Short and sweet, I hope. Set after 'The more things change' but before 'the lies we live' Danny is sixteen. Rusty is fourteen.

Danny figured that there were plenty of advantages to this whole sports day thing, as long as no-one actually expected him to participate. But an afternoon out of class was always good, and if watching Principal Miller wrestling with the microphone stand wasn't entertaining enough that was more than made up for by the feeling of Patricia leaning back against him, her hair tickling his cheek, and the knowledge that if he moved his hand two inches further down . . . well, actually if he moved his hand two inches further down now, while they were surrounded by people, she'd probably turn round and slap him. But still. It was shaping up to be a good sort of afternoon.

"Ahem hem." Apparently the microphone had won out, and Principal Miller bent double to talk into it. A ripple of laughter swept over the crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I am delighted to see so many of you gathered here with enthusiasm in your eyes to celebrate . . . "

Patricia stood on tip toe to whisper in his ear "Is that enthusiasm I spy in your eyes?"

Danny grinned. "Just happy to see you."

She laughed and stepped away from him. "Down boy."

" . . . we must never forget that while we may learn our lessons in the classroom there are other things that life has to teach us . . . "

""Ten more." Rusty announced, sidling up, the paper envelopes in his hand.

Danny took them and stuffed them in his jacket. The track shorts and t-shirt Rusty was wearing didn't exactly offer much chance of concealment. Probably he should have been the one to sneak around and collect the last minute bets, but Patricia had been smiling, and Rusty hadn't minded. "All of them –"

" – in the book." Rusty nodded and handed the notebook over too.

Patricia rolled her eyes. "Don't you two ever say 'hello' like normal people?"

"Hi, Pat." Rusty grinned at her and dodged aside just before she leaned over and swatted him on the arm.

" . . . Teamwork. Perseverance. Friendship The value of hard work and a proper sportsman – or woman – like attitude. These are the qualities . . . "

"Lot of people betting on Jim Rogers in the high jump. Think we might have missed something." Rusty told him quietly.

He shrugged. So they'd lose some money there. Flicking through the book he was pretty sure that by the end of the day they were going to be up enough that it would make very little difference. "We'll see what happens. How about the 100 metres?"

"Split right across the board."

"If you're going to talk business, I'm going to go and find Gina." Patricia told him matter-of-factly.

He hesitated for a minute, but honestly, they really did need to talk. "Sorry."

She laughed and kissed him. "Used to it, remember? Catch you later. Good luck, Rusty." He watched her slip through the crowd towards her friends.

" . . . And so I must conclude by reminding you that whatever lessons life throws at you, it is imperative that you learn how to pick yourselves up and start over. Remember it truly is not the winning that matters. It is the taking part. Thank you. "

He looked round, vaguely surprised as the crowd applauded politely. "He done?" For Miller that had been a very short speech.

"Uh huh." Rusty sounded faintly bemused too. "I was assuming he was going to try and break his President's Day record."

For once they followed the crowd, and wandered to the side of the track where the first race was due to start. "No-one outstanding." Rusty told him. "So we didn't get many takers."

Danny nodded. "When are you – "

" – Not for a while."

He nodded again and checked the notebook. Most of the events there was no problem. As Rusty had said, they could be in a bit of trouble if Jim Rogers did win the high jump. And there was a similar cluster at the girls' 1500 metres, but they'd anticipated that. Kelly Sharp had been single-handedly responsible for the rep of their varsity team for two years now. "What about the hurdles?" he asked Rusty, carefully not smiling.

Rusty cocked his head. "What about them?"

"Should we be looking at you as a serious contender?" He knew that Rusty had tried to wriggle out of this whole sports day deal, but the fact that he hadn't managed it, well, that meant he was due some teasing.

"Are you asking as my friend or my business partner?" Rusty's expression was completely blank.

Okay. What? "Where does friendship come into this?"

"Well, obviously if you were my friend you'd be betting on me yourself. Otherwise you could crush my fragile self-esteem."

"Your self-esteem could withstand a head on collision with a semi." Danny pointed out.

