Mytro: Nayzun

Chapter 2: London Rain

The London rain came down in pinprick drops as Turtle Fulton ran across Grosverner Street. He loved everything about London - the odd black taxis, the double-decker buses, some of the food. But he hated the way they drove on the wrong side of the road. He would pause, often, watching for the words "Look Left," the Os twin eyes painted on the street to remind him he wasn't in New York anymore as oncoming traffic bumped past him. A shiny Mercedes honked at him as he took a step into the rush and he scooted back. An ambulance, its wee-woo siren blaring and then receding into the distance, roared past. He'd have to wait. After all the little red man on the crosswalk sign was telling him not to risk jaywalking and he decided to listen.

Turtle kept running in place while he waited, a trick his track coach, Mr. Huff, taught him. Running in big cities was tough but Turtle loved it. It was a lot of stop and start and it forced him to break his stride every few dozen feet. But he loved seeing things from the sidewalk, loved his plodding pace that let him stop and see the intricate carvings above a pharmacy's front door or the little flowers in a climbing vine on the side of a garage. He loved learning about a city by foot.

He had run in five different cities in the past five days and he was almost done with the London leg of his journey. It was Friday and the weekend was coming. It was noon, here, which meant it was seven in the morning in New York. If he hopped on the Mytro in a few minutes he'd have plenty of time to get back to school.

Mornings were always fun for him, now, since he began riding the Mytro. He could leave at seven, take a leisurely stroll to the Mytro stop near his house and get to school minutes later - with plenty of time to spare. Or he could wake up a little earlier, change in a Mytro station so he could go on his run in a foreign city. Today he had thirty minutes before he had to be back in school in Manhattan so he had plenty of time to chew up another kilometer - that's the distance they used in Europe although, strangely, not in the UK - and rush to the Mytro station and back to school.

He yawned. Turtle had spent a long night tossing and turning - something bothered him as he lay in bed and he couldn't quite put his finger on what. The odd feeling had evaporated when he hit the London fog an hour before but he was still oddly tired. He would have to grab a nap that afternoon after he did his homework and before he visited Agata in Barcelona.

He ran past a row of brick houses with white ledges and then a bright green garden behind a high iron fence. The colors there reminded him of oregano - dark grey green with a hint of yellow. Summer was on its way but now the rain was really coming down and it was getting colder. Water beaded on his windbreaker and he decided it was getting a little too messy. If he got too soaked he'd have to change in the locker room and people would become suspicious. After all, it was bright and sunny in New York so unless he claimed to have had run through a sprinkler or a car wash he probably would have some explaining to do. He decided he would take the Oxford Circus stop and cut his losses and maybe come back when it wasn't raining.

Paul "Turtle" Fulton was skinny - he had lost about fifteen pounds in the last year thanks to his daily runs - and his grandmother called him handsome. He was shy and had black hair and a tight smile. He lived in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, down by the Verrazano Bridge. His parents had died when he was very young - he barely remembered them - but his grandmother told him that he had his mother's kind green eyes and his father's dark hair. His jacket, emblazoned with Manhattan Friends Track Team, was scarlet and he wore high-tech running shoes that his grandmother bought him and a pair of longer black shorts, not the short shorts that his track team made him wear. A year before he had been the worst runner on the team and now he was the best, handily beating even Nick and Nate Kincaid in practices and taking out opponents one by one in meets. He had learned a lot in the past year but he had mostly learned how to really run.