Total Knockout

by Taylor Morris

  “I’m sorry, Loosh. Really. But I have plans.” It might have been okay if he’d ended it with that; instead he added, “Not everything I do has to involve you, you know.”

  I felt like he had sucker punched me. “Fine,” I managed. “Have fun on your date.”

  I ran all the way home, slamming our front door before the Nixons’ car passed our house on its way to get Melanie.

  I woke very early the next morning. It was still dark out. My bedside clock showed it was just after five o’clock. I’d had a horrible night, waking every so often feeling angry and anxious. I got out of bed, splashed water on my face, and tiptoed past Dad, asleep on the couch, and out the front door.

  The air was brisk, and our street was eerily quiet. I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and walked quickly. I was wide awake.

  I walked around to the side of the Nixons’ house. Stepping carefully through a prickly bush, I crouched low and tapped on Cooper’s window. There was no movement inside, so I tapped louder. Finally I heard him stumbling out of bed, and the blinds zipped up.

  Cooper looked at me through half-open eyes for a moment—he probably thought he was still asleep.

  “Wake up!” I said in a loud whisper.

  He opened the window. “What time is it?”

  “Come on,” I said, stepping back from the window and through the bush. “Meet me at the garage.”

  Waiting outside the closed garage door, I didn’t even notice the cold, even though my breath steamed out in front of my face. I concentrated on wrapping my hands, putting extra layers across the knuckles. Finally, the door rolled open, creaking along the way. Cooper switched on the light, then squinted against the brightness.

  “It’s Saturday,” he mumbled.

  “Get your gear on,” I said, stepping inside.

  “My hands.” He held out his wraps.

  “You really need to learn to do this yourself. Pay attention this time.” As I wrapped Cooper’s hands, I could still faintly smell last night’s cologne, which made me wrap them a bit tighter than necessary.

  “What’s this about?” he asked.

  “Blech,” I said. “Dragon breath.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered, turning his face.

  “There,” I said, finishing. “Come on, get your headgear on.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  I went to the automated timer and turned it on. His feet seemed to robotically take him to the other side of the garage to his corner. I could tell he was still very groggy, and when the buzzer sounded, I went at him fast and hard. It took two hits to wake him up properly.

  “Dang, Lucia!” he said angrily, as he ducked behind his gloves. I threw a jab to his cheek, but he blocked it. “What happened to not in the face?”

  “New rules,” I said as I hit him with a one-two, landing a jab on his left shoulder.

  “Fine then,” he said. He stepped away, his gloves still by his face, but he wasn’t backing down. We kept our eyes on each other intensely, like we never had before, and circled the ring, hands up, each waiting to make the next strike. I shuffled in close to him, and threw my whole body into an uppercut, which he blocked. The buzzer went off. We eyed each other as we went to our corners.

  “You sure you want these new rules?” he panted. Never taking my eyes off him, I nodded. “Fine then. You asked for it.”

  When the buzzer went off again, we went at each other with equal speed. But before I could get my first punch out, Cooper popped me with a jab on my collarbone, making me stumble back a few paces. If I’d ever doubted that he’d been holding back his full strength, I didn’t now. In fact, I wasn’t even sure that this was his full strength.

  I went back at him swinging—he blocked most of my punches, and the more frustrated I got, the more wildly I swung. I kept my focus on his dark brown eyes and those stupid freckles, and I swung harder, barely noticing where the punches landed. Cooper came back and stunned me again in the chest, temporarily knocking the wind out of me.

  When I caught my breath, I looked back at him, and all at once I saw Melanie, the vending machines, and even Ms. Jenkins. I blocked a punch that came dangerously close to my face. I wound up and threw a hard uppercut, clenching my fist tight and twisting my wrist at the last possible moment. It was the best punch I had ever thrown, and it landed right between his legs.

  At first he didn’t make a sound—he just doubled over, the veins in his neck bulging, his gloved hands covering himself. He fell to his knees, then let out a howl that I was sure would wake up the whole neighborhood. I stood over him, panting, knowing I should apologize.

