Totally Right (Aren't I?)

I got more visitors at the Racer House in the week of the attack on me by Rival's Angels (cue the corny theme music) than in my entire life: two.

It was about seven-thirty the next evening when the family was eating dinner. The sun had long left the sky, and a few crickets were chirping outside. We were eating spaghetti. Spritle and Chim-Chim were eating off the same plate. Their forks had gotten into a tangled mess of noodles and they were tugging on each end like a rope.

"Ten bucks on Chim-Chim," said Speed.

"Speed!" called Mom Racer. "No betting at the dinner table."

"Oh, come on, I was just kidding," he defended himself. Finally Chim-Chim snapped the tangle in half. He pumped his fork up in victory. Speed looked at me pointedly. I laughed.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

"Now who could that be, this late?" asked Mrs. Racer. I jumped up from the table, "I'll get it." I skipped to the front door and turned her knob. The figure behind it was instantly recognizable, but kind of hard to see in the dead of night with all that black.

"Racer X?" I asked. "I'll go get Speed."

"I've come to talk to you," he corrected me.

"Huh?" I asked. Now Racer X wanted to speak with me? Had the whole world gone topsy-turvy?

"I would like to speak with you," he paraphrased himself. Aware that this was probably not going to be a pleasant talk, I stepped onto the porch and closed the door.

"What is it?"

"You were attacked," he declared.

"I got into an altercation with a couple of crooked racers working for that bastard Rival, yeah," I responded. "So?"

"You were caught in the middle of an explosion at Kirkala," he continued. "One someone died in."

"And I'm fine," I added to his sentence.

"Do you really think Rival's going to stop?" he asked. "Do you think he'll rest as long as you—and Speed—are 'fine?'"

"We can handle him," I said.

"What do you think is going to happen?" he inquired. "Do you think that you're both going to get the Grand Prix and race together and celebrate when the other wins? Do you think it'll be that simple? It's not! Rival and all the others like him won't rest until one of you goes down in flames. And …"

As he spoke, I got a vision of the Mach 6 on fire. And not just on fire … blazing. I tried as clandestinely as I could to wipe a tear away

"It's going to be you," Racer X finished.

I glared at him, "Oh, yes, of course the girlfriend must be the one to get thrashed!" I walked off the porch onto the sidewalk. Why there when I could have just as easily gone back in the house?

I don't know.

"No matter how well you drive, everyone will peg you as the weaker one," he explained. "You're the easiest target."

"So what are you saying?" I asked as I stomped down the street, not even glancing back at him.

"It's not your time."

"Not my time?!" at this I turned around. "Who are you to say when my time is?!"

"Speed lost his brother; he doesn't need to lose you, too."

"Why do you care!?" yelled I. "What does it matter to you if Speed loses me?"

He stayed silent. It's now or never, Trixie, I thought, just put it out there.

"Is it because you're Rex?"

"Now you're on this bandwagon?" he asked.

"Speed told me he saw your face," I said. "He says you're not. But I think you are. I see Speed in you when you drive. And I remember when I was young and used to see Rex at the house." I walked around him. "There was a presence. I knew I was the company of greatness. I've only felt that presence two times since: when I saw Speed's first race and … when I raced with you."

I stopped in front of him and placed a hand on my hip.

"Why should I take advice from you?" asked I. "A man with no fashion sense or relationship with his family?"

"Suppose you're right," he began

"I know I'm right," I interrupted.

"If that's the case," he said, "I must not be much different than you."

I crossed my arms, but I didn't speak.

"Where is your family?" he asked. It was my turn to stay silent.

"Do you even have a family?"

--

It was the anniversary of Rex Racer's death. I had been living with the Racers for almost a year and was accompanying them to the cemetery to honor him and place roses on this grave and such.

"You really don't have to do this," said Speed.

"Nonsense!" retorted I. "I didn't know Rex long, but even I could see he was a great man. And it means so much to your family."

"Our family," said Mom Racer. "You're just as much a part of this family as Speedy is."

