by Laney Monday
I’d been so sure of myself when I planned this move. Until we got here, and from the very first day, things began to unravel. I wasn’t one to give up easily, but shifting focus from an Olympic medal to success as an instructor and small-town business owner was such a big move, and all the things that had gone wrong already had me rattled and wondering whether I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. After Jake, that is. It was hard to top that mistake.
I headed downstairs to ask Blythe if she wanted any coffee. She hadn’t made any yet, and I wanted to know how many cups I should brew—the usual six for me or eight for the two of us.
I opened the door from the stairwell to the back of the dojo, and I stopped mid stride. The room was filled with voices. About twenty kids, mostly girls with their mothers, turned toward me. They looked different without the tutus and the gelled up-dos and tiaras they’d worn when I saw them last, at the recital and going away party Miss Ruth had invited us to on our first day in town. But I recognized them as her ballerinas. Her girls. The Little Swans I’d vowed to turn into fighters. Miss Ruth had come through! And I was standing with my mouth hanging open and a towel wrapped around my head! Looking totally rumpled and completely uncaffeinated.
Blythe, standing by her desk with a handful of pens and a stack of papers, displayed a look of absolute horror. It took her about a nanosecond to mask it with a smile.
Some of the kids giggled and whispered to each other. One of them, a boy about six years old, took the direct approach: “Who are you? Why do you have a towel on your head?”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer the “Who are you?” question. I guess I hoped maybe if I didn’t say my name, he’d forget he’d ever seen me. They’d all forget about the strange lady with the towel head. They’d never connect the lady who’d flung herself, half blind, into their former dance studio like a bat out of her cave with—
“Brenna Battle, the Olympian!” One little girl piped up. She nudged the boy who’d asked who I was. “Don’t you remember? From the party.”
I waved at the line of kids. “I’ll be right back to help you all. Just—needed an emergency shower, you know.” Of course they didn’t know. I didn’t even know. What the heck was an emergency shower? Oh, great. I’d just made it sound like I’d done something to get myself unbearably filthy. In the middle of the morning!
A very small girl bounced up and down, her puff-ball-esque brown pig tails shaking like little pompoms. I recognized her, but not from the dance studio. “Mommy, that’s the lady from the park! The lady who needed a fairy godmother. See? I told you she wasn’t a crazy bad lady like Anthony said!”
Oh. No. My little glitter-giver.
What could I say? I just smiled. A big, cheesy smile. I’m sure I turned neon pink. I spun around and disappeared back into the stairwell as quickly as I could without running. This is not a disaster, I told myself. This is a good thing. There are twenty kids down there, trying to sign up for judo. All at once. And Blythe was all by herself. Crud! I tossed the towel on the stairs, twisted my wet hair up, secured it with the hair tie I kept knotted onto the belt loop of my jeans, and plunged back into the dojo, ready for action. Okay, ready for paperwork.
Soon I had my own stack of information packets, sign-up forms, and waivers, and I’d managed to persuade half the line to move over to my desk. I did my best to prove to them that I was completely sane and capable. You know, not the kind of lady who screams random things in the park or who can’t make it out of bed and into her place of business at a reasonable hour. I chatted and smiled, and after the first few minutes my nerves settled and my embarrassment faded, and I really meant it.
Once the last family had been taken care of, Blythe and I knelt next to the open bins of judo gis. We’d opened up a wholesale account and ordered a bunch of the common kids’ sizes before we opened the dojo. After we’d signed up our new Battlers, we’d sized them up and sent them home with brand new uniforms they were to wear to class tonight. We folded rejected sizes neatly and slipped them back into their clear plastic bags, and recorded how many of which size remained.
