Penny's Run

Penny is the Living in Duvall mascot, and the sister of the little husky who sleeps on the edge of the search box. Same cream coat, same tan mask, same refusal to sit still while anything is happening.

What she is running is the Duvall you already know, and it gets more like it the further she goes. The first stretch is the mud that never quite dries out and the branch the wind took down. Past 200 it is somebody’s chickens, out again, and the terrier three doors up. Past 500 the river is over the path the way it goes in February, and there is a shape in the brush you do not stop to identify. Past 800 the barricade off the 124th Street bridge is on the trail, and things start arriving two at a time.

Behind her is the rest of it, going past on its own: the Cascades, the street clock on Main, the Grange, a row of storefronts, the river with the bridge over it, and Big Rock out in the field. Keep her going past 500 points and the sun goes down, the stars come out, and the lights come on in the windows and along the trail.

Sunflower season. The field crop is up and some of it is on the trail, head high and facing the wrong way. Jump the sunflowers.

Everything on the trail ends the run if she touches it, the sunflowers included. Two things float above it instead, and those are the ones worth having. A treat hangs at head height, so you only get one by jumping for it: it doubles her speed for five seconds and pays four times the points while it runs, down a stretch the trail keeps clear and easy on purpose. A tennis ball makes her invincible for eight seconds, and whatever she hits while it lasts comes apart instead of stopping her. Both start turning up around 150 points, one every thousand or so, and neither is ever put down right next to something you have to jump.

She is drawn, not loaded. Every frame of her is a grid of characters in the source, one per pixel, which is why this page starts the moment you open it.