"Yes, Mrs. Racer," I said. Even with being them as long as I had, I couldn't muster up the steel to say they were my family. They already had a complete family, one that loved one another, one that had pictures of everyone on the mantel over the fireplace. Where did I fit on that mantel?

As I placed a pink rose on Rex's grave I pondered up to him in Heaven; I wish you could have seen Speed grow. Pops doesn't want him to race, but he's going to. He has to. He's meant to. He's going to be great, just like you. No, he's going to be the best, like you were supposed to be.

But wherever he was, I'm sure he knew that.

"Could I have a minute alone?" asked Speed. We all nodded and awkwardly dispersed.

You can tell a fresh grave from an old one. There are plants growing on old ones. There are cracks in the headstone and the letters look worn. So when I walked through the graveyard I tried to pray for all people in the new graves. I didn't know them, but I thought it was a nice gesture. I sometimes wondered if anyone would do it when I died.

Maybe Spritle and Chim-Chim will try, I thought. Then I added, and then they'd knock over the headstone, the bozos!

Suddenly, I came to a stone that said 'Shimura' on it. I bent down to have a closer look at it, thinking, maybe a long lost relative. The headstone read, "Aviatrix Shimura: Loving wife." I jumped up and gasped loudly.

Aviatrix Shimura was my mother.

"Trixie, what's wrong!?" asked Speed, running over to me. I took one look at him, in his little black suit, and stepped in front of my mother's grave. Today was about Rex and him, not me.

"I tripped," I lied.

"Are you okay?" he asked. I walked over to him and put his face in my hands, "I should be asking you that!"

"I'll be fine," he replied. "Come on, Mom and Pops say we're leaving." I wrapped both my hands around his arm. As we walked away, I looked back at my mother's headstone and thought at it, I'll come back, Momma.

At eleven at night, I did.

"How could this happen, Momma?" I asked. Tears started to fall from my eyes into the flowers I had brought for her.

She had been sick for a while, before I even left the house. That was what stopped her from doing what she loved … flying. I guess the love of the sky ran in my family. But I had thought that, if she became terminally ill, Dad would have at least put his petty hate for the Racers aside to tell me!

"Oh!!" I wailed. I dropped the bouquet and fell upon her tombstone. I hugged it and wondered what I had done so wrong that I wasn't given the chance to say goodbye.

"Trixie?" asked a voice. I looked up and saw a man's outline through my tears. I wiped my eyes dry.

"Speed? What are you doing here?"

"I'm talking to Rex," he replied. "Mom and Pops always give me a time limit, like it'd make me less sad to see less of the grave." He paused, and then wondered aloud, "Wait, why am I explaining myself to you?! What are you doing here?"

I looked from him to the headstone and back. Finally, I admitted, "This is my mom's grave."

"But isn't this the grave you were at this morning?" he asked.

"I didn't want to make this day all about me," I explained. He took my arm, lifted me off my mother's gravestone, and looked at it. He shook his head and asked, "You didn't even know?"

"No!" I moaned. "I never saw her after I left the house and Dad never told me!" Staring at the polished rock, I grew angry with my father. How dare he keep this from me?!

I slipped out of Speed's grip and ran out of the cemetery.

"Trixie?" he yelled after me. "Trixie, wait!!"

He caught up to me at the old house. My old house. He looked around warily, whispering, "Trixie, we shouldn't be here. Last time past by your father said he'd run me over with a Mustang next time he saw me!"

Ignoring him, I twisted the doorknob and pulled. To my shock, it came open.

"I'm coming, Rex," muttered Speed as he followed me inside.

"You really don't have to do this," I said.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Speed, imitating me. I glanced at him and gave a small smile. We crept into the living room. I noticed it first, but Speed said it first.

"It's totally empty."

I heard my shoes hitting the wooden floors as we walked. There was absolutely nothing in the house. He had moved and didn't even bother to give me a call. As we came to my childhood room, I was reluctant to open the door.