  Cooper rested one gloved hand on the cement floor of the garage and took deep breaths. “You okay?” I asked through hard breathing. He panted, trying to suck in air through labored breaths. I thought of Henry’s breathing exercises.

  Cooper slowly pushed himself up off the floor. He stood up straight and, with utter calmness, looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Go home.”

  I tried to laugh it off. “Come on, Coop. Don’t be a wimp. It was an accident.”

  He tore his gloves off with his teeth, then threw them to the ground. “It wasn’t and you know it.” As he took off his headgear, he said, “I really am sorry about the presidency. I’m sorry I wasn’t at your beck and call last night. But I have a life, you know. And I’m tired of being your punching bag.”

  “My punching bag? Oh, that’s real original. Did Melanie tell you to say that? You know, Cooper, she may like you now but give it two weeks, she’ll be over you, just like she gets over everything else. You can’t hold her attention.”

  I knew I’d gone too far. Cooper looked stunned for a moment, then he turned around, flipped off the light, and pushed the button to close the garage door. When he slammed the door behind him, I heard him lock it. I had to duck to get out before the garage doors closed me in, and when they connected with the driveway, the neighborhood was once again quiet. The sky had brightened slightly, but it was a gray morning, and the air felt heavy, like rain.

  BLUE JAYS . . .

  THE VIEW FROM ABOVE

  Life Without Latham

  BY NICOLE JEFFRIES

  It’s week two of Melanie O’Hare’s reign as Angus’s student council president and welcome changes are already being felt.

  Her first order of business was to fix the disastrous mistake made by disgraced president Lucia Latham, those unpopular vending machines. The machines have now been completely restocked with new items, including organic but delicious popcorn, granola bars, and even low-fat candy. Said Ms. O’Hare, “It was totally clear that everyone wanted a change in them. I mean, all you had to do was read the signs.” Ms. O’Hare was referring to the vandalism often found on Ms. Latham’s machines.

  And, unlike her predecessor, Ms. O’Hare was quick to give credit where credit was due. “The whole idea was Cooper’s,” she said of Cooper Nixon, the council’s secretary. “Once he suggested changing out the foods, we were all like, Duh. I can’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner.”

  The best part of this change is that the food is actually good—the very quality missing from Ms. Latham’s idea of healthy fare. Furthermore, the items are selling.

  “The spicy pita chips are so good,” said seventh grader Cara Weaver, through a mouthful of that very food. “I could eat them every day.”

  Indeed, the items are selling. And this time around, the entire student council is getting into the act of promoting these wonderful new products. Says treasurer Jared Hensley, “We’re doing a drawing to drive even more people to the machines to help make up for lost revenue,” he explained. “Like, a local movie theater will donate tickets, then we’ll secretly mark one of the machine’s items. Whoever gets that food, wins!”

  So, what’s up next for this new student council? As announced by Ms. Jenkins, they’ll be raising money for the football team, which needs new warm-up suits due to the unseasonably cold weather and unusually large number of players this year. And how will this new reg
ime raise the funds?

  “It’s a bit of a surprise,” teases Ms. O’Hare, looking striking in an emerald green knitted beret. “Let’s just say I’m putting a whole new twist on the term ‘bake sale.’”

  More food choices from the new council? Somehow we think there’s not a bad apple in this whole bunch.

  I went through the days like a robot, not wanting to face anyone, talk to anyone, or deal with anyone. It was all a hazy memory, like a dream you only remember bits and pieces of.

  Cooper had stopped me in the halls after I low-blowed him. He hadn’t called me and I hadn’t called him. As I walked toward third-period U.S. history, I passed him at his locker. I could barely look at him, much less talk to him, and once I walked by, he yelled, for everyone to hear, “All you have to do is say you’re sorry!”

