The postponed race

Source: an original fiction extract.

The runners were already on the track when the announcement came. A fault in the timing equipment: ten minutes, perhaps fifteen. Callum stepped out of his lane and pulled his tracksuit over his running vest. All week he had imagined the gun, the bend, the moment when he would have to decide whether to overtake. He had not imagined standing behind a bench while a man in a yellow jacket shook a cable. His father waved from the small stand. Callum raised one hand without looking directly at him.

At first the delay seemed useful. He tightened his laces and rehearsed the start in his head. The other runners had formed a loose circle. One boy was eating a banana, another discussing a bus route. Callum watched their mouths move and wondered how they could have words available for anything except the race. He took out his phone. There was a message from his coach: Run your own race. He had liked that phrase yesterday. Now it seemed to conceal something everyone else understood.

When he was eight, his father had entered him in a race on the beach. Callum remembered the strip of red cloth at the finish and how fiercely he had wanted it. He had run straight through, carrying it several steps before the adults caught up. Afterwards, he discovered that he had started before the whistle. Nobody had taken away the little medal. For years he had kept it in a drawer, pleased by its weight but unable to wear it. He had not thought of it that morning until the boy with the banana asked whether this was his first meeting.

'First proper one,' Callum said. The boy nodded towards the man with the cable. 'Mine too. I was hoping he'd give up.' They both watched the yellow jacket disappear into a small hut. Then Callum laughed. He could see now that the boy was folding and unfolding the empty banana skin. The conversation about buses had stopped. Beyond them, a girl was carefully retying a knot that was already secure. The track had not changed, but the waiting people around it had become easier to look at.

The loudspeaker crackled. Callum put his phone away and took off his tracksuit. From the stand, his father lifted a thumb; this time Callum answered with the same gesture. He went back to his lane. He still could not picture the finish without feeling his stomach tighten, and the runner beside him had much longer legs. But he knew what the next instruction would be. When the official called them forward, he placed his feet on the marks and waited for the sound that would belong to everyone.

Consider the whole source. Analyse how the writer structures the text to show a change in Callum’s response to waiting for the race. You could consider changes in focus or time, the order in which information is revealed and the relationship between the opening and ending. Support your explanation with references to the source.