Charlie’s Room: The Race

“Are you ready to go, Charlie?” Isaac asked. He started looking through the closet for their jackets.

“It’s too cold to go running,” Charlie said. “I don’t even like to run.”

“But we already paid and got our numbers,” Isaac said.

“You did agree to go,” Marianne said. “Maybe you could wear your lucky socks. Would that help?”

“Good idea,” Charlie said, and he raced off to his room.

“Is that fair?” Isaac asked. “It is a competition.”

“I doubt that you’re really at the level where it would matter,” Marianne said. “Besides, they’re just socks.”

Charlie returned and pulled the cuffs of his running pants up to display his socks. “Look,” he said. “Maybe I’ll be lucky enough for the race to be cancelled.”

“That wouldn’t be lucky for me,” Isaac said.

“They’re my socks,” Charlie said. “And I don’t want to go running.”

“You don’t have to if you really don’t want to,” Isaac said.

“I don’t want to,” Charlie said. Marianne frowned. Charlie sighed. “But I’ll go. I said I would.”

Isaac beamed. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll have a lot of fun. The race goes over the new footbridge they built downtown. It’s a really pretty route.” He handed Charlie his jacket.

“Are you sure this is warm enough? It’s still pretty cold outside,” Charlie said.

“You’ll warm up quickly when we get moving,” Isaac said. “If you’re worried, grab a sweatshirt.”

Charlie ran off to his room again and returned with a green sweatshirt covered in pictures of dinosaurs. “I guess I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s go.”

When they went out to the car, the sky was a deep, clear blue. There were a few wispy clouds here and there at the edges, but it was a beautiful day. “It’s a good day to be outside,” Isaac said.

“But I was going to have a dinosaur movie marathon,” Charlie said. “Mom said there’s lots of laundry to do, and she said we could watch the movies together if I helped her fold the clothes.”

“That does sound fun. You can still do that after our run,” Isaac said. “I’ll even help out, too.”

“Fine,” Charlie said. He huffed and looked out the window. “It looks like it’s going to rain.”

Isaac looked up at the next stop sign. The sky did look rather dark. Where had all those clouds come from? He turned on the headlights. “Are you going to watch the movies in the order they came out or chronological order?” he asked.

“Chronological, of course,” Charlie said. “They make more sense that way.” He looked up. “There’s the first raindrop.”

Within minutes, Isaac had to turn on the windshield wipers. By the time they arrived at the start of the race, they had started to see flashes of lightning.   “Do you think they’ll still have the race?” Charlie asked.

“Not if there’s lightning,” Isaac said. “It’s not safe.”

Sure enough, the race was cancelled. They handed Isaac and Charlie their tee shirts and sent them home. The park was booked months in advance, so they couldn’t even hold the race on a different day.

“Your lucky socks strike again,” Isaac said. “It wasn’t supposed to rain today at all.”

“I’m sorry you missed out on your run,” Charlie said.   “Luckily, we have something else already planned.”

“I guess that is lucky,” Isaac said.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” Charlie said. “We’ll have a lot of fun. Trust the lucky socks.”

And they did.