  Cooper would always forgive me, I knew that much. But even though I really was sorry for hitting him, I was still having a hard time forgiving him. Why didn’t he think I was cool? Did he know how it made me feel when he said that about Melanie? By not telling me, I felt like he was lying to me. And why, I wondered more and more, usually late at night before I fell asleep, didn’t he think I was worthy of putting cologne on for, or tucking in his shirt and wearing a belt for?

  I couldn’t bring myself to face him. Not yet. And after reading in the school paper about all the brilliant ideas the new council was having (and stealing—like Jared ever had an original idea of his own), I was at a brand-new, all-time low. Why hadn’t Cooper thought up the food-exchange idea when I was in office? I guess I wasn’t an inspiring leader.

  I’d tried to tell Mom about what happened. I thought she’d be logical, tell me that mistakes happen but that it’s how you recover from them that really matters. But I didn’t get a pep speech from her like I hoped.

  “What do you want me to say, Lucia?” she asked one Sunday afternoon as she clipped coupons from the paper. “You made a huge error in judgment. Now you have to accept the consequences.”

  She looked at me with eyebrows raised, and I said, “How about, ‘Everything will be okay?’ How about, ‘You’re not a bad person and this will all blow over?’ How can you be so harsh?”

  She sighed and put down her scissors. “I’m sorry, honey. I know you’re going through a rough time, but we all are.” She tried to smile when she said, “We’re all in this together.”

  Oh, please, I thought as I went back to my room to sulk. My mother speaking in clichés was a whole new low.

  I even sought spiritual guidance from Henry. After I told him what went down, he said, “The ugly fish in the beautiful river is part of what makes the river beautiful.”

  “What?”

  “You should treasure this ugly fish in your life’s river,” he continued, with a straight face. “Treasure it as much as all the beautiful fish. They’re all a part of our journey downstream.”

  After that, I realized that the only person left to turn to was my dad.

  It was Friday night, just after Nicole’s article on how smashingly well the new student council was doing without me appeared. I wondered what I ever did to Nicole for her to write such negative stuff about me—she really seemed to have it in for me. And where was Mrs. Troxel through all this? Wasn’t she supposed to approve everything before it was printed? Where were the checks and balances, the fair and unbiased reporting?

  I made myself a sandwich and settled in front of the TV for reruns of my favorite crime show.

  As I pried the sticky bread off the roof of my mouth, Dad came in and sat at the opposite end of the couch with a bag of barbeque chips and a bottle of name-brand beer. I wondered bitterly why he got fancy beer but I wasn’t allowed my organic milk.

  He let out a deep sigh and stared blankly at the TV. Mom was working late and Henry had just left for his friend Simon’s house, where they were testing recipes. In addition to giving up all meat and fish, he’d recently given up root vegetables like carrots and potatoes, saying killing is killing since the plant dies when you uproot it. Mom told him if he wanted to be fed, he’d have to come up with simple alternatives she or Dad could fix at mealtimes.

  “Henry’s finally cracked,” I told Dad through a mouthful of sticky bread.

  “What now?” He took a gulp from his bottle, then set it on the coffee table in front of him.

  “He’s talking about ugly fish and beautiful rivers. He’s totally not making sense.”

  “That’s better than what Mom is saying,” Dad said. “She basically said I should get off my butt and go fishin’ for a job.”

  I didn’t say anything because what I wanted to say to him wasn’t very nice. I didn’t want to be mean or snarky to Dad—in spite of myself, I just wanted someone to talk to.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” I said, both of us keeping our eyes on the television. A cop was interrogating a suspect, who was pretending he wasn’t intimidated. “The student council was my thing. Now I don’t have a . . . thing anymore.”

  Dad stuck his hand in the chip bag and said, “Don’t I know what you mean.”

  “I mean, I’ve always been president. If anyone ever asked, ‘Who is Lucia Latham?’ all you had to do is look in the old yearbooks. You’d see it right there. ‘Oh, she’s the student council president. That’s who she is.’ But now I’m nothing. Just a regular student. Worse, actually. I’m a regular student who used to be somebody.”

  “I know the feeling.” Dad sighed.