For a fraction of a second Rusty's eyes dropped to the ground, and a look of hurt crossed his face. Danny cursed silently. Oh, he knew he was being played, knew that this was what he got for all the mocking of the last few days, not to mention the things he'd said when he'd first seen Rusty in shorts, but he still couldn't help it. He grabbed the notebook, put a dollar in one of the empty envelopes and wrote his bet up. "Satisfied?"

Rusty grinned.

Then Doug Fletcher leaned in to him and produced an envelope of his own. "I'll take some of that action." Danny frowned, and it wasn't until he'd already taken the bet that he became aware of Rusty frantically shaking his head. He was about to ask why when Ami Sato shyly pushed an envelope into his hand. He barely had time to register Rusty's name on the bet before a dozen others came up, each waving their own envelopes.

Oh. Crap.

It was a while before they were able to sneak out of the crowd. And by that time they'd had nearly forty people lay the same bet. Things were looking pretty serious, and Danny cursed the genius idea that they'd had to distribute envelopes so that people could put their money inside and sneak the bets to them, even in class time. Because even though it had worked great up till now, it meant that they weren't given an opportunity to turn anyone down.

Rusty broke the stunned silence. "We're going to get lynched."

"Ohhh, yeah." Danny agreed.

Patricia came round the corner at a run. "What's going on? People are looking for you. How come everyone's wanting to bet on Rusty?"

"They think we're going to fix the race." Danny explained.

"You're not, are you?" Patricia's eyes narrowed.

Rusty shrugged. "Might have to, now."

"Wait," She looked confused. "Surely if everyone's betting on you, you need to lose, right? That way you don't need to pay out any money."

It was Danny's turn to shrug. It wasn't that simple. For one thing, if Rusty lost now, everyone would assume that he'd thrown the race, which would lead to the lynching, but more importantly if everyone thought that they'd deliberately set this up to part them from their money, they'd lose the reputation for honesty and fair-dealing that they'd worked so hard to achieve. And okay, so the reality was that they were thieves and liars and cheats, and maybe in any other world that made them the bad guys but this really wasn't their sort of con.

The lesson here was quite simple; never, ever bet in any book you're running.

"We're in serious trouble." he told Rusty, as the loudspeaker announced the imminent start of the boys' 400 metre hurdles.

Rusty nodded. "You more than me."

He said nothing, just waited.

"You're going to lose your dollar, I wouldn't have bet on me." He grinned and started heading towards the track.

Danny yelled after him "You know, one of these days I'm going to figure out just what I did to deserve you!"

Patricia elbowed him. Hard. "That wasn't a nice thing to say."

He smiled to himself. "Yes it was."

Oddly it wasn't until he was actually watching the race that it occurred to Danny that just like with his grades, maybe according to Rusty-logic, it wasn't the winning or the taking part, it was the not under any circumstances being noticed. Because contrary to all expectations – contrary to everything that was possible - Rusty was winning. And Danny was cheering himself hoarse, and it wasn't because of the averted-lynching, and it certainly wasn't because of any stupid one dollar bet.

After he'd crossed the finish line and dodged his way through the crowd, Rusty made his way over and flopped to the ground beside Danny.

"That was amazing." Patricia said, wide-eyed.

"I get a lot of practice." Rusty said, smiling as Danny passed him a bottle of water. "We're going to need to pay – "

A lot more than they'd made. Yeah. " - It's okay." They'd need to tap into his car fund, and Rusty's emergency money, but it was better this way. They could always make more money. Other things were harder to replace.

"And we owe Tommy Banner an A in Chemistry." Danny turned to look at him. Rusty shrugged. "I wouldn't have been able to beat him."

Fair enough, but an A? Tommy Banner? He shook his head sceptically. "Going to be tricky."

"If I do all his homework, and we get the paper in plenty time to coach him . . . "

Could work. And they could worry about it later. "You know they're going to want you to join the track team now."

Rusty groaned and covered his face with his arm. "Tell them I died." he said, voice muffled.

Danny laughed.

If the game was impossible, change the rules. That was the lesson.

As I said, short and sweet. And there's a reason for that, and that reason is that I know what's coming up in the next few chapters and I figured that a little bit of lightness could only be a good thing.