen to the ground.

The next day, Angela made a point of giving me dirty looks and passing the most horrible rumors she could think of about me. I had never realized that I was adopted, or that I’d kissed icky Bruce Anderson under the bleachers, or that I had a rare and contagious disease that sprinkled a nasty rash across all the parts my swimsuit covered. I’d never learned so many interesting things about myself in one day. But, I was prepared for the rumor onslaught.
Angela wasn’t. And the rumors that began to circulate about her made the rumors about me look positively romantic. Angela had ADHD-- that’s why she got bad grades in school. She was boy-crazy because she treated boys by like spare change. Yesterday, her top was a little too revealing. She’d worn the same underwear three days in a row. While you could call the information circulating about Angela rumors, nothing was said that wasn’t really true or hadn’t been true in the past. By the third day, Alexia had a worried look in her eyes like she thought I was getting a little too above myself.
The rumors about me did not dissuade Alexia from sitting with me at lunch and murmuring encouraging remarks in my ears. But a fight is not a fight without a little bite. For the next four weeks, I ran three times a week. My time for three miles started out as twenty-seven minutes, but, by the fourth week, it had dropped to twenty-four minutes. Each time I ran, the power coursing through my legs and arms made me more determined to use my new-found power to beat Angela...
By Wednesday, I felt that I was about to explode with anxiety. The race was Saturday, and I felt prepared, yet afraid. Saturday would either ensure my downfall or prove that somebody was better than Angela and that she could be beat.
Thursday was a day like any other, yet, in fifth period, when the speaker said, “Katrina please report to Mr. Downer’s office,” it was like a tidal wave knocking into me. I knew this was Angela’s doing, but what could her dad, principal though he was, do to prevent me from entering the race? Although I tried to assure myself with this reasoning, it didn’t convince my heart which beat as loudly as a drum. Outside Mr. Downer’s office, Mrs., Seeder, the secretary, told me pleasantly to take a seat. As the minutes passed, I thought about how hard I had worked for the race, and how awful it would be if this chance were taken away. “Grow up,” I told myself. “That is life, at least while you are at this school.”
“Ms. Stash, please take a seat right here,” the voice of Angela’s father startled me out of my thoughts. With trepidation, I took a step into the surprisingly cheery room of the principal. I took a seat in the big bulging leather seat, the place where all those, who like me, had to face the wrath of Angela’s father. Maybe, some, like me, were innocent of any crime, and Angela’s father had pinned them down because Angela didn’t like them. “Ms. Stash, it has come to my attention that you are flunking math class. Mrs.Cooper says that you are a very bright student, but you have seemed restless of late.”
I looked up and laughed with joy, or relief, I don’t know. This was the last thing that I had expected. After a very offended principal kicked me out, I went through the rest of Thursday and Friday. After last period on Friday, I was walking to my locker when a big mean-faced goon stepped in my path. I tried to swerve around him, but the big guy just blocked my path. I finally asked him what he wanted. “Well that depends.” He smiled knowingly. “Will you drop out of the race?”
“Tell Angela I will let her touch my trophy for a few seconds just to be nice when I win on Saturday.”
“Then Angela wants you to have this.” He swung his big fist into my stomach. The breath left me, and I sank to my knees, panting heavily. A couple minutes later, Alexia walked around the corner and spotted me. But she just looked at me, shook her head, and walked away. I lay there in the hall, alone, wondering if I was doing the right thing after all.
After school, I confronted Alexia on the stone steps. “Why did you leave me in the hall, alone?” I whispered.
“Because at first I thought this fight was about you going after what you wanted, about you feeling better about yourself not making others feel worse.”
“Angela sent that goon to knock me down because I won’t back out of the race.”
“But, Katy, this isn’t about her; it’s about you. The arrogance you’ve been sporting, the dirty looks and rumors you’re spreading, the anger you’re using as your fuel--it’s all wrong, no matter what you’re using it against.”
“Alexia, you know what kind of person Angela is. You hate her as much as I do,” I pleaded.
Alexia looked at me pityingly. “Not enough to become just as bad as she is.”
“What’s becoming just as bad is she is leaving your best friend lying in the hall after getting beaten up.” I felt Alexia’s betrayal deeply. It seemed like I was destined to be alone. First Angela. Now Alexia.
“How could you say that after how you’ve been acting?”
“Alexia, tell me. What did she say to you?”
“She didn’t say anything.”
I didn’t believe her. “I thought you were a better friend than this.”
“I thought I knew you.”
I rushed home. My eyes on the ground, I could have flown home--as fast as a bird--that’s how much adrenaline was coursing through me at the moment. I heard sounds behind me, much like muffled laughter…
Angela.
“Looks like you’re short of friends at the moment,” she hiccupped. “Your one supporter turned against you. What a good friend she was.”
“There’s plenty of others.”
She looked at me sideways, scrutinizing me. “That may be true, but think about how you’ve gained them. Gossip, rumor. And who are they anyway? These so-called supporters? Not worth much. All losers anyway.”
She looked away, inspecting her painted nails for chips.
I looked at her, my frenenemy. I looked at her with the accumulated hatred of the hundreds of kids she had ground under her feet, had deemed worthless. I saw her for what she was, a girl who, while not book-smart, could twist words to make them sound right, a girl who used boys to do her dirty work because she didn’t have the guts to do it herself. I pushed her against the wire fence.
“What did you say to Alexia? What did you do?” I demanded.
“If you must know, I told her that my mom was dying of cancer and that you knew. That all these years, you’d been waiting for the right opportunity to spite me and that you found it. You chose my weakest, most vulnerable moment to launch a personal attack on me. I confessed that I knew that I’d made some bad decisions, but poor, pathetic me, I’ve been mean all this time because of a big, family secret that has weighed me down, shaped me into the monster that I am today. And of course, you would know, Kat. You were, after all, once my best friend. Of course that was a thousand years ago, and it doesn’t matter. The past is the past.”
“She’ll know you lied in the end.”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is now, and how you feel, squashed like a bug. And as you say, just to be nice, I’ll let you touch my trophy for a few seconds when I win the race Saturday.”
Angela Downer had bested me, if only for the moment.