"We can go home, Trixie," said Speed. "Right now. Let's go home."

"Unfortunately for me, this is home," I said. I pushed it open and widened my eyes in heartbreak.

Not only was everything still there; it was all broken. My little pink worktable was missing a leg. My mattress was thrown off the bed frame. All my toys were scattered on the floor and looked like they had been stepped on. I took my final step inside and felt something pointy under my foot.

"Ow!" I exclaimed. I picked up the foreign object. It was my little toy helicopter.

"Oh," I sighed. "Do you remember this, Speed?"

"Sure I do," he said. "It was your favorite toy. We used to pretend I was racing and you were spotting for me in it."

I looked to the bed. A faint outline of our former selves appeared. Speed was moving his car forward on the mattress. I was zooming the helicopter above him in my hand.

"How am I doing, Trix?" he asked.

"You're miles ahead of the competition, Speed," I replied. "They're never gonna catch up!"

Slowly we faded into nothing again.

"I always wanted a helicopter. All that work for my pilot's license with…" I trailed off and fell to my knees.

"Trixie!?" he yelled, concerned.

"I don't have a family, Speed," I said. "My mother's dead, my father's off God knows where, and he hates me so much he doesn't even want my stuff. I'm all alone in the world." Sitting among the shattered pieces of my childhood, I even wished for a moment that I had died instead of Momma.

"Oh, come on, Trixie," said Speed as sat down on the floor. "You know that's not true." I looked from my toy to him. It fell out of my hands.

"You and me, we're family," Speed continued. "You're a part of the Racer family now." He gently led my face into his neck, patted my head, and kissed the top. I held him fondly around his shoulders.

One month later, still sitting in my self-pity, Speed covered my eyes and said, "Guess who."

"Bobby Mainer?" asked I sarcastically.

"Bobby Mainer?!" he asked, removing his hands. "That jerk I beat up in fifth grade?"

"He had such a crush on me," I laughed.

"I know!" he exclaimed. "That's why I beat him up!"

"And they say I'm jealous," I snorted. Speed put his hands back on my eyes, "Come on, just follow me."

I walked blindly through the hall. "Where are you taking me?"

"It's a surprise!"

"You're going to tell me!" yelled I.

"I'm not that stupid!" he yelled.

"You're not stupid," said I.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, we're here!" He uncovered my eyes. I looked in front of me and saw the entire family standing in front of a big pink and black helicopter.

"What is this?!" I asked.

"It's for you!" exclaimed Speed. "I designed it myself, and the whole family helped build it."

I walked over to the family and around the helicopter. It said "TRX" on the sides. I read it aloud, "The TRX. The Trix."

"It's you," said Speed. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," I said. I kissed Mom and Pops on their cheeks, "Thank Pops, Mom." I tousled Spritle and Chim-Chim's hair, "And you guys, too." I went back to Speed and pulled him closer to me by his collar. "And as for you, Speed Racer, I could kiss you, but your parents are here."

"Let em ground me," he said. And he kissed me.

"Ick!" said Spritle. "Cootie shot!"

"That's my family," chuckled Speed.

"That's our family," I corrected him.

--

"I'll tell you where they are," said I. I pointed to the house, "They're right in there. Speed and Mom and Pops and Spritle and Sparky and even that damn monkey Chim-Chim; they're my family," I said. "And you don't know what you're missing!"

I shoved past him and started back home. Over my shoulder I yelled, "I don't care if it's my time or not. I'll quit when I want to."

Flushed and upset, I opened the door and went back in the kitchen.

"Oh, good thing you're back," said Mom Racer. "Your dinner was getting cold and slightly eaten."

"'Slightly eaten' by who?!" I asked. Two forks were reaching to my plate. Spritle and Chim-Chim looked up at me, innocent smiles on their faces and forks still hovering over my dinner. I grabbed the plate, "If I find any monkey hair in my food, you two are gonna be sorry!"

"So, Trix, who was at the door?" asked Speed.

"The Harbinger of Doubt," I grunted.