Peter was far different from any boy Wendy had ever met.
At the end of the hall, they came to a waiting room where several other boys and one little snip of a girl sat around in a circle of sorts. They had pulled chairs out of their pre-arranged placement and situated them to their own liking so that they might – standing on her tiptoes, Wendy could see – they were playing cards. Poker, she surmised.
"I have an idea."
Peter offered no introduction of any sort, but pushed his way into the circle and shoved back the small end table on which they had laid the card. A smirk split his face as he glanced between the others.
"Oh?" A freckled, blonde boy say back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
Their indifference hardly fazed Peter. Pushing only on one of his chair's wheels, he spun himself about to look all of them in the eyes. With a carefree shrug, he laid out his challenge.
"Now, I'm sure…" he began, "That you're all not a bunch of sissies. Just because I won the last race, doesn't mean you don't stand a chance to win again. So," with a grand, sweeping gesture, he pointed one hand back at Wendy, "I think we ought to show the new kid what we do around here for entertainment. It's not all roses, this is serious."
While short and rather demanding, Peter's speech set everyone into motion. The boys leapt from their chairs and made straight for a closet, back down the hall, while the snip of a girl disappeared into one of the rooms, but reemerged shortly with a red flag and a roll of painter's tape in her hands. It didn't take much guesswork for Wendy to know what they were for, but until the boys returned with hospital issue, generic wheel chairs did she find who the other contestants would be.
The freckled, blonde boy unfolded one of the wheel chairs and set it at the line the girl taped across the floor. With a dramatic leap, he sat down in the seat of it and rolled his head around to look back at Peter.
"Don't worry, Pete. We'll let you win this time. It's pure luck you won before. Just more practice, I suppose."
There was a sneer in his voice that chilled Wendy to the bone, but one glance at Peter, and he seemed to still be smiling. She began to wonder just what a day with Peter really would be like. Hospitals were always an uncomfortable place for her, but all of a sudden, a waiting room and the surrounding corridors were Peter's gymnasium. And it wasn't just a day with Peter that she began to wonder about, but the following days. Surely he didn't race the hallways everyday.
"No worries, Fox." Peter replied. "That's my edge."
And so, faster than Wendy could blink, the flag was waved and the boys began to push their wheels as fast as their arms would go. When they near the first corner, Peter nearly turned on one wheel, but then they were out of sight.
Along with the other boy and the girl, Wendy began to run, following the boys. Her curiosity was peaked. She wondered if perhaps, Peter was all talk – maybe, having to live in such a dreary place, he puffed himself up a bit. But his competitive antics said otherwise.
"Go on, Peter! Go on!" The boy beside her shouted as they ran.
"Faster, Fox! He's gaining on you!" The girl cried.
Wendy, far too out of breath and focused on keeping up, said nothing. No cheers.
Around three bends, one long hallway, and through another waiting room, the boys sped across the floor of the hospital. The longer she watched, she began to understand what Fox meant by, "more practice." Indeed, Peter never hesitated, never faltered, but kept his eyes ahead, right on the finish line back in the original waiting room. And of course, just when Wendy was running out of breath, Peter surged ahead and crossed the taped line, his arms in the arms, whooping and cheering for his own victory.
Fox was not so far behind.
"Forget it, Pete." He shook his head and climbed out of the wheelchair. "I'll be rid of you next week anyways."
It was only then that she saw something strange in Peter's face.
His cheek twitched.
"Have it your way, Fox. Be like that and you can clean up the tape." Peter shook his head and turned himself around, wheeling back down the hall towards his room. He only turned back when he was barely outside of his own door, "Are you coming, Wendy?"