It’s pretty hard to do much more than learn how to fall in judo without a gi. Regular clothes tend to get ripped, pulled off—though some people even manage to rip off judo gis, especially the, uh, pants. Not that I would know anything about that. It’s not like I ever ripped the pants off one of the police officers I’d just met at the Bonney Bay Police Athletic Club’s judo practice two weeks ago. And no, fortunately or unfortunately, it was not Will Riggins. Riggins led the PAL Judo Club, though he was only a brown belt. When I’d refused to teach those guys—which may have been just a teensy bit because Crazy Officer Eric went apeness on me for ripping his pants off and exposing his big albino Sasquatch hiney—Riggins talked me into agreeing to give him lessons so he could advance and become a better teacher. So far, I’d managed to put him off. But I couldn’t stall forever.
I put the lid on the bin of tiny little double and triple zero sized gis with a sigh of relief.
Blythe placed a size one in its stack. “Well, that went incredibly well!” she said.
“Except for my grand entrance.” I sat back against a bin, put my bare feet up on another, and groaned. “Why didn’t you wake me up, Bly?”
“I’m sorry. You had such a hard day yesterday, I figured you needed the rest. I was shocked when the first couple of families came in that door. And then they just kept coming. I texted you to let you know, but I think your phone was dead, and I couldn’t just leave them.”
“It’s not your fault, Bly. I’m just—” Utterly humiliated. Again. Let it go, Brenna. Just let it go. Hey, this whole thing was my idea. I needed to step up. I didn’t know what was getting into me lately. “We have twenty-one students!” I said brightly.
“Not every single ballerina, but over half of them,” Blythe said. “We owe Miss Ruth big time.”
“I’m really looking forward to tonight. I can’t wait to see how they do.” Not to mention how we’ll do.
Once we’d gotten the gis together, Blythe and I gathered up the forms and began inputting data into our computers, compiling rosters for our different classes. We’d made preliminary plans for three separate groups—ages four to six, seven to nine, and ten to twelve. They were all beginners, so for now it made sense to split them by age. The youngest group had forty-five minutes to practice, the middle group an hour, and the older ones an hour-and-a-half.
Unfortunately for my sanity, the youngest group was by far the biggest. Ten little kids. Preschoolers and kindergartners. Judo isn’t like karate or tae kwon do, where kids can practice punches and kicks without a partner—you know, without the potential of hurting a partner. There are no punches and kicks in judo. It’s a grappling sport, and everything involves doing something to another person. Picking them up and throwing them clear over your head and down to their backs, for example. We wouldn’t get bored teaching that group, that was for sure.
I’d taught many seminars for judo kids, and I’d helped teach the occasional beginner the basics at the judo club I was part of when I was growing up, but I’d never actually been in charge of brand-new beginners. Blythe and I had many long talks as we prepared to open, about the challenges of taking an entire class full of beginner kids, none of whom even knows how to listen or follow directions, or how to do the simplest drill.
We had our work cut out for us tonight. But my stomach was full of happy butterflies. This was what I’d come here for. This was the beginning of my very own judo school. I couldn’t wait to see the kids’ eyes light up when they nailed a new move I’d taught them. I couldn’t wait to see them discover the special brand of hard work—the rolling around the mat and struggling and laughing with friends—that only comes through judo.
10
Rain streamed over the brand new, bright blue awnings, and pooled on the sidewalk. But the weather couldn’t dampen the excitement of just as bright, just as brand new, four-to-six-year-old judo students.
I demonstrated a somersault, and several little voices cried out, “I can do that!”
The mat exploded with a chaotic jumble of tumbling bodies, several of them rolling over the tops of others. I gave my whistle a light blow. Thank God for whistles. All but a couple of the kids froze and stared at me. Blythe caught the other two, mid-tumble, and directed their attention to me.
“Okay you guys, whenever one of us demonstrates—when we show you something—we don’t want you to do it until we say so. Okay? Everybody watch, but don’t do it. We’re all going to get in lines soon, and you can show me what you can do when it’s your turn.”
They nodded. One of the girls called out, “That’s what Miss Ruth does sometimes.”
