Noriko is so happy to have someone who wants to race with her; in school all the girls know it's just for grades and they never try, and they're already too interested in the boys and in fashion and in their little gangs. Kate is refreshingly like herself. "Nuh-uh! I'm faster!"

That is, until she trips over her own feet and the hems of her jeans, and tumbles butt-over-head before she can scramble to her feet to make up the time, laughing all the way. "In the whole West?" she asks, once they've both reached the wall--Kate first, of course. Curse long jeans hems.