DEREK STOOD BY THE FINISHING LINE, WATCHING CAREFULLY to make sure the track was clear. Several of the straw bales had been knocked out of place by the swelling crowds, but were not a serious obstruction. In any case, it was too late now to do anything about it. The cheering was coming down from the start like a tidal wave. Then they were in sight, and Derek frowned. There were only two boxes on the track. The others must have failed soon after the start. So now it was just Jam & Jerusalem desperately trying to edge past Rebellion.
“Age versus youth,” said Kate Adstone at his elbow, and Derek smiled. “Come on, Jack!” he yelled, and then remembered he was supposed to be impartial. Ah, well, in this tumult nobody would have heard him.
When the two were halfway to the finish, Derek saw out of the corner of his eye a movement in the front row of watchers. Several turned angrily to see who was causing a disturbance, and a straw bale was pushed at an angle, leaving a gap between spectators and advancing soap boxes.
“Straighten that bale!” he shouted at the top of his voice, but nobody heard. The soap boxes were close now, both losing speed as the slope flattened out to the finish.
JACK JR. WAS HOLDING HIS BREATH. NEARLY THERE! HE HAD never felt so powerful, so elated. This’ll show ’em!
Then, as his soap box, still in the lead, slowed down to a gentle roll, he saw a face in the crowd that changed everything. It was his enemy, and in a split second Jack saw him rip off a wig from the person next to him, and then he knew them both. It was the man who was his enemy, and the one now without the wig he knew at once was his father.
And all in that split second he saw a knife flash and he turned his wonderful, winning soap box through the gap in the bales into the crowd, straight at his enemy, and scored a direct hit with the sharp nose cone of Rebellion.