Echoes of shoes dropped on tile, running water, and girls' voices in the locker room. "And Mr. Thomas said I have to hand it in by tomorrow, so what am I going to do? I'll never finish it in time!" exclaims Jen.

"You should have done it last night," says Sarah disparagingly. She's always done on time, usually before something is really due. "But listen, today in the hall Rich talked to me!"

"Really?" I say in awe. "Wow." Chris, my current crush, might realize I exist, but it's doubtful.

Seventh-grade gym class. So much fun. The locker room, painted a musty yellow, smells faintly of sweat. In front of our lockers, we're pulling on shorts and shirts and trying to hide ourselves at the same time. (It's taboo to use the changing rooms.) Those of us who are done sit on the floor tying shoes and looking deferentially away.

Ms. Smith, our coach, yells at us to get our behinds moving, and we hurry outside in clumps of threes and fours. It's third period and the sun is fairly high, but the grass is still wet with dew. I shuffle my feet. We're running. Damn.

We bunch behind the line, vaguely shoving for the front of the crowd. Ms. Smith yells at us to be quiet, then says, "On your mark ... get set ..." Even as she's saying it, I'm thinking how cheesy it is. "Go!"

Sloths are highly unique animals. They are medium-sized mammals that live in the rain forests of South and Central America. Generally, they spend much of their time hanging upside down from tree branches. For camouflage, they have long gray or brown fur in which algae, fungi, and various insects grow, giving them a greenish or bluish tinge. Sloths' hair actually grows from the stomach up, unlike most animals, whose hair grows from the center of the back down. This is one of their adaptations for life wrong side up. Others include the odd placement of many internal organs, which are generally in locations much different, or reversed, from those of other mammals.

Sloths sleep roughly fifteen hours a day, and their lack of movement is the reason that things grow in their hair. In fact, the word sloth comes from the Middle English "slowth" which means "slow."

We go. At first, we run as a pack, our shoes pounding loudly on the trail. Our "track" is really a path that loops around several baseball fields, a soccer field, and a football field. It's partially pavement and partially gravel and sometimes passes through sparse woods. It also begins with a fairly steep, if short, hill. After maybe fifteen seconds, we reach the hill, and I start to lag behind. By the time I run half a lap, it's a monumental effort to move my weight. The reverberations each time my shoe slaps the ground jar my legs. My breath is ragged, hot, and it burns in my lungs. My throat is full of phlegm, which is disgusting and very much hinders my breathing. Ms. Smith always yells at us that we should "power walk" if we must slow at all, but I'm wearing invisible armor that is steadily tightening around my legs, arms, chest, and even my head. Why? Why do we have to subject ourselves to such torture? No, actually, why is Ms. Smith so sadistic?

I reach the starting point again, which means I've somehow covered half a mile. This is where Ms. Smith stands and yells out times. Panting, wheezing, I force myself into some semblance of a run, which feels as if it belongs in one of those slow-motion sequences in a movie, where separated lovers run at each other through a sunny field of flowers, then passionately embrace. Only I'm running toward my gym teacher.

Weaving a bit because I'm actually moving slower than I walk, I pass her. "Kerbel," she yells at the top of her hateful voice, "6:34!"

Sloths also have a body temperature that varies widely in accordance with their environment, even though they are mammals.

Damn it, why does she have to yell so loud? One boy, one amazingly fast, terribly obnoxious smart boy who is in most of my classes, is done already, leaning against the wall, laughing at me. I'd blush, but I don't think my cheeks could get any hotter. I feel as if I'm burning in hell.

And though they are avid swimmers, sloths are barely able to stand on their hind legs, and they lack the ability to walk. When on the ground, they must drag themselves along with their front legs.

I'm finally up the hill and I slow to a walk that a sloth could beat. The urge to stop completely grows each time my sneaker hits the pavement.

Besides humans, who are constantly contributing to the destruction of the environment through deforestation, sloths have several natural predators: snakes and birds, especially the harpy eagle, and ocelots and jaguars. They have some defense in their sharp claws, which typically grow to lengths of three to four inches. And although they cannot run away, sloths can move fast enough to reach the safety of a tree, as long as it's nearby.

Just over my shoulder I spy Rachel, a snobbish, preppy, popular girl, a harpy if I ever saw one. She glances over, a condescending smile on her horselike face, and passes me. She passes me! Rachel, the girl who dodges the ball in volleyball and basketball because she might break a perfectly manicured nail, has just passed me. The injustice! As unathletic and slow as I may be, I at least run up and down the court, dribble, pass, spike, and serve as best I can. What a bitch. But native talent, or lack thereof, can be overcome! I coerce myself into a jog, then a quick, perhaps thirty-second sprint to pass her, then slow down--and I'm still moving faster than she is. Ha!

Unfortunately, when on the ground, sloths usually get caught and eaten. In fact, a mother whose baby drops out of the tree will simply leave it there to die rather than risk facing the predators its cries might bring.

But the struggle quickly becomes too great. My speed tapers off, minutely at first, then faster. The harpy catches up with me before I reach the tree. Soon I'm doing the sloth walk again, because my sides burn from cramps, my legs are about to fall off, and it's a supreme effort to support my head. My throat cries for water I cannot provide. I swallow furtively, my eyes drifting toward the sprinklers watering the fields. Will I ever reach the end, and the water fountain?

Sloths don't drink, because they rarely leave their trees. They get their water from eating juicy leaves and by licking dewdrops.

There. Thank God, the end of the path. Awaiting my arrival is a crowd of perhaps thirty other seventh graders; a few more drift around the water fountain. Only a few yards ahead of me, Rachel strides past Ms. Smith, calmly accepting a three-by-five-inch index card with a number printed on it in black permanent marker. I know hers is 36, because mine is 37. There are thirty-eight people in my gym class, and the last is Caitlin, a severely handicapped girl who gets excused from such exercise as running. I have run the mile in no less than thirteen minutes and forty-six seconds.

I try to be inconspicuous and find Jen and Sarah, who, I then discover, are 14 and 21 respectively. Further humiliation is visited upon me when Ms. Smith makes us line up by number and repeat our times to her so she can record them in her grade book. Meanwhile, Jen says, my face is bright pink. Well, duh. My breathing is heavy and forced, and I still feel about to collapse, even though I'm done. I doubt I can remain upright for more than a few minutes. I long for my comfy tree branch, sleep.

But I have no choice. We wander sluggishly back into the locker room to dress and, if absolutely necessary (which is never because it would require nudity in the presence of others), shower, sluicing the sweat and algae off our bodies. The bell rings when I'm only half dressed: damn, I'll be late for Language Arts.

I hurry as best I can down the hall and burst into my classroom only two minutes after the bell. I collapse gratefully into my seat. Blissful rest. Thank God this is an easy class, one in which I can be slothful. Mrs. Martin turns and says to me, "Did you get sunburned this weekend, Allison? You look a little pink."

© 2002 by Carus Publishing Company