Auszug: Run for your Life
Klappentext
Run for your Life is the story of how a girl struggles against all odds to achieve her dream. Cassie Straydeer, a Navajo Indian, lives with her mother and brother in a trailer on a large reservation in northern New Mexico. She is happy with her couch-potato lifestyle until the day she happens to see a good-looking girl win a race on TV. From that moment on, Cassie turns her life around. Her goal is to become a champion long-distance runner like that girl! She knows it won’t be easy. Besides minor obstacles like being overweight and not having money for running shoes, there are other, more serious obstacles, like wild animals. Then there are her classmates. They like Cassie – as she is. They don’t like the Cassie-who-wants-to-become-a- long-distance-runner. They turn against her and begin bullying her. But the greatest obstacle of all is her own brother! Wild with jealousy, he will do almost anything to stop Cassie from achieving her goal!
Auszug
There’s only one street running through the little town of Naschitti. Naschitti is located in the New Mexican part of the Navajo Nation, the homeland of the Navajo Indians, the largest Indian reservation in the United States. The Navajo Nation is twice the size of Belgium but has less than 3% as many inhabitants. It is located where the four states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico come together to form the so-called Four Corners region. The countryside is beautiful. Tourists come from all over the United States and Europe to see and take photos of the wide valleys, sharp cliffs and flat-topped hills called mesas. On their way to the next spectacular view, they don’t usually stop in rundown little towns like Naschitti. Why should they? There’s nothing there they would want to photograph anyway.
Navajos are a proud but poor people. They’ve had a hard history. White Americans haven’t been good to them. The result is reflected in the statistics: the jobless rate is at nearly 50%, there is widespread drug abuse and drinking, the teen-age suicide rate is three times higher than the national average, and the murder rate four and a half times higher. Put simply, the statistics say that the homeland of the Navajos is a troubled place.
16-year-old Cassie Straydeer, who lived in Naschitti with her mother and brother, tried not to think about these things. But they were always there somewhere in the back of her mind, and Cassie sometimes found herself wishing them away, wishing for a better life – the kind she saw on TV, with large comfortable homes, green lawns and shiny new cars in the driveway.
Otherwise, the little Straydeer family was doing just fine, thank you. They got by on the welfare check their mother received once a month from the government. It was enough to live on and Cassie herself earned a little money babysitting, enough for things like the BBQ potato chips she liked so much.
Today, as usual, she stopped in at the little corner store on her way home from school. Cilly Slipshaw was sitting where she always sat, behind the cash register. When she saw Cassie come in, she hardly looked up from her magazine to nod at her. Cassie said hi and went directly to the back of the store. A moment later, she appeared at the cash register with a large bag of BBQ potato chips and a six-pack of Pepsi in her hand. Cilly looked up again briefly as Cassie paid and put the two items in her backpack.
As she hurried along the street on her way home, she was singing a song to herself and trying to think of what was on television that afternoon. When she noticed the dog, it was standing in the middle of the street not more than fifteen yards ahead of her. She stopped. Her heart began to pound wildly. It was Thor, the Pit Bull Terrier belonging to old Sam Trujillo. Sam wasn’t allowed to let his dog run free – Thor had attacked and injured several other dogs – but when Sam was hitting the bottle Thor sometimes got out of the house alone.
‘Run!’ shouted a voice in Cassie’s head. Another voice said, ‘Don’t move!’ She stood very still, fighting to keep her nerves under control. ‘Don’t show him you’re afraid! Don’t show him you’re afraid!’ she said to herself over and over. She forced herself to stare at Thor. Thor stared back. This went on for several minutes. Cassie wanted to cry out but was afraid to. Afraid of what Thor might do. Cold sweat ran down her face. Her mind was in fast-forward mode. The nearest house was just behind her, to her right, about forty yards away. If she turned and ran could she reach it in time? What if there was no one at home? What if someone was at home but didn’t come to the door? Or took a long time to come to the door?
She had to do something. Her legs had begun to shake. She couldn’t stand there much longer. She took a deep breath and got ready to make her move. Five… four… three… two… one… go! Cassie threw down her backpack, turned and ran.
But running wasn’t something she did very often. Overweight and out of shape, she was soon out of breath and puffing like a locomotive. She felt as if her heart would explode. She forced herself to go on. Half way to the house, she took a quick look over her shoulder. Thor was coming after her. Terrified, she tried to increase her speed. Her head said faster but her body had another message: go slower. She could already feel Thor’s teeth biting into her legs. But – what luck! – when she finally reached the house, the front door was open! She dived through and heard the door slam behind her.
Little old Mrs. Blackhouse had seen everything from her window. (She spent a lot of time at her window.) She helped the frightened girl to her feet and held her in her arms. Cassie was shaking all over.
‘Now, now. Everything’s all right. You’re safe now,’ she said.
Cassie tried to answer her but her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t get her breath. When she finally calmed down, she thanked Mrs. Blackhouse for rescuing her. Cassie wanted to go home right away but she noticed that the old woman wanted to talk, so she stayed on a while. By and by, she called her brother and asked him to come with his ATV and pick her up.
