by John Corr
Sensei Rick looked at me. I didn’t know if Dad had filled him in on our family situation. Maybe he was just reading the look on my face. Either way, he started explaining, fast.
“The parents were all notified of the test when I told them about the trip. They’ll be meeting us at the dojo at noon.” He pointed at me. “Yes, Riley, today. Since they had to come to the dojo to pick you up from the trip anyway, Kondo Sensei and I thought it made sense to do the test then.”
“Your parents didn’t tell any of you either?” Kondo Sensei asked.
Sensei Rick squirmed on the picnic-table bench. “That’s also kind of my fault, Sensei,” he said. “I asked the parents to keep it a secret.” All of us, even Kondo Sensei, looked at him like he had grown a second head. “I thought it would be a fun surprise!” he said. His face was turning red. “I was going to tell you all about it yesterday afternoon, but…” Sensei Rick looked at me, and I remembered our argument. He quickly looked away. “Well, we, uh, all had such a long day that it got away from me.” He stared down at his plate.
Sensei Rick was a grown-up, but I realized now that he was a young grown-up. Sometimes he still messed up just like a kid. He certainly looked like one when he was busted.
“Oh, Ricky!” Kondo Sensei said. He shook his head. “No problem. Look, you guys are okay. I’ve been watching, checking how you’re doing. The techniques we did here yesterday, the techniques we did the day before—it’s the same techniques you’ve been doing in the dojo. Ricky made sure you know them. I can tell you’ve been working hard in the dojo. Everybody’s gonna be fine.” He checked his watch, then looked at Sensei Rick. “What do you think? We leave at ten?”
“Yes, Sensei, ten o’clock sounds great!” Sensei Rick said. He looked relieved. He turned back into a grown-up. “You hear that, guys? Ninety minutes and we’re out of here! Just enough time to clean up and pack your bags. Then we’ll hit the road!” He clapped his hands, and we scrambled to our trailers.
“This is going to be awesome!” Zack said. “Yellow belt, yeah!” He and Dion high-fived.
“No it isn’t! It’s going to be awful!” Joe said. “I still get mixed up on when to start with the right foot and when to start with the left!”
“I wish I had more time to prepare,” Wafaa said, frowning.
I was still stunned. Today?
While we packed our stuff, Joe talked nonstop. “So if sh’te strikes when it’s a number one entering technique, and uke strikes when it’s a number two turning technique, who does what when it isn’t a strike at all but a wrist grab? I don’t know what you would do, but I was thinking…”
I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking about what Kondo Sensei had said.
All the parents are coming.
It had really hit me in the gut when I heard those words. I knew he didn’t mean all the parents. I knew he didn’t mean Mom. But for a split second I’d thought she would be there.
It was stupid. But that’s what I thought.
It was stupid. But that’s what I wanted.
And not just for the test. I wanted it every night and every day. Whatever I was doing, wherever I was, part of me always wanted my mom to just…be there. The picture of her in my pocket wasn’t even close to being good enough. I wanted the real thing.
I knew she would be proud of how I was getting better at dealing with the Surge. Sometimes it still got away from me. Like when I’d yelled at Sensei Rick.
Or like the morning before, when I was swimming. I’d tried holding my breath underwater and I’d panicked. But then I’d made myself calm. I was getting better.
Not perfect.
But better.
A hard knock at the door pulled me out of my daze. Joe didn’t even hear it. He kept right on talking.
Wafaa stood outside. She smiled and held something up.
I slid the door open. It was the DVD case with the movie we’d watched on our first afternoon here.
“It must have fallen under my bed when we were scrambling to hide everything,” she said.
I looked at the picture on the cover. A blur of green, blue and yellow. Three boys in ninja outfits. Complete with matching ninja masks.
We’ve come a loooong way since our first night of aikido, I thought.
“Kondo Sensei’s right,” Wafaa said. “We really are going to be fine, Riley.”
