White Ninja

by Tiffiny Hall

  ‘I’m Roxy. Roxy Ran, and why do you need my help?’

  He picks up his ‘White Warrior’ drawing and taps the page. ‘I need to find this,’ he says. ‘And you can help me. Meet me after lunch at Gate One.’

  I nod quickly before the door opens and Sergeant Major barges into the gym. We head out to lunch.

  SIX

  I’m on my way to Gate One to meet Jackson as planned. I’m very early, but I’m too scared of missing him to wait in the library.

  ‘Roxy!’

  I recognise my sister’s voice. Can’t I wag school in peace?

  I spin around and Elecktra glares at me. ‘Where are you going?’ she asks.

  If angel honey existed, it would be the exact colour of Elecktra’s hair glistening in the sun.

  ‘I-I,’ I stutter, looking around for Jackson to save me. But I’m early so he’s nowhere in sight.

  Elecktra grabs my wrist and throws my arm up in the air. ‘How many times do I have to tell you to stop sweating on my clothes?’ she whines. ‘It’s hideous!’

  Suddenly, a gaggle of her girlfriends is surrounding us, including Chantell Best, who’s in Year Seven but cool enough to hang out with the older girls. She is the worst of Lecky’s clique, the only girl I know who tries to calm herself with one of her mother’s lattes.

  ‘She should wear better deodorant to stop the sweat,’ Chantell says. She’s wearing a ribbon around her head, like she’s an Easter egg.

  ‘I do wear deodorant,’ I say.

  ‘Could’ve fooled me.’ Chantell loves to bicker.

  ‘I’m sick of this,’ Elecktra says. ‘I lend you my top and you get stains all over it. I don’t know why I bother.’

  ‘Why’d you lend a Gate Two your top anyway?’ Chantell asks.

  ‘She begged me,’ Elecktra says quietly.

  My heart blooms with burrs. I stare at the freckle on Elecktra’s chin; I have one exactly the same and we used to pretend we were twins. A stone sinks in my throat and I have to look away. I stare at Gate One in the distance.

  ‘Elecktra, is that a croissant?’ Chantell asks, pointing to the chocolate croissant Elecktra holds in her hand. Elecktra tears off the corner with her teeth.

  ‘OMGOMG, I would totally need an occasion to eat that,’ Chantell says. Elecktra swallows and ignores her.

  ‘Take it off,’ Elecktra demands.

  The girls clap their palms without touching fingers so as not to ruin their manicures. I keep my eyes focused on the school gate. The iron bars no longer signify any hope of social networking or party invites; they feel prison-like. I turn back to Elecktra.

  ‘But I’ve only got a crop top on underneath,’ I whisper.

  ‘A crop top!’ Elecktra says at the top of her voice.

  My cheeks sting.

  ‘Hand it over,’ she says. ‘ASAP!’

  I know she’s stubborn and won’t let up. More kids wander over, drawn by her shouting. She holds out her hand. ‘Give it to me,’ she says.

  I’ve never wagged school before, but I know stripping down before you do isn’t the best way to slip past the teachers unnoticed. But those green eyes are inked on my brain, haunting, coaxing. I have no choice and wonder yet again if she really is my sister.

  I slam my backpack down and rip off Elecktra’s T-shirt, revealing my sports crop top underneath. ‘Happy?’ I say.

  Her girlfriends erupt into laughter as I run towards the gate without looking back. Elecktra chases after me, but I’m too quick for her. All that sugar she’s sneaking has slowed her down.

  ‘You can’t just leave!’ she calls. ‘I’ll tell!’

  I sprint faster and block out the sound of her voice. I get the same feeling of freedom as when I leaped over the toilet wall and gave Hero a serve.

  ‘You can’t leave through Gate One!’ Elecktra yells as I run through it. ‘You’re not authorised!’

  Instead of waiting to meet Jackson, I race home. It’s all been too much — my invisible hands and torso, the fight with Hero, the awful things he said about me and my family.

  When I arrive at our yellow warehouse, no one’s home. I collapse at the kitchen table, sobbing over the old boat planks. My tears darken the wood.

  I smooth my hand across the table. I love this surface — it’s like me: fragmented, forced to fit in with different kinds of wood even though they’re all different. I wish I could rebuild the planks into a boat and cast off onto the ocean, away from all this confusion.

  I get a tea towel and dab at the wood, cleaning away my tears. But the wood has already soaked them up. This table has soaked up so much of our lives over the years.

  I think again about what Hero said about my parents. His words have been sitting undigested in my gut for hours, like gum. His use of ‘fatherless’ the other day is still an alarm in my heart. Hero knows something and that gives him power over me. I can’t ask Mum about it. So while Mum’s at work and Art is out somewhere, probably buying paint, I decide to search.

  I start in Mum and Art’s bedroom. The double bed is made with martial precision; I imagine Mum practising her strikes to tuck in the corners of the sheets. The bedside tables are low industrial filing cabinets with white domed lamps. I check inside. Mum’s is empty. Art’s is full of throat lozenges. Their walk-in wardrobe is just as disappointing. Mum’s side is all colour coordinated; even her gym lycra is neatly folded. Art’s side is a mess, with paint-stained jeans and speckled boots strewn over piles of the flannel shirts he buys at the supermarket. There is no sign of ninja, of my father, of any secrets. I hoist myself up to the top shelf, but again, nothing. Not even Mum’s black belt. Everything to do with what she calls her ‘past life’ has been either hidden or destroyed — except for the knives that she uses in the kitchen. They serve a practical purpose, whereas the rest, Mum says, is sentimental, