Every morning for six weeks, Zara's alarm went off at half past five. While the rest of the house slept, she pulled on her trainers and ran the long loop round the reservoir, her breath making clouds in the cold air. The cross-country final was in March, and last year she had finished second to last.
Some mornings were glorious, with the sun turning the water pink. Most were not. There was the morning the rain came sideways and the morning her shoelace snapped a mile from home. There was the Saturday her friends went bowling without her because she had to be in bed by nine.
On the day of the race, the field was a swamp. Within the first lap, Zara's shoes were so heavy with mud that each step felt like lifting a bucket. Runners slipped and slid around her. By the hill, her legs were burning and a voice in her head kept saying, Stop. Nobody would blame you.
Then she remembered the reservoir in the rain. She had run through worse than this. Head down, she climbed the hill one step at a time, and at the top she overtook two girls, then three more on the long slope down.
She crossed the line in ninth place. Not a medal, not a trophy, but a very long way from second to last. Her coach thumped her on the back, and somewhere in the crowd her little brother was shouting her name.
Zara looked down at her ruined trainers and thought of all those dark, cold mornings. She smiled. It had been worth it after all.