The Infinite. Patience Agbabi

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      I open my eyes. Things slowly come into focus, like my eyes are a camera. I’m sitting on the grass by the school track, next to the long-jump pit. My watch says 17:00. My mouth is a capital O. I just leapt 1 hour 59 minutes into the future!

      I feel dizzy, like I’ve been in the spin dryer at the laundrette and my skin’s still damp. When I try to move, I throw up all over the grass. But it doesn’t make me sad; it makes me feel better. I look around me. No one’s doing slow jog or high knees. No one’s spinning in the discus circle. Athletics really is off tonight. So, nobody saw me appear out of thin air; nobody saw me leap from the corridor.

      Only you and I know what just happened.

      I’m tongue-tied with everyone. Except you. It’s easier talking to you because I don’t know what you look like or if your eyes are rolling clockwise or anticlockwise because I said something odd or rude like ‘How many days have you suffered from acne?’

      I’m autistic, so sometimes I’m very direct or say the wrong thing at the wrong time. But I LOVE words, the sound and shape of them and how they feel on my tongue. And I love sprinting and long jump because it’s the closest you get to flying. And when I TALK about sprinting and long jump, it’s like the words come to life and I’m pounding down the runway, launching myself into the air. It’s the best thing ever.

      I like it here beside the track. If I was a millionaire, I’d build my house right here.

      How fast can you run the 100 metres? My PB’s 13.12 seconds, which gives me an 89.59% age grade. That means I’m almost in the top 10% in the world for 11 year olds. I want to run in the Olympics and stand a good chance because I’m a Leapling with The Gift and the Olympics only happens in a leap year.

      My favourite Olympics is Mexico City, 1968.

      My favourite athlete of all time is Bob Beamon.

      Bob Beamon made a world record in the long jump of 8.90 metres at the 1968 Olympics.

      They had to send someone out of the stadium to buy an old-fashioned tape measure so they could measure the jump properly.

      Mr Branch, my athletics coach, says it was the most political Olympics since 1936, when Jesse Owens got four gold medals and made Hitler leave the stadium. In 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos did the Black Power salute wearing black gloves on the medal podium and got suspended from the US team. Dick Fosbury raised his fist during his medal ceremony in solidarity with Black Power. Dick Fosbury was white. He invented a new way of doing the high jump called the Fosbury Flop.

      But the best part of the 1968 Olympics was Bob Beamon’s jump.