Pulling up Stakes and Other Piercing Stories

by David Lubar

  "Fencing sucks," one of my teammates said as I walked past him.

  "En garde," another said, jabbing me in the back with a finger.

  Everyone who got within range took a poke. By the end of the period, I felt like an acupuncture practice dummy.

  "Well, you're screwed," Danny Horvath said to me as we trudged into the locker room.

  I could always count on Danny for moral support. That's what best friends are for. But he was right. For the next four years, or the rest of my life — whichever came first — I'd be known as the fencing dork. After a quick shower — far be it from me to miss a chance to improve my grade — I got dressed and slunk off through the locker room door.

  "Fencing?" The mocking squawk echoed in the corridor.

  Oh no. I knew that voice. I kept walking.

  "Fencing?" Louder this time.

  "Ouch!" I spun around as I felt sharp poke in the back. Trent Muldoon — he of the single eyebrow and single-celled brain — sneered at me.

  "Yeah, fencing," I said. "It's a sport."

  "For girls." Trent knocked my books from my hand, then sprinted down the hallway.

  I thought about racing after him, leaping on his back, dragging him to the ground, and pounding him into a mass of quivering jelly. It might, just barely, have been possible. We were close to the same height. On the other hand, he was a wrestler — which meant he knew a lot more about fighting than I did.

  Freshman survival rule #1: never take someone on at his own game. But adrenaline can do wonders. Mothers have lifted cars off of trapped infants. Men have chewed their way out of steel cages. Teenage boys have eaten liver and onions. Well, maybe nothing that extreme. Still, with enough adrenaline behind my attack, I figured I could get in a punch or two. After which, he'd probably toss me on the ground and wrap me up in a wrestling hold so tight it would give me a first-hand chance to view my lower intestines from the inside. Besides, Trent had a lot of buddies. Large, stupid, mean buddies. I'd save revenge for another day.

  I gathered my books.

  "Scott, you sure about this fencing thing?" Danny asked as he came out of the locker room.

  I'd thought I was — before learning the results of the fencing popularity poll. Now, I wasn't so sure. But the damage had already been done. If I didn't go out, I'd be more than just a whimsy dork. I'd be a whimsy dork quitter. "Yeah," I told Danny. "I'm gonna fence."

  "The only ones who go out for fencing are kids who want a varsity letter and can't make any other team. Too weak to wrestle, too short for basketball, too dense for swimming...."

  "I don't care," I told him. Scenes flashed through my head; musketeers with flashing rapiers, Jedi Knights with light sabers, Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, John Steed and Emma Peel — thank goodness for Avengers videos — Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Despite the opinion of the general population, fencing was way beyond cool. I just wished I wasn't the only one on the planet who felt that way.

  "And it's a lot more than a sport," I added. "There's centuries of tradition. There's honor. There's spirit."

  Danny yawned. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Fencing is wonderful. Whoopee. I'm happy for you. Come on. Let's get out of here."

  I followed him down the hall.

  Life dragged on. Football season came and went. Finally, it was time for winter sports. After school, on the first day of signups, I rushed to the gym.

  I pushed my way through a thick, noisy mob clustered around Mr. Cadutto at the wrestling table. Other crowds buzzed around basketball and swimming signups.

  Across the gym, I spotted the fencing table. It was as uncrowded as a hot-dog stand at a vegetarian convention. I walked over. "Mr. Sinclair?" I asked, recognizing the physics teacher.

  He nodded and smiled. "Yes. I'm the new fencing coach."

  "What happened to Mr. Billings?" From what I'd heard, he'd always been the coach.

  "He got married during the summer. His wife wants him to spend more time at home. So, like that, no fencing coach." Mr. Sinclair shrugged.

  I realized a new coach wouldn't be bad, since he wouldn't have any favorites from last season. I picked up a pen and started filling out the signup form.

  An older kid, a senior, I think, walked up. "Hey, Mr. Sinclair. I heard you were coaching us this year. Have you fenced much?"

  "To tell the truth, I've never fenced." he said.

  My hand stopped halfway through writing my last name.

