The air in front of Bryson looked alive. Not in a it-exists-therefore-life-must-exist-within-it way, but in a millions-of-things-buzzing-in-it way. Microscopic particles of every size and shape bumped and swirled their way along unfelt air currents, seeking out nostrils and eyeballs and open mouths. Inside the barn—or arena, or whatever it was they called the wide, open building with the metal roof and the dirt floor—it was way, way cooler, but far, far dustier. Bryson, his mother, his father, and the couple his parents had met when they arrived had spent most of the event blowing their noses or wiping their faces. Luckily for Bryson, asthma wasn’t a problem of his. Everything from the waist up worked quite nicely, thank you.
The judging had seemed to go well. Under Amaya’s watchful eye a
