Fast Girls

Europe, our fellows had to work too hard to qualify and now they’re out of steam,” explains one coach. And it is not just the men. Uncle Sam’s fleetest sprinter, Miss Elta Cartwright of California, is sick, leaving the door open for one of Canada’s speedy lady runners to win gold.
But aside from unfinished facilities, bad weather, and illness, reports are surfacing that the main problem for American athletes might be that they are spending too much time in the buffet line aboard the S.S. President Roosevelt. It seems our athletes have been under the false impression that pie eating has been added as an Olympic event! In fact, the ship’s supply of ice cream ran out midway across the Atlantic. At last check with the team’s coaching staff, eating dessert does not count as training.
When asked if he wanted to revise his initial prediction about the team’s success, Major Gen. MacArthur responded, “We have not come three thousand miles to lose gracefully, but rather to win, and win decisively. Just wait and see.”
Well, we’re waiting.

5.
July 1928
Fulton, Missouri
DR. McCUBBIN HADN’T BEEN JOKING WHEN HE TOLD Helen that her summer would be quiet. She felt like she had been stuck in bed forever. Through the languid days of July, Helen read The Boxcar Children. She read it so many times, she started creating her own stories about Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny in her head, but one morning Ma left The Missouri Daily Observer next to Helen’s bed, and she picked it up. The paper was a couple weeks old, but it was something different.
Helen thumbed through the sections until she noticed an article titled “Chicago’s Betty Robinson to Sail for the Olympics,” and read about a sixteen-year-old girl from Chicago who could run so fast that she was being sent to Amsterdam, a small city in the Netherlands, to compete against athletes from every far-flung country on earth. Argentina, Estonia, Egypt, India, Japan, New Zealand, Rhodesia, South Africa—yes, everywhere, it seemed.
Helen reached to her dresser and pulled her beloved globe onto her lap. Mama often quizzed her on the locations of various countries and cities and Helen had won a school geography bee the previous year. She spun the globe so the United States faced her and then she leaned in. She found Chicago and traced the letters of its name crawling across the blue of Lake Michigan. Slowly, she rotated the globe, sliding her index finger across the wide expanse of the Atlantic until she reached the coast of Europe and the huge green expanse of France. Just north lay a tiny blob of yellow marked Belgium and, above that, there was a splotch of pink labeled Netherlands. Quite a distance separated Chicago from the Netherlands. What would it be like to get on a ship and travel so far from home?
Helen placed the globe on the bedspread next to her and clutched the newspaper closer, scanning the article to find where it described how athletes from countries all over the world would convene to participate in a series of competitions. All thoughts of The Boxcar Children paled next to the cast of characters described in the newspaper article. Boxers. Cyclists. Gymnasts. Equestrians. Soccer and field hockey players. Most of the athletes would be men, but a small group of women would also be competing, including Betty. This would be the first time women could compete in track and field events.
A grainy photograph of the girl from Chicago caught Helen’s eye. A man stood next to her. Even in the black-and-white image, anyone could plainly see how tightly his arm wrapped around the girl’s shoulders, how wide his smile stretched. According to the article, the man was the girl’s father and it quoted him saying, “Without any sons, I never imagined I’d have a girl competing in athletics. I couldn’t be prouder of her.”
Helen read his quote over and over. She couldn’t imagine her stern-eyed father ever saying something similar. Frank Stephens didn’t believe in spending time on doling out compliments. His life was one of singular focus: farming. He believed in operating his 140-acre farm the old-fashioned way: with guts and muscle. No newfangled John Deere machines for him, thank you very much. Even at ten years old, Helen understood that part of Pa’s disdain for tractors and threshers stemmed from his inability to pay for the equipment. He farmed his land with a horse and plow and dismissed what he called “the easy way to a dollar.”
In the photo of Betty, her short blond hair curled to frame her face. Her grin glimmered off the page as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Helen smiled back at the image. She tried to forget the birthmark staining her forehead, her unruly hair, enormous feet, and clumsy limbs, but her smile slackened thinking of how her classmates taunted her with Helen the Huge and Smelly Hellie.
She sighed, folding the article so the picture of Betty disappeared from view. Helen could run fast—none of the boys at school would dispute that—but being someone like Betty Robinson felt about as achievable as becoming Queen of England. Still, she opened the newspaper again to view the article once more.
Could Betty really win?
Helen pulled the page with Betty’s story from the newspaper and tucked it under her bed, vowing to keep her eyes out for more updates. She needed to see what would happen next to this girl.


6.
August 1928
Amsterdam
ABOARD THE FERRY ON HER WAY TO CENTRAL STATION, Betty drummed her fingers along the window’s railing. Clouds scudded low overhead, the morning’s downpour having done little to rid the air of humidity. It was the day of the 100-meter finals and she was the only American woman left competing. She wrapped her arms around her belly to stop the flip-flopping sensation inside her. Deep inhalations would help, but who wanted to breathe in the putrid stench of the canal’s brackish water?
When Betty and her teammates arrived at the