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  Mace reached over and slapped Dex’s shoulder.

  Some people passed through their conversation, walking at a clip. Henryk waited for them to go by, scratching his spindly goatee. “Well, um,” he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

  Aya urged him on with a wave of her hand. “Go on. Sorry for . . . ?”

  “I’m sorry for getting caught,” the redheaded Viking said.

  Quick as lightning, Dex removed a boot and threw it at Henryk’s head. He ducked. It struck the tree behind him with a thud.

  “I was joking.” Henryk laughed, throwing his hands up defensively. “I was JOKING! Jeez.”

  “Never mind. Um, where were we?” prompted Mace.

  Dex retrieved his boot. Henryk released a deep sigh. He looked his rivals in the eyes. “No, really. I’m sorry. I am. I’ve been a jerk, okay? I let Tempest turn me into a cheater and I cheated and I even almost killed Talon and then I almost got killed myself. And I’m sorry. It wasn’t worth it—not by a long shot.”

  “I dunno,” Dex turned to the others. “Did that sound good enough to you?”

  Mace shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe that chicken dance is in order, after all.”

  Henryk looked at each of them, hope draining from his face. “Are you serious?”

  “Chicken dance!” they all three chanted together.

  Henryk began, slowly at first, to tuck his hands under his armpits and lift his knees while erratically bending over. He made a squawking sound and picked up speed.

  “Now eat twenty breakfast burritos,” Mace called out.

  Everyone laughed.

  Henryk scratched his head when it was all over. “I’m off, you guys. I’m heading home to Norway and I think I might just retire from TURBO racing. But good luck with whatever’s next for you all. I promise your secrets are safe with me. Cool?”

  “We’re cool,” Mace told him. “You might want to sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ to Talon, though.” They watched him walk down the sidewalk with his head hung low.

  “The ceremony starts in fifteen minutes!” someone shrieked, sprinting past. “Where’s Renegade? Brahma and Nazaryan are already on the stage. SOMEONE PLEASE FIND THE CHAMPION!”

  Champion, Mace thought. How ’bout that?

  He rubbed his eyes. He felt suddenly exhausted. “I’m going up to my room.”

  “Mace,” Aya pleaded. “If you go up to the podium, keep your helmet on. You won, fair and square. You deserve the purse. You deserve to keep racing.”

  “Maybe,” Mace said. He wasn’t sure what he’d do. The Golden Glove came with a lot of cash. But covering up his age just for the money—that was selling out. And he’d learned his lesson on that, big time.

  Aya stopped him from rising. “Hey, Mace?”

  “What is it?”

  “No matter what: You did it. You beat her.”

  Mace smiled. “Yeah, we did, didn’t we? It feels good! But, you know, here we are.” He lifted his hands wide, slapped them back down at his thighs. “And now what?”

  “Who knows? We’ll see!” Dex said. “Make every morph matter, right?”

  Mace thought about that. “Make every morph matter,” he agreed.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Mace struggled to his weary feet and made his way back upstairs to Team Trailblazer’s suite. He slipped quickly into his dark-blue-and-orange flight suit and fitted his helmet snug over his head. He stepped out into an empty hallway and headed back outside.

  The crowds and the media noticed him. They swarmed.

  Mace saw his friends just in time to give them a final nod. They gave him a thumbs-up, and then his view of them was blocked.

  “Renegade! Renegade!” they chanted. The throng parted a little, and he was granted a path across the street and over to the stage.

  Aya wanted him to stay anonymous, so that no one would challenge his right to the Glove. But, then again, coming clean might allow him to own his win in another way.

  A twelve-year-old! Jax Anders would go hoarse screaming it. A seventh-grader! Coming out of nowhere and winning the Prix! The Gauntlet Prix! Can you believe it, maniacs? Mace Blazer is his name!

  He didn’t know what he was going to do.

  Akshara and Taz were on their podium steps, waving to the crowd. The middle pedestal—the highest of the three—was unoccupied. Mace took his place there, turned, and raised his hands high in victory. The crowd lost it. His fellow TURBOnauts on either side of him clapped. Mace took their hands in his, and together they raised their arms. Confetti flew through the air. Camera flashes blinded him, even through the visor.

  Suddenly, a hush fell over the crowd, a thick blanket of silence. TURBO Association president Linda Gimbal walked down the lush red carpet in the center of the plaza. Mace’s heart began beating faster, and his breath caught. Gimbal presented Akshara and Taz with large medallions in silver and bronze, which they gladly accepted, and then all eyes were upon Mace. The Glove—known officially as the Golden Gauntlet—drew closer. Closer. Gimbal took the waiting trophy from its bearer and turned to face the champion.

  Time seemed to stop as she held the Golden Gauntlet up. A speech was made. Jax Anders appeared and made some comments to the crowd. Mace didn’t remember any of it. His eyes were on the prize.

  It was perfect. Awesome. Gleaming and golden, with a flawless shine.