  "However, if I may boast, I'm quite a competent chess player." Mr. Sinclair grinned modestly. "If you can play chess, you can play any sport. Besides, nobody else wanted to coach. They were going to cancel the team. So I volunteered."

  Oh boy.

  A couple more kids joined us at the table, including Billy Esterbridge from my gym class. I glanced over at the wrestlers. They looked like a magazine ad for a health club. So did the swimmers. Not the fencers. We looked like a poster for some unpleasant childhood disease that caused the body to either shrivel or bloat.

  Much to my surprise, I saw Danny weaving his way through the crowd.

  "Aren't you afraid of being seen with us dorks?" I asked.

  Danny shrugged and picked up a pen. "Hey, you made it sound like too much fun to miss."

  "Yeah. It'll do wonders for your status," I told him. "I've heard the junior and senior girls love fencers almost as much as they love the AV geeks."

  "Hey," Billy said. "Cut it out. I like the audio-visual club. Without us, there'd be no intra-school dissemination of information."

  "Relax," Danny said. "Scott was just kidding."

  "Yeah, I was kidding." I actually admired Billy's ability to hook things up. I just didn't share his enthusiasm for the activity. I turned back to Mr. Sinclair. "When does practice start?"

  "Next Monday."

  Well, whether or not he had any experience as a coach, at least we'd have a team. And I'd get my chance to fence.

  The rest of the week and through the weekend, I did all I could to help speed the passage of time toward Monday afternoon. Finally, on Monday, as the school day ended, I hurried to the locker room.

  "Holy crap!" I stepped into my worst nightmare — times ten. Every wrestler and basketball player in the school was there, shouting, laughing, snapping towels, torturing small animals. Okay, maybe they weren't all bad guys. There were some casual friends and nodding acquaintances scattered through the mob. But there were also some of the nastiest creatures this side of a Wes Craven film.

  I slipped along the side wall and snuck over to my locker, hoping to avoid setting off the victim detectors. If I was quiet enough, the wrestlers would leave me alone.

  "Time to fence!"

  Billy, grinning like a game-show contestant who'd just won a lifetime supply of matching luggage, rushed over and waved something white up and down in one hand.

  "Look, Scott, I got fencing pants. Cool, huh? My mom bought them for me. She's real happy. I'm the first one in our family to go out for a sport." He flapped the white pants in my face like a matador trying to goad a bull.

  "Ssshhhh..." I said. "This isn't the best time for show and tell."

  Too late. A passing hand shot between us and snatched Billy's fencing pants. "Check this out," Trent said. "A fag costume."

  Billy reached for the pants.

  Trent danced backwards. "You know what? You don't need to wear these. You already look like a fag." He glanced around the locker room. I could see his weasely little brain working out the best way to humiliate Billy. He settled for tossing the pants into the shower where they landed in the middle of the wet, soapy floor.

  Billy ran off to retrieve his pants. By the time he returned, Danny had showed up, carrying a pair of sneakers and a sweat suit. "I don't know about this," he said.

  "I don't either." I sighed and tried to hold onto the image I'd started with — me as a cool guy with mask and sword, fencing away while the clash of steel against steel rang through the air. It wasn't easy.

  We left the locker room and h
eaded for the girl's gym. Yup — one more indignity. The basketball players got the boy's gym, the swimmers got the pool at the YMCA, the wrestlers got the exercise room, and we got stuck with the clog dancing club.

  "Okay, team, line up," Mr. Sinclair called.

  "Where are the swords?" Danny whispered as he took a spot to my left.

  "Beats me." I looked around for equipment. Not a sword or mask in sight. If the Huns attacked right now, we'd be doomed.

  "Hey, Mr. Sinclair! Mr. Sinclair!" Billy shouted, waving his hand.

  "Yes?" Mr. Sinclair asked.

  "What about our swords? When do we get our swords? Can we get them now? They're the electronic ones, right? When do we get them?"

  "After we get in shape," he said. "First, we exercise the body. All together, now. Let's start with jumping jacks." He leaped and clapped. "One, two,..."

  ".... ninety-nine, one hundred."