“I hope you’re right.” I took the case and gave her a high five.
“What could go wrong?” she said. “We’re ninjas!” She laughed and jogged off.
We finished packing and hauled our bags out to the van. Sensei Rick said that the little dojo stage would stay up all summer, but he asked us to help take down the tent cover. Then we all pitched in to tie huge plastic tarps over the mats to keep them safe and dry.
When it was time to ship out, Sensei Rick asked us to double-check our bags to make sure we had remembered everything. Zack and Dion were missing their swimsuits. That led to an argument about who was supposed to pack them. Sensei Rick made them do Rock-Paper-Scissors to see who had to run back to the trailer. Dion lost. I said I’d run back with him.
When we got close, though, I split off to take one last look at the lake.
The lighthouse still stood where it had stood the day before and probably for a hundred years before that. The birds flew their spirals around it. I could see a tiny ship beyond it. It looked like a toy in the world’s biggest bathtub.
Dion slammed his trailer door shut and called out to me. We ran back to the van together.
We all piled in, grabbing the same seats as on the drive up—brothers in the back, me and Joe in the middle, and Wafaa in the front.
Kondo Sensei had his own car and said he would meet us back in town.
Sensei Rick started up the minivan. We rolled through the grass and past the cottage. I looked ahead to the gravel road. I saw the rows of trees on either side, making a loose tunnel with their leafy branches.
Just before we hit the gravel, Sensei Rick slowed the minivan to a crawl.
“I forgot to tell Sensei we’re outta here,” he said over his shoulder to us. “I’d better let him know.”
He rolled down his window.
Wiggled something free from his pocket.
Put his hand to his lips.
He stuck his head out the window and blew two sharp blasts on his whistle.
“AY, RICKY!” Kondo Sensei yelled from deep inside his cottage.
Sensei Ricky just laughed and hit the gas. We sped off down the gravel road.
TWENTY-THREE
No one, not even Joe, spoke much on the drive back to the city.
When we pulled into the cracked parking lot of the Cultural Center, it felt like it had taken no time at all to get there.
On aikido nights the parking lot was usually nearly empty. This afternoon it was packed.
My stomach twisted as badly as it had on that first night of aikido class.
“Who the heck are all these people?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, what’s going on, Sensei?” Zack asked.
Sensei Rick frowned, but didn’t answer.
There were no parking spots left in front of the building, so he drove the van around to the back. There were a couple more cars even back there. We jumped out of the van and stretched, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. It was bright out, but somehow the city sun didn’t have the same warm power as the one at the cottage.
Sensei Rick still hadn’t said anything. He opened the trunk for us to grab our stuff. To me, he looked worried.
“I’m just going to pop in, make sure the dojo is clear,” he said. “I booked it weeks ago, but there are too many cars here. There could just be a language class going on, or a dance class, or a Buddhist ceremony…” He jogged around to the front of the building.
I hadn’t seen Dad’s old station wagon out front. If I had, I might have jumped out of the van right then and there to demand he take me home.
What made me ever think aikido was fu
n?
As I reached for my bag, I caught Wafaa’s eye. She had an intense look on her face. She smiled at me but still looked fierce. I smiled back and thanked the heavens above that aikido wasn’t competitive, like judo.
I would not want to go up against this girl!
I scanned the group. All of us boys looked pretty nervous, but it was clear Wafaa was in her element.
Of course she is. She’s passed a bunch of belt tests in judo. Won all kinds of matches. A yellow-belt test is probably nothing to her. Just another day on the mats.
I took another look at her. I realized I had it wrong. Whatever she had done in the past, I could tell that today, right now, this test meant everything to her.
That fire in her eyes sparked something.
This means something to me too!
This wasn’t about dealing with the bullies at school.
This wasn’t about getting Dad off my back.
This wasn’t about showing Mom that if I could conquer my feelings, she could too.
This was just about me jumping in with both feet. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because I was good enough to. I had earned a shot at this belt, and it was time for me to take it.