Thank goodness. In a moment, we had them in two single file lines of five, rolling down the mat, then running back along the sides of the mat, out of the way of their tumbling classmates, and back to the end of their lines. There were a couple of minor mid-air and running-head-on collisions, but they got the idea soon enough. Every now and then the small crowd of parents on the bench clapped or called out encouragement. So far the parents were behaving themselves. Maybe they had really read the agreement they’d signed about staying off the mat and away from the matside, except in the case of emergency.
Maybe Miss Ruth had trained them too. She’d sure saved us a heap of trouble by training these kids to do something as simple as stand in lines or rows, perform tasks on the teacher’s count, and in general, listen to the teacher. Things would get trickier once we got to the point of teaching them to actually throw their partners; it was essential that they followed directions, or someone could really get hurt. But I was already formulating a plan based on what I’d learned about my Bonney Bay Battlers today. A handful of the more attentive kids could learn a throw with me, while the others did falls or pins with Blythe. I could gradually add kids to the group performing the more challenging and potentially dangerous technique.
With the exception of some of the four and five-year-olds, who were, you know, four and five, most of the kids were pretty coordinated. They learned to do passable somersaults and cartwheels. We worked on front falls for fifteen minutes or so, and then I taught them all a simple pin.
Blythe and I walked around, praising the kids and correcting their position. The door jingled, not the friendly jingle of one of the next class’s students arriving early, but about as violent as a jingle can get.
Harvey stood in the open doorway, soaking wet.
A couple of the girls screamed. One of them, a redhead named Sofie, ran off the mat, to her mother, who was on the bench observing class. Let me tell you, that was the most nerve-wracking part of this—the parents watching my every move.
I quickly bowed off the mat, hoping to intercept Harvey.
“Is this a friend of yours?” Sofie’s mother, also with a headful of thick, straight red hair pulled into a ponytail, was on her feet next to the bench, holding Sofie to her side.
“Uhh … ” I wanted to say not exactly, but I couldn’t do that to Harvey.
“That’s crazy Harvey Thompson,” the lone dad, a skinny, hairy guy, whispered, none too subtlely.
I glared at him. I was pretty sure he belonged to the little girl who I’d caught picking her nose. I had a feeling I was going to be busting out the disinfectant wipes Blythe kept next to the mat quite frequently with that kid.
Blythe strode to the edge of the mat, though she wouldn’t leave it. Judo US policy dictated that there always be a black belt on the mat. One of the many rules Riggins and the PAL broke every time they met. But then, I doubted they were officially registered with Judo US.
Blythe spoke up. “Brenna met Harvey yesterday. His nephew was having a medical emergency, and Brenna helped give CPR. Unfortunately, he passed away.”
My little sister is brilliant. She managed to make me feel like a hero, as well as ignite some compassion for Harvey, lessening the parents’ fear of this admittedly odd, crazed looking man barging in on their children’s very first judo class.
Harvey looked like he could use all the sympathy he could get. His eyes bugged out behind his rain-streaked glasses. Rain water dripped from the ends of his white curls and down the tip of his nose. He wore a flannel shirt and jeans, both hopelessly sodden and sagging heavily on his frame. His feet were bare. His breathing was as wild and ragged as his appearance. He looked every bit like a man running for his life.
I took his arm and shot a nervous smile over my shoulder at the parents and kids. “What is it, Harvey? What’s the matter?” I spoke softly, hoping that when he answered, he’d copy my tone. Nope. He caught his breath—unfortunately enough of a breath to bellow, “Help! They’re trying to kill me, too! I can’t believe it. They’ve turned on me.”
I put a hand on Harvey’s arm and tried to get him to look at me. He did, and let me tell you, it was just a little bit scary. There was no mistaking the sheer terror in his eyes. “Who’s trying to kill you?” I whispered.
“Moira! All of them. She’s got them all on her side.” Harvey still didn’t get my whispering hint.
“We’ll get this all figured out, Harvey,” I said. But how? How do you figure things out for a guy who’s deathly afraid of people who don’t exist? Or at least, people who don’t exist anymore, outside of the afterlife.
Blythe rounded the kids into a circle on the mat as I walked Harvey further away, toward the door. Sofie continued to cling to her mother by the benches, but the rest of them let Blythe distract them.