  Oh man. For the next hour, we exercised. Pushups. Situps. Throwups. Okay, just one of those. But at least it wasn't me rushing off to do a shallow dive into the garbage can.

  "Great sport," Danny said as we collapsed on the floor after practice. "I feel so dashing. So honorable. Just kill me now, all right? I don't want to live to see how much my muscles are going to hurt tomorrow."

  "I'd kill you if I could lift my hand," I told him. "Maybe next week." I was wiped out. Around me, a quivering assortment of fencers lay in various degrees of trauma.

  Through lenses of sweat drops, I watched Mr. Sinclair leave the gym. A moment later, he came rushing back. "I almost forgot — we must jog. It builds stamina." He clapped his hands together. "Everyone up. Come on. Just two laps around the halls. Hurry. All together. Run like a team."

  With grunts and groans, the dead rose. Somehow, we huffed through the empty hallways, completing two circuits around the outer corridor. As we ran, Danny glared at me and muttered, "Yeah, definitely a great sport."

  I didn't have enough air in me for a reply. The slap of my sneaker bottoms echoed from the floor to the walls, then took up residence in my head as a mocking chant: you fool, you fool, you fool... I remember a Stephen King story where kids were forced to keep walking. The ones who stopped got shot. This was worse. We did pretty much the same workout on Tuesday. And Wednesday. And the rest of the first week. There was one advantage to the grueling training. By the middle of the second week, I noticed that gym class didn't seem all that rough. Compared to Mr. Sinclair's routine, Mr. Cadutto's warmup calisthenics were a joke.

  Danny was getting into shape, too. Even Billy and the rest of the team were actually starting to look less like cast members for a low-budget zombie movie. All we now needed was cold steel.

  Finally, a week and a half before our first meet, we entered the girl's gym to a lovely sight — stacks of equipment. There was a frenzied rush to the table while Mr. Sinclair pleaded for restraint. I knew what I wanted. I grabbed a saber, the only sword where you could score with the edge of the blade. Sure, the purest fencing was done with the foil, and the epee was challenging, but those swords just used the tip.

  The saber I picked was pretty well beaten up. The hand guard was all scratched. That didn't matter. I was happy to have a sword of my own. I stepped away from the mob and sliced the air.

  Danny took a saber, too. So did Mike Gottlieb, one of the older kids. "Good choice," he said. "I fenced saber last year."

  "Line up," Mr. Sinclair called.

  We formed a line, swords in hand. Finally, a chance to cross steel with a worthy opponent. I couldn't wait.

  "Swords down," Mr. Sinclair called. "Time for calisthenics."

  We put our swords down and exercised. But, halfway through the practice, we got our chance.

  "Swords up," Mr. Sinclair called.

  "At last," Billy said.

  I picked up my saber, eager to cross steel with anyone who dared face me.

  "Advance!" Mr. Sinclair called.

  We stepped forward.

  "Retreat!" he said.

  We stepped back.

  For the rest of the period, that's what we did. Step forward. Step back. Step forward. Step back. Again and again. Occasionally, for variety, we'd move two steps forward, then two steps back. It's less exciting than it sounds. Far less.

  When I got home, I dug through the boxes in the garage until I found Dad's chrome polish. I shined up my sword, then fenced imaginary enemies up and down the hall until Mom yelled at me to stop all that thumping and shouting.

  Mr. Sinclair did his best to teach us. He brought in some fencing books from the library. And he talked a coach over at the college into coming by a couple times. The guys who'd fenced last year helped us out, too. Even so, we were pretty bad.

  I found out how bad at our opening match. It was an away game against Mercer High. Nine kids fence for a team — three each at foil, saber, and epee. In a match, you get to fence three bouts, going against the guys on the other team with the same weapon as yours.

  The meet was in their cafeteria. The tables and chairs had been pushed back to make room for the long mat we fenced on. Wires ran from the scoring machine to reels at each end of the mat.

  My first bout, the moment I plugged the cord from the reel into my saber’s handle and slipped on my mask, I forgot absolutely everything I'd learned.

  "Fence!" the referee shouted.

  Flick. My opponent extended his arm.

  Snap. Something hit the side of my mask. Crap. It was the other guy's sword.