I smiled back at Wafaa.
“Get that grin off your face, doofus,” Dion said, knocking into me with his shoulder as he walked past. “We’ve got a test to take.”
I grabbed my bag, took a deep breath and, together, the five of us walked through the front door.
TWENTY-FOUR
Inside was chaos.
There were two hallways that led to the dojo room. The longer one led first to the change rooms. The one right in front of us led directly to the dojo.
Parents lined the hallway leading to the dojo.
“I think I’ll go this way,” said Wafaa, nodding her head toward the change rooms.
“Me too,” said Joe. “Might as well get suited up.”
“I’m going this way,” said Zack. “Try to find out if there’s even going to be a test.”
Dion and I followed him. We squeezed and shoved our way past grown-ups eating snacks, talking on cell phones and drinking takeout coffee.
Finally we made it to the dojo doorway. Zack and I stood shoulder to shoulder. Dion, I guessed, was stuck somewhere behind us.
The dojo room was packed.
Judo kids. I had never seen them before, but it had to be them.
A blur of them. A zoo of them. Kids of all shapes and sizes. About half of them wore white uniforms like ours. The other half wore blue ones. Belts of all colors, from white to brown, filled the mats. The kids wearing them were tripping and chucking and choking each other. There were kids way smaller than us, and solid teenagers way bigger than us.
The parents weren’t just in the hallway either. They crowded along one wall of the dojo. Even in here, some of them were talking on their cell phones. Others were chirping out advice at their kids. The adults were as loud as the kids on the mats.
My eyes finally landed on someone I recognized.
Sensei Rick was the only one on the mats who wasn’t in a uniform. He stood in his T-shirt and jeans, talking to an older man. The other man had a worn-in black belt around his waist.
The judo sensei was taller than Sensei Rick. He jabbed a finger down toward Sensei Rick’s chest as he spoke.
I saw Sensei Rick’s jaw get tight.
I knew that he knew what to do with that finger if it touched him. Even with his love of pure aikido technique, he had shown us some pretty raw self-defense moves a few times.
One of them happened to be how to take down a bully who was poking you in the chest.
Sensei Rick was holding some kind of binder, but it wouldn’t take much for him to drop it and defend himself. I realized that my own hands had bunched into fists.
I had been picked on before. Seeing Sensei Rick get that treatment made me…mad.
I thought of all the garbage I had taken from older kids at school. We were supposed to be free from that here.
Even though sometimes Sensei Rick had made me feel picked on in class, today this wasn’t about him.
It was about us.
We were totally outnumbered. There must have been fifty of them. A hundred maybe. They didn’t stop moving, so they were impossible to count. If there was going to be a fight, we could never win.
But at that moment, I was ready to go down trying.
Someone shoved in behind me. Tried to squeeze past. I bent my knees and used my whole body to shove back.
I turned around to see Dion backpedaling, trying to get his feet under him. He tripped, but luckily his bum thumped down onto the hallway’s old wooden bench.
“What the heck, Riley!” he said.
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought you were one of them.”
“Okay, no problem,” he said. He flipped his hair to the side and called over to Zack. “What’s going on in there?”
Zack turned. “I can’t hear everything, but it sounds like even though Sensei Rick booked the dojo, the judo guys figured they could just show up. They have a tournament coming up next weekend.”
I had never seen a judo class before. I turned back to watch. The falls they were taking looked like a rougher, faster kind of aikido. The kids grabbed their partners, bounced around for a few steps, then spun and threw them. I could see that, like in aikido, they needed technique to upset the other guy’s balance. Unlike aikido, though, these kids were using a lot of muscle when the technique didn’t work.
It wasn’t for me, but I could see how it might be fun.
Under different circumstances.
“AY, OSU!”
Kondo Sensei appeared in the doorway.
“What’s going on? Little busy today, eh?” Kondo Sensei dropped his bag at Dion’s feet and came over to stand beside me.