Saturday was a beautiful spring morning. The birds chirped, increasing the pressure I am already feeling. “Mom, hurry up. We’re going to be late.” My brother was watching his morning episode of Bob the Builder and threw a fit when Mom turned it off. I couldn’t be late. This was my day, my time, the moment Katrina Stash would strip off her old identity and embrace her new. It was the Fight for the Finish.

We were at the track. All the runners were lined up. My feet were vibrating with energy and expectation. I glanced to my right and saw Angela three people away. I heard the horn, and I took off. Angela pounded the asphalt ahead of me. I saw her whipping hair turn the first corner. Her long legs practically flew. Three runners separated us…then two…one runner and we were shoulder to shoulder. She poked me with her elbow, but I was still with her. And then…I was suddenly free. I was ahead of Angela. Running. I saw the two-mile marker. I pumped my arms and legs and surged forward. I was on my way into the homestretch, and then… I tripped.
There was a log right in the pathway, and Angela no doubt planted it there. And Angela, hard on my heels, passed, giving me a smug smile and surging over the log, running as fast as a gazelle.
I brushed myself off and hurried after her, but she was already .2 of a mile ahead and the third mile was just ahead. I saw her, a white streak, pushing her way up the slope of the steep hill. A hill! I pushed my way up. This was my chance. Angela was right in front of me, and I was, yes, passing her again, running with all of my might. I have what? .3 of a mile to go? I felt the wind on my back and the gentle brush of leaves on my legs. And I saw it--a gleaming white strip in the distance, a beacon of hope. If I crossed that finish line, I would have beaten Angela. And I crossed the finish line. The fight for the finish was over, and I had won. I had put up my own fight. I had not just beaten Angela, but I’d rediscovered myself.