CHAPTER 12

"C'mon Rina! Hurry up!" Rosy yelled. "We will have to run extra laps if we get there late."

"Just a sec!" I yelled looking for my sneakers.

"What is up with her today? We never hurried this much to school and we still have like, 15 minutes before class begin." Sanem questioned.

"Yeah, but this is Persephone's class. You want to be early." Naomi said mysteriously.

"Why, though?" Sanem aksed.

"Just in case, you don't want to piss her off." Naomi said half teasingly, half seriously. "She's very strict."

--

When we got to the training fields, most of our classmates were already there, gossiping.

 "Ok, we're on time." Rosy relaxed. "What time is it?"

"7. 55." Naomi answered. "Relax, Rosy."

"Is she really that awful? Why are you so scared?" Sanem asked.

"No, she's not awful, her class however, horrific." Rosy said with disgust, which made Naomi, Sanem and I giggle. "You don't understand, I really despise sports, this is like torture to me."

"Aw, don't worry, baby. Everything will be just fine." I tried to assure her.

"Yeah, it's just self-defense, nothing too serious." Sanem added and Rosy scoffed as in 'sure, keep saying that to yourself''.

"Girls!" I heard someone yell. "In formation!" I looked at the direction the voice was coming from and saw an angry looking lady. "Go, go, go! What are you waiting for?!"

We all looked at each other slightly confused. None of the rest of the girls seemed to knew what are we supposed to do.

"Ugh," sighed Persephone disappointingly, "Just form a line," she watched us run like headless chickens, as we were lining up.

"Ok, this was kind of pathetic, as is this line." She looked at us and pointed. "I thought it was self-explanatory, but I guess not. Next time I tell you to stand in formation, I mean in a straight line. This is just sad."  She shook her head. "Align your feet, put your hands behind your back and stand straight."

As we were forming the line I mentally apologized to Rosy for making fun out of her. This was scary.

"Ok, good." Persephone approved. "From now on this is how you will wait for my class to begin."

Her military stance dropped a bit as she started: "My name is Persephone and I am in charge of your physical training. This semester I will do my best to get you all in somewhat appropriate shape and teach you self-defence. But, before we start let me bring out the Andres, who will be joining us in our classes."

She pointed to the other side of the field, from where couple of dozen boys started running from a line about 20ft (5 meters) away from us.

Persephone nodded approvingly: "I see Seok trained you well, good." She started pacing along the lines: "Listen, now. There are a few riles you will have to follow. First, the class begin at 8 o'clock sharp! If you're late, you'll be punished. Second, you are only allowed to miss this class twice. Third, no talking back! You will listen to me and do as I tell you. Four, no laziness will be tolerated!" She ordered with her military voice. "I understand that this class in not easy and that some of you will struggle in the beginning, but always do your best."

Me and Sanem looked at each other and I could see she found all of this just as amusing as me. Don't get me wrong, it was very scary, but kind of absurd, like what is this? Are we going to war? Nevertheless, I remained calm. This may have been ridiculous, but I don't need any of Persephone's anger directed at me.

"For the first two weeks I will be mostly evaluating your physical state. Today we will start with 10 laps. Now, 10 laps is quite a bit and I expect you all to finish them. When you're done you will fill it in this table." She picked up a paper. "You'll write your name in the first column and your time today in the second. On Friday, you will write your time in the third and so on. After four classes, I want to see your improvements, that's what you'll write in the sixth column. That means if you will need 30 minutes to run the laps today and 25 minutes on the next Friday, you'll calculate how many percent of your original time you have now, in this case that's 25/30, which is a little over 80%. The 10 best improvements will be awarded." She put the lists of paper on the table next to the track. "Remember, this is a race, one against the rest. Some of you may have friends that are slower, don't wait for them, run for yourself. Besides, running will exhaust you and you won't really be able to chat." She smirked. "Now stretch a bit, we start in five."

"Am I the only one kind of nervous?" I asked my friends.

"No, my insides are in a literal twist." Rosy said. "Can't wait for these two weeks to be over."

"Ok, girls and boys let's go, let's go!" Persephone yelled, enthusiastically.

"Oh, god." Rosy sighed, "this will be a long day."

"Ok, on my whistle you will start running." Persephone declared, "Now, there is a lot of you, play it nice, no pushing. I don't want a broken bone on your first day." She smiled and blew the whistle.

I chose a steady pace, something that won't tire me too fast and won't make my legs hurt from holding back. "10 laps," I reminded myself, "Just focus on your breathing and maybe sing a song so this won't be too boring." Based on my assessment, one lap is about 500 meters long (1/3 of a mile), so this would get pretty boring pretty soon. I estimated I will run for about half an hour, sadly I didn't bring any music, although I doubt I would be allowed to use it anyway.

Three tiring laps in, I realized I was in top 15. I tried to count out of how many, but it was hard since we were all moving but I counted 32 gynakes and 20 andres. I noticed Naomi being in the top 5 and that Sanem started to lose me. We were running side by side, but I guess she couldn't keep up.

"Hey there, sexy." I heard a breathy voice on my right and turned to see Jamal pass me. I smiled at him, remembering the night we had.

"No way in hell am I going to let him beat me." I promised myself. I have decided to keep up with him, but stay behind him at all times.

Four more laps in I passed Rosy, who was really falling behind. I thought about what should I do, maybe say something encouraging to her or maybe just pass her. I didn't want to make her feel more uncomfortable.

"Eighth lap!" Persephone exclaimed, "except for you four, you are on 7. C'mon ladies, keep up!"

My lungs were hurting me, I was barely able to catch my breath, but the competitive side in me didn't let me fall behind. I wasn't exactly in shape so the running was slowly killing me, but then I looked at Naomi and saw her in top three, competing with two boys.

Encouragement.

I also saw Tanis not far behind her, her determined face brought chills to my skin.

"Last lap!" Persephone yelled. "C'mon, now. Bring your best."

And I did. I ran for my life, pretty sure my soul left me somewhere in those 500 meters. I passed a bunch of people, closing in to Jamal. When he noticed me he gave me some words of encouragement: "Catch me if you can, sexy."

We chased each other and despite the horrendous exhaustion I still managed to giggle.

As we passed the finish line I heard Persephone yell: "Nine, 28:43 and ten 28:44."

"One second!" I yelled as we moved to the grass, "I'll get you next time."

"Sure, you will." Jamal teased, "now write your name down."

I was so exhausted that I almost couldn't steady my hand enough to write down my time in the table.

"Don't die on me." Jamal kept on teasing.

"Shut up." He was just as exhausted as I was.

We laid on the grass, waiting for everyone to finish, coughing our lungs out.