I didn’t answer him. How could we explain this?
“Oh!” he said, looking around the room. “Judo?” He laughed. “Where’s Ricky?”
I pointed into the room.
“Oh, good,” he said. “Ricky has it under control. No problem. I’ll get changed.” He picked up his bag and walked off toward the change room, politely excusing himself as he walked through the wave of parents.
I looked back into the dojo. I didn’t know what Kondo Sensei was looking at, because things did not look under control to me. The judo teacher had finished ranting, but he was still standing toe-to-toe with Sensei Rick. And Sensei Rick’s jaw was still squeezing in anger.
I leaned in, hoping to hear what came next.
As Sensei Rick pointed his finger at the judo sensei’s chest, he happened to glance over at the doorway. Our eyes locked.
He took a deep breath and dropped his hand. He looked down at the binder he was holding. He looked back at me, then opened up the binder, flipped to the page he wanted and pointed to it. He turned his body around so that he and the judo sensei were standing side by side instead.
The judo sensei was much older than Sensei Rick. He scowled and squinted and leaned back as he tried to read what was written. Sensei Rick handed him the binder so he could take a closer look. The judo sensei backed away a little.
After a moment Sensei Rick stood on tiptoes so he could speak directly into the other teacher’s ear. Then he dropped back down. His head was up and his back was straight, just like he was always telling us to do when we stood in kamae. But his hands were by his sides, and his shoulders and jaw were relaxed.
The judo teacher stared at the binder for a few seconds more. He nodded, took a full step backward and gave Sensei Rick a short, stiff bow.
Sensei Rick returned it.
The judo sensei still had a sour expression on his face, but he waved his arms and called his students to attention.
“All right, guys,” he shouted, “wrap it up! We don’t want to burn ourselves out right before the tournament!”
For a second the students stood as still as statues. Many of them were frozen mid-technique. No
body let go of their partner. Then they looked around the room, at the clock, at their teacher, before slowly breaking their grips.
“Time for hot baths, pasta dinners and lots of rest!” shouted the sensei. He made his way toward the doorway, starting off a crowded parade of kids and their bags.
I stepped back into the hallway to give them a clear path. As I did I noticed that Wafaa had changed and come out to stand beside Zack. I tried to walk over to them, but my foot caught a judo kid’s bag. I tripped and landed right on Dion where he sat on the bench.
A couple of the judo boys saw and snorted at us as they walked by.
“Yeah, keep walking,” said Dion. He struggled to push me off him while trying not to fall off the bench himself.
One of the boys turned and faked a punch at us.
I flinched but stared back at him.
“That’s enough, boys,” a man said. I looked back and saw a grown-up I didn’t know. He was standing behind Zack and Wafaa. I was surprised that a judo parent would stick up for us when we had just kicked them out. “Move it along,” he said.
The kid made a nasty face at us but walked on.
A girl with a ponytail and a brown belt came through the dojo door. She was swept along with the crowd of other judo students, but she called over her shoulder, “Hey, Wafaa! Nice to see you!”
I had forgotten that Wafaa knew some of these judo kids. Heck, she was one of these judo kids not so long ago.
The idea that she could have been just another kid in this crowd seemed so…wrong.
“Oh, hold up!” said one boy as he came out. He held out both of his arms to stop the line. “Check this out, Madison!” he called back into the dojo. “Hurry! You have got to see this!” He snapped at the other kids around him. “Move! Let Madison through!”
Another girl about our age shoved through. An orange belt in a white uniform. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an elaborate braid. Her face was loaded with makeup, but all the sweat from training had made it smudge everywhere.
“Oh hi, Wafaa!” she said. Her voice was so sickly sweet I wanted to puke. “We’ve missed you so much in judo. You’re a white belt again? Isn’t that adorable!” She made a sad face like a sulking two-year-old. “Please come back? Pretty please?” She made her voice even more obnoxious. “We miss your pwetty wittle scarfs!”