  As the suspect on TV finally cracked and threw himself at the false mirror, I said, “You know what? I’m getting what I deserve. I always thought things could be so great, that I could do such amazing things as long as I tried hard enough. But from now on . . . forget it.”

  “Forget it,” Dad repeated, his eyes on the TV, same as mine.

  “I’m not saying I’m not going to try. I’m just going to keep my expectations low. That way, no matter how badly I bomb out, I won’t be as disappointed. And I won’t expect anything of anyone else, either.” I nodded to myself, realizing that this was the way to live. The higher the expectations, the harder the fall. Everyone knew that.

  “Well,” I said to Dad, who took another swig of beer, his glassy eyes on the television, “I’m going to bed. Thanks for listening.”

  Before my resignation, in the days when I cared, I would wake up each morning with a solid plan of action for the day. Not anymore. With my new mantra of keeping my expectations low, I woke up with nothing to do—and nothing to worry about.

  I thought this would make me feel better, but I realized that not thinking about anything made me think about a lot of things I didn’t want to—like Cooper, who still wasn’t talking to me because I still hadn’t apologized to him, and also Melanie, whom I had to face on the school bus.

  The one thing I had to acknowledge was the fact that Melanie had run for v.p. at my request. She didn’t even want it. She barely paid attention in council meetings, and she showed no initiative in any projects. Now she was president.

  It angered me that something I had taken such pride in and took so seriously was handed over to her even though she hadn’t asked for it. She’d probably look at it as another fun project that wouldn’t hold her interest through football season. And with the yearly fund-raiser coming up at the end of the week, she had to focus and actually raise all that money. The school, the students, the entire football team, and all their parents were expecting new warm-up suits, and she had to deliver. For once, Melanie had people depending on her and frankly, I wasn’t sure she’d pull through.

  The Monday after I had my talk with Dad—or, as I realized later, after I’d talked to Dad—I waited for the school bus on the corner as usual. And as had happened every day since the beginning of the school year, Melanie came running out of her house at the last minute, with whatever hat she was wearing that day threatening to fly off her head. But instead of waiting at the bus’s door for her to arrive, for over a week now I quickly climbed the stairs, sat in the second s
eat on the right, and buried my face in a book. She always passed by me and sat a few rows back and usually started in on some unfinished homework (I could see this in the bus driver’s mirror). We didn’t say a word to each other, and we didn’t even look at each other. But on this Monday, she decided to break our unspoken agreement.

  She sat down heavily right next to me as the bus rumbled down the street. My heart raced. I didn’t know how to feel toward her—I really didn’t. I wanted to be mad at her for taking the two things that meant the most to me, but in my heart I knew she hadn’t done anything wrong. I mean, she could have told me about Cooper, but other than that . . .

  “Lucia,” she said. “You have to talk to me sooner or later.”

  Henry had recently told me that being angry with someone is so unhealthy that it can actually break down your immune system and make you ill. I couldn’t afford to come down with the flu, but being next to Melanie and her carefree attitude—and that hat, a tan fedora this time, always a new hat, how much money did she, did her father, spend on those things?!—made it hard for me to act like everything was fine.

  “What should I talk to you about?” I asked, scooting closer to the window.

  “Well, I don’t know. The fact that you won’t talk to me? You’re not actually this mad at me, are you?”

  She didn’t sound like her usual peppy self. In fact, she sounded a little whiny. That was weird because I didn’t know what she had to complain about. After all, she had everything.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Should I be?”

  “No,” she said. “You shouldn’t. I didn’t do anything wrong, Lucia.”

  “Really?” I said, my face flushing hot, all of Henry’s advice going right out the window. “Well then, I guess I’ll just go ahead and say, you’re welcome.” She scrunched her eyes below the rim on her hat. “You’re welcome for introducing you to my best friend. So glad the two of you have hooked up.” Melanie clenched her jaw but said nothing. “And you’re welcome for making you president of student council. Sounds like you’re doing a fan-freaking-tastic job of it.”