Summer Novel Part Six During training sessions there was always something to do too. Nic was getting ready to show the American junior kayakers that there was another competitor in the ring. Mornings and afternoons he trained, and when he wasn't training it was because someone had made him get off of the water. The next four races that followed went beautifully for Nic. Nic had more focus than anyone in the group Perrin saw. Perrin would be on the water training with him and he would practice that one gate move until his boat moved exactly as he wished it. Perrin knew he had spent the time and the effort, training, visualizing, and talking with coaches. He had done it all, it was his time now. Perrin stood at the starting gate. The metallic voice in the box at the starting gate counted down for Nic, the old official talked to him. Perrin could see he had blocked all that out. She knew all he saw was the course and the moves he would make. "GO!" The voice clicked. His boat was propelled on top of the water, into the first up, out high, into the next down- at an angle, his body was a machine and his mind the programming, there was nothing that could stop him. She knew that he could feel the water under his boat, his paddle pulling on the water; green and red were flying by his eyes. She hurried down to the finish but he was done before she got there. Nic ended up placing fourth in the Junior Kayak class, something, nobody, except for him, had expected. Nic, like Kal, was also using a boat that was not his. His boat had, unlike Kal's, made it back from Europe fine, it was making its way down the Ocoee River that had proven difficult for it. One day the team had gone to Tennessee to take a river run down the Ocoee, the home of the 1996 Olympic Site for Canoe and Kayak Slalom. Nic was in his slalom boat. He had followed Chris down a drop that at the time had looked like no big deal. It was only a drop of eight feet or so. Perrin, already over the drop and eddied out with the on-looking Rochester kids. Where was Nic's boat? Why was Nic perched on a rock like a salamander? What had happened? Perrin watched as Chris circled the drop, he seemed to be pretty focused on a particular rooster tail spitting water high in the air. Perrin turned her attention back to Nic. She watched as his face went from an already pale shade of white to a sickening shade of green. He watched in horror as not one, not two, but three, rafts came down over the rooster tail. One of the rafts came within jumping distance of Nic's rock. He's gonna do it. Perrin thought. Well if he doesn't he isn't getting off of there and he isn't getting down the next very rock filled drop. He did. Nic launched himself off of the rock and collided with a completely oblivious woman. She screamed. "Sorry, sorry, I just need to get to that next shore please." Nic said causally. The woman looked traumatized. Perrin hoped that she would be able to work it through. Perrin and the rest of the group made it down to the next drop. Tom came paddling up. "Hey Nic, are these your Chaco sandals?" He held up a pair of green Chacos. "My word they came out of my boat?" "Speaking of which, where is your boat, if you don't mind my asking." Perrin said. "Did you see that Rooster tail" Nic questioned. Perrin nodded. "Yeah well that was my boat." Everyone stared at him. "It was a vertical pin, Textbook, but they don't happen often. You're lucky you got out before the boat broke on your legs." Chris said, shifting his legs which had fallen asleep in his canoe. "You went over the drop, your bow got pinned in some rocks on the bottom. Then force of the water threw you to the deck of the boat. Am I right?" Nic said yes. "I saw it all. Very nice swan dive into the water, good thing your legs followed you, and it could have been bad." A few hours later the group was back at the site where Nic's boat was last seen. The river had been shut off by the upstream dam and it looked strangely like the surface of another planet with no water in the streambed. The group split up, half on one bank and half on the other. They walked about half a mile and they only managed to find thirteen rafting paddles, Nic's boat was gone. The last race, Age Group Nationals, ended. It was held on the Tuckasegee and Tom and Nic placed first in slalom C2. There is a picture of them looking tired and dirty wearing their medals, the river in the background, minutes before they left to fly home to Colorado. The group had gone from Colorado to California, back to Colorado, then to Austria, to Italy then Austria again. After that to Germany, then the Czech Republic, back to Germany, to North Carolina and now they were all going their own ways. Lisa had left the week before to attend a family reunion in South Carolina. Perrin would get dropped off in Nashville to fly to New Orleans to go to her own family reunion. Nic and Tom were flying home. Kal and Chris would be the only two of the original group to make the 1,500 mile drive all the way back to Colorado with the joyful pregnant wife, dogs and remaining Colorado kids. All good things must come to an end as Tom and Nic drove away in the direction of the Atlanta airport, Perrin realized that their summer trip really was ending. "Our whirlwind summer is coming to a close." She noted to Chris. "It wasn't a whirlwind. A whirlwind is something short. June 6th to July 27th, no, that's way too long to be a whirlwind." Chris finished tying on the boats to the van. "Ready to go?" She looked at him, he was right, it wasn't a whirlwind, it was more like an odyssey. It was challenging and fun, but it defiantly wasn't a whirlwind. "I always liked road trips." Perrin said smiling. back to Summer Novel 2003