  Linda Gimbal presented the Golden Gauntlet to him. He took it.

  It was heavy, consisting of countless interlocking metal plates. Mace slipped it over his left hand, a sense of accomplishment enveloping him. He flexed his fingers and then made a fist. The Glove was surprisingly limber. And then the sound of clapping came, followed by whistles and shouting. Mace pumped his gloved fist in the air, as he’d seen every TURBO champion before him do.

  The silence returned, and the American national anthem filled the square. Mace put his free hand over his heart and sang the lyrics along with others in the crowd.

  When it was finished, the reporters gathered like bees around an intruder and he barely had time to process any of the questions.

  “Who are you? Will you ever show yourself to the public?”

  “Give us clues. Are you male or female?”

  “Tell us more about how you feel. Are you proud? What will you spend all that money on?”

  “Do you have any family who know who you are and are watching you right now? How do you think they feel?”

  Mom. Dad. Mace thought of them, watching this unfold from Miami. He could almost see their proud, beaming smiles through the camera lenses. He thought of the Gerbers, and of Mr. Hernandez, and of his friends who were here, but off in the background, against the hotel wall. They couldn’t be up here with him because it would reveal too much.

  “Do you have any new sponsors lined up?”

  “They’ve named your winning maneuver the Renegade Roll. Care to comment?”

  “Will you ever take off that helmet?”

  Without realizing what he was doing, Mace used his free hand to loosen his chin strap.

  The world instantly fell silent as a tomb. Mace heard the distant hum of power generators throughout Havana, and nothing more.

  Everyone leaned in and waited.

  Jax Anders stared at him, frozen, genuine excitement dawning on his features.

  He heard a single male voice shout from the back of the crowd. Dex. “Do what you know is right, Renegade!”

  And then a girl’s voice rose in sudden, unexpected agreement, “It’s okay! Go for it! Show them just how much you love this sport!”

  Mace’s eyes pooled up with tears. Aya—after all they’d been through—had his back. She and Dex both did. He realized that others would too. Doing the right thing could sometimes feel lonely, Mace thought. But if you make a habit of it, maybe you can blaze a trail for others to follow.

  Mace took a deep breath. “Ah, screw it,” he muttered. He seized his midnight-blue helmet by the chin and lifted it off his head.

  Acknowledgmentsr />
  Racing is a team sport, and so is writing a novel. I am incredibly grateful to a number of brilliant people for their roles in getting this book out of the gate and across the finish line. To my HarperCollins crew chief, David Linker, thank you for believing in this project and for giving it wings. Paul Lucas, I’m grateful to have you as my wingman. Thank you so much for being there for me over the long haul! I owe many thanks to John Fischer and Alli Dyer, as well. I especially owe a debt of gratitude to Pete Harris. Pete, I can never thank you enough for getting me behind the wheel of this thing and for pumping it full of high-octane fuel! To all of you, what an honor this ride has been!

  Author Ryan Dalton, thank you for your early feedback and for cheering me on. Mom and Dad, I am grateful to you both in more ways than I can say, but you get a special shout-out here for boosting my research efforts by taking me and the kids to NASCAR races and providing me with VIP pit access. Those experiences were instrumental for me. And finally, to my wife and kids, Clare, Ariel, and Everest, thank you all so much for enduring the very real burdens you have borne on account of this marathon journey, and for providing me with that infinite well of encouragement and support that every author secretly needs and that this author not-so-secretly demands during his frequent moments of doubt. I love being able to write, and I’m eternally grateful to you three for the countless ways in which you make that possible.

  I also want to thank my readers. Book readers are the best! Yes, I’m talking to you. Thank you so much for taking this tale for a spin. I am forever grateful for your enthusiasm and support, and for the time we’ve spent together. I’m hopeful that we’ll enjoy many more thrills, you and I, as our paths continue to cross.

  Lastly, I’d like to note that within these pages I’ve paid homage to a few of my favorite popular culture references. If you recognize a turn of phrase or two, please know that I’ve borrowed them out of sheer reverence, and do not claim them as my own.

  About the Author

  Photo by Alex Bennett

  AUSTIN_ASLAN is the author of The Islands at the End of the World and The Girl at the Center of the World. A National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, he can often be found exploring the wilds of northern Arizona and camping in a tent on a punctured air mattress. In other lives, Austin drove ambulances way too fast, served as an ecotourism Peace Corps volunteer in a Honduran cloud forest, and managed a variety of local, state, and federal issue campaigns. Austin loves to travel widely, photograph nature, and laugh. Follow him on Twitter at @Laustinspace.

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  Copyright

  TURBO RACERS: TRAILBLAZER. Copyright © 2019 by Temple Hill Publishing LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Cover illustration © 2019 by Levente Szabo/GoodIllustration.com

  Cover design by joe merkel

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954192

  Digital Edition JANUARY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-274106-6

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-274103-5

  1819202122CG/LSCH 10987654321

  FIRST EDITION

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