It was early morning, and Coach Lieder was still at home, Danny had run here from the tiny cottage where he lived alone. He could have created a gate, but that would have made a mockery of his decision the night before, after confronting his family, not to make any more gates at the high school. Technically, Coach Lieder’s house wasn’t the school, but since his promise had been made only to himself, who would he be fooling?

Besides, he had hardly slept last night. He needed the run in the brisk—no, cold—morning air. It was better than coffee, when your goal was to become alert rather than jittery.

He knocked lightly on the door, avoiding the doorbell in case someone in the house was still asleep. He also waited patiently before giving another couple of raps. Then the door opened.

Coach Bleeder—sorry, Coach Lieder—stood there in all his half-dressed glory. Apparently he slept in boxers and an old tee-shirt—no one would change into such an outfit first thing in the morning. And he looked bleary-eyed, tense, worried. This surprised Danny, since at school Bleeder usually showed only two emotions: contempt and anger. Now Lieder seemed vulnerable somehow, as if something had hurt him or might hurt him; as if he were grieved, or expected to grieve.

“You,” said Coach Lieder. And now the contempt reappeared.

Danny expected Lieder to say something about the rope ladder incident yesterday in the gym. But he just stood there.

“Sir, I know it’s early,” said Danny.

“What do you want?”

Well, if he was going to act like nothing happened, that was fine with Danny. Only now he had to have a reason for being there. Instead of doing damage control from showing off his godlike powers in the gym, what else could plausibly have brought Danny here? “I wondered if you could time me.”

Lieder looked puzzled, suspicious. After all the months in which Danny had taunted him by never letting Lieder time his fastest runs, it was natural that Lieder would suspect a trick.

“I’m tired of the game,” said Danny. “I’m in high school. I should care about high school things.” And even as Danny said the words, they became true. It might be fun to be a high school athlete, even if Lieder was a complete jerk.

“Like waking up your teachers?” asked Lieder coldly.

Had Lieder really still been asleep? It was early, but not so early that someone coaching the first team of the day at seven shouldn’t already be up and dressed.

“I stepped off a hundred yards,” said Danny. Actually, part of his gift was a very good sense of distance, with reliability down to a foot in a hundred yards, or a twentieth of an inch in a foot. “Do you have a watch?”

Lieder held up his left wrist. “I’m a coach, I wear a stopwatch.”