“Who can show me how they might get out of the pin we just did?” Blythe said.
Hands shot up, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My kids weren’t going anywhere yet. Whether they came back tomorrow was another matter. My kids. Wow, those words felt good.
The bell on the door jingled again. “Someone called 9-1-1?”
I recognized Will’s pleasantly rough voice in an instant. Speaking of an instant, that was pretty fast. One of the parents must have been right on it. And Will must have been close by. The Bonney Bay PD was one officer smaller now, since my meddling—ah—sleuthing had landed one of them in jail last week, but typically not much happened in this little town. Or so I was told. Things had been rather eventful since Blythe and I had arrived.
“I think Harvey needs to talk to you.” Please, get him out of here, I begged Riggins with my eyes. I wanted to suggest they go outside, but the already pounding rain had increased to an absolute torrent. I looked around the dojo, as if by some miracle a separate room that had never existed would materialize. The former dance studio was one large room, with the apartment Blythe and I shared above it. The only place to go was the bathroom or the stairwell that led to our apartment. The bathroom was no good, and I had a feeling we’d still hear Harvey in the stairwell.
“Why don’t you take Harvey upstairs to our apartment?” I suggested. “It’s unlocked.”
I was so desperate to get Harvey—and the scene he was making—out of my first real class. But Will Riggins was going to be in our apartment. Without supervision. My heart bounced in my chest at the thought. Not that he was the type to nose around and get into things—at least I hoped he wasn’t—but I was pretty sure I’d left a load of clean, unfolded laundry on the living room floor. I tried to recall which underwear was included in that load. With my luck, something ratty and comfortable. Maybe he’d think they were Blythe’s. I know, that was awful of me.
But who am I kidding, anyway? Blythe’s underwear is all in great shape. Every pair has a bra that matches. If you’ve known her for more than ten seconds, you can guess she’s not the type to keep faded, holey granny-panties lying around. Not that Riggins would think about Blythe’s panties. Ugh, I hope not. That was the last thing I needed right now. A guy that made my heart flutter opting for my sister instead of me. Even if I had no intention of starting a relationship with him in the next century, I really didn’t want to go there. Never again.
Riggins led Harvey up the stairs. It took a little
reassuring from me, but Harvey went along with him once I convinced him I’d arranged for Riggins to take care of things. Before I got back on the mat, I texted Riggins. “After you talk him down, do you think you could get Harvey out the back door without a commotion? Kids are scared.”
“I’ll try.”
Great. Do not try, Riggins. Do. Or I’m do-o-o-omed.
“I’m so sorry about the interruption,” I told the parents. “Harvey just lost his nephew. I think he got a little attached to me because I tried to help when he—” A four-year-old looked up at me with big, gray eyes. I was about to say was dying. I switched to, “wasn’t breathing.” Hopefully that sounded less scary. I was going to give these kids nightmares if I wasn’t careful. “But Officer Riggins is going to take care of everything,” I finished with a great, big smile.
“I seen Crazy Harvey be crazy lots of times,” Annalisa, a six-year-old who seemed to be the resident know-it-all, announced.
“Great. Well. Let’s use nice words, okay?”
I joined Blythe in getting the kids to practice escaping from the pin. About ten minutes later, as I was high-fiving my little ones good-bye and the middle ones were arriving, I heard the back door open and shut. While we welcomed the new batch of kids onto the mat, I saw Will’s cruiser drive by the front of the dojo, Harvey in the passenger seat. Will must be taking him home. I let out a breath of relief. But still, I couldn’t completely shake a nagging worry about Harvey.
I texted Will. “Can you come by around 9:15? Want to talk bout Harvey.”
“Ok.”
“Thanks.”
I put my phone away, just a little disappointed. Why had I hoped he’d have more to say than that? Why couldn’t I shake this silly crush?
11
Blythe embraced me with a squeal and we did a little hug-dance. “Aside from that little interruption, that was awesome!” she said.