  One to nothing.

  "Fence!"

  Flick.

  Snap.

  Crap.

  Two, nothing.

  "Fence!"

  Flick.

  I got smart. I raised my sword, blocking the cut. I blocked air. Tap. He'd switched to a thrust. I looked down at the point where it rested against my chest. Crap.

  Three, nothing.

  And so it went. Flick, snap, crap. Flick, tap, crap. I lost five, zip.

  "Try moving a bit more," Mike said when I walked back to our bench.

  "Thanks."

  My second bout went better. I lost five nothing again, but it took the other guy longer to win.

  "It's okay to use your sword," Danny said.

  My third bout, down two nothing, I started to see the attacks coming. As my opponent made a cut toward my left side, I blocked and counter attacked — a parry and riposte. I think I was as startled as him when the light went on showing I'd scored.

  He scored twice more. But at four to one, I made a fast lunge, catching him as he was coming in and scoring my second point.

  I lost the bout. And we lost the match twenty-five to two. It almost didn't matter. I'd fenced. And I'd scored a couple points. That was good enough for now.

  As we headed to the parking lot after the match, I noticed that the Mike was grinning like we'd won. "What's so funny?" I asked, following him to the back of the bus.

  He opened his coat. A stack of sword blades clattered to the seat.

  "Where'd those come from?" I asked.

  "Where do you think," Mike asked.

  "You stole them?"

  "Sure. It's traditional. The other teams try to steal from us, so we have to steal back. Don't blame me. It's their fault for not keeping an eye on their equipment table."

  Ed Drake, the team captain, joined us and added a couple fencing gloves to the pile. Someone else pulled a mask out of his bag.

  I couldn't believe it. This was so wrong. Fencing was supposed to be all about rules and honor. I wanted to say something, but I knew it wouldn't make a difference. I took a seat and kept my mouth shut.

  We lost our next match, too. This time it was twenty-two to five. It was a home game. Not that it mattered. Nobody came to watch. I lost all three bouts again, but I scored points in each of them.

  "Look on the bright side," Danny said as the other team left the gym.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "You don't have to use that crappy old scratched up saber any longer." He pulled a
brand new shiny hand guard from his bag. "Put your blade in this."

  "Not you, too," I said.

  Danny shrugged. "It all works out. We steal from them. They steal from us."

  "Not me." I turned away from him.

  "Come on. Lighten up." Danny chased after me. "You aren't angry, are you?"

  "No." I was disappointed. But he wouldn't understand. I didn't think anybody understood.

  Everyone laughed whenever they heard the fencing results over morning announcements. The whole school knew I was on the team — thanks to my first day of gym class. I felt like the poster boy for chronic losers. It got even worse when they started reading the individual records.

  "And Scott Tarbell now has eighteen losses for the season."

  Angelica Carter, who sat to my right, glanced at me and said "They didn't tell us your wins. Shouldn't they mention them, too?"

  I just shrugged and tried to look puzzled. After months of searching for a way to impress her, this didn't seem like my best opening.

  Halfway through the season, our luck changed. All three of our foil fencers started winning most of their bouts. It wasn't enough to win any of the meets, but it made the team feel better.

  Then, on our next to last meet, we pulled ahead early. The three guys fencing foils were doing an excellent job. I lost my first bout but won the second. It was only my fifth win for the season. The epees were doing well, too.

  But I noticed Ed and Mike exchanging that same grin I'd seen on the bus. Something was up. The other team's coach complained to the referee. They all came over and started to examine the foils.

  I knew what they were looking for. When you score a point, it completes a circuit and lights a bulb on the scoring machine. I'd heard rumors of kids trying to rig their swords. I'd even heard a story about a kid who'd tried to short out his foil with a penny. They say it fell out of his hand during the match.

  "Nobody'll find anything," Mike whispered to Ed.

  "Bridge is a genius," Ed whispered back.

  "Is there anything to find?" I asked

  Mike grinned and shrugged. I knew something was going on. But he was right — the referee didn't find anything in the sword. Just to be sure, he made our fencer switch swords. Our guy lost.