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Prologue

Darien

‘H e doesn’t even speak English!’

The boys in the expensive custom karts ahead laughed as they buckled in for the qualifying round. Their parents watched from the sidelines, comfortable beneath parasols and cooled awnings that shielded them from the brutal California sun.

I looked down at my small hands encased in their karting gloves, gripping the steering wheel tight. I knew the words. ‘My name is Darien.’

But all that came out was ‘ Eu sou Darien .’

I was six, and English was hard. Whatever I knew was learned from Hollywood movies with Portuguese subtitles.

‘ Quero voltar ,’ I whispered. I want to go back to Brazil. M?e would never have it.

‘Good luck, amigo .’ The boy next to me was smiling, but there was a nasty glint in his eyes. Even so, I shifted in my seat to face him, curious. He had just spoken Portuguese. Could I talk to him?

‘Magalinho!’

My head snapped to the right, towards where the parents were. M?e crouched in the sand just behind the wire fence that separated the track from the stands. She shook her head, saying to me without a word, Not worth it . The heat beat directly down on her unprotected black curls. Sweat was seeping through her orange tank top and dirt dotted the knees of her flared jeans. Her gold hoop earrings glittered, the names in each circular piece of jewellery catching the light: Nico, my father’s name; and Darien, mine.

She pointed to the starting line in front of us, making the gilded cross around her neck swish. ‘ Apenas dirija, menino! ’ she shouted. Just drive!

I nodded and gave her a thumbs-up.

Maybe the rest of the world saw it as a silly sport that well-to-do families entertained their rambunctious kids with, but to me, even then, racing was my way out. Karting was my only way out.

Karting was also cutthroat. You built up your kart, practised till you had blisters on your palms that burned so hard you couldn’t even pick up a pencil when you went to school, and when you lost, it was crushing. But it was just entertainment for a lot of these boys.

For me, karting was life. Karting was how I got my M?e and myself free from the loans and into her very own car garage.

The boy who had spoken Portuguese snorted and snapped his visor down. One of the dads beneath the awnings waved to him and yelled, ‘Send him right back across that border, Ryan!’

M?e’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t look happy, and this wasn’t the kind of upset she got when I talked about home. This was a different kind of upset – the kind of upset she got when people looked down their nose at us, called us names. I might not have known exactly what Ryan’s father had said, but I got enough of the message to know that I had to win this race.

The man standing off to the side of the starting line waved us forward to make a formation lap. I began to drive at a steady pace, wiggling the steering to warm my tyres up. We rounded the track before coming back to the main straight and stopping in fifth position, where I would start this race.

Our karts’ motors revved loudly, the sound of thirty little tractors vying for a standout performance, trying to catch the eye of sponsors and prestigious karting teams. The same man waited by the line with a green flag.

‘ Mostre a eles quem somos! ’ yelled M?e. ‘ Pa’ papai! ’

Show them who we are. For Papai.

The man raised the flag.

He waved it.

I pressed my little foot to the gas pedal. Racing here on this track was not the same as racing back home, but I could imagine. I imagined I was still in Santa Teresa, practising with Tio Julio and Pai in the streets, the sun hanging low in clear skies crisscrossed by thick cable lines.

The karts puttered around me, and grass flew as one or two clipped the corners of the track. I picked my way up the grid, grinning wildly. I had so much power here; the kind of power other kids my age could only dream of.

On the next lap, one of the boys, the one running in second, came around from the inside. I thought he would overtake me, but instead, he stuck right across from me, gluing himself so close to my kart that his wheels threatened to push me off the track. I was losing control with each second.

‘People drive dirty,’ I remembered Pai telling me. ‘They will want to run you off. They’ll do it regardless of the consequences. And when that happens …’

I felt my father guiding the steering wheel as I sped up and turned wide on the next curve to cut the other boy off. A neat arc, just the way Pai used to drive.

‘ Vamos , Magalinho!’ I heard M?e cheer.

When I finished that race in first place, my debut race in America, I thought my heart would explode out of my chest. I parked my kart and struggled a bit to get my stubby legs out of the seat but, eventually, I succeeded. I ran across the dry grass, straight through the gap in the fence, till my mother’s strong arms caught me and lifted me.

‘ M?e, eu venci! ’ I squealed. ‘I win!’

‘Oh, parabens, meu amor .’ She unbuckled the chin strap and removed my helmet, ruffled my curls before pressing a kiss to my forehead. ‘ Seu papai tambén sabe .’

‘Papai?’ I echoed incredulously.

M?e nodded. She smiled then, but there was a hint of something sadder there. Her eyes shone with unshed tears.

The other parents had also come down to join M?e in the sand. As they reunited with their children, there were sharp words and brusque helmet taps from the fathers and excessive mollycoddling from the mothers. They glanced over at us with disbelief in their eyes, gaping at my mother as she hefted me upon her shoulders, held my hands, and danced in total and utter bliss.

Ryan’s dad looked on, appalled, before turning to his son. ‘I thought I told you to send that Mexican home!’

At first, I didn’t think my mother had heard anything.

But nothing ever escaped Célia Cardoso-Magalh?es’s ears. She stopped singing just like that, and turned around with me still on her shoulders. Ryan’s dad regarded her with what was almost a look of disgust. He was an idiot. Everyone in our neighbourhood in Oakland loved M?e. They said she had the face of an angel and the work ethic of our greats: Pelé, Ronaldinho, Senna. Even the grandmas and grandpas spoiled her rotten.

‘Brazilian,’ M?e said to Ryan’s dad.

Everyone within twenty feet turned to peer at us, as if no one had ever stood up to this man before.

‘I’m sorry, what?’ he spat.

‘We are Brazilian, monte de merda ,’ she repeated. I giggled. The last part I could translate easily. ‘And for the record, my son has the trophy. It’s you who’s going home. What’s more …’ She made a flicking motion with her wrists. ‘Empty-handed.’

‘ Caraca! ’ I blurted.

M?e tugged on my leg with a chuckle. ‘Let’s go, Magalinho.’

Ryan and his father and everyone else just stood there speechless as M?e carried me to the car, laughing and joking all the way.

Maybe my mom didn’t have a lot to her name back then. Maybe we weren’t well-off enough for her to teach me how to fit the newest kart model with the best engine on the market. But she did teach me that compared to money, time is a mountain of wealth, and when you race, when you live , time is everything. We have none to waste on hatred.

So we spend each second doing what we love, with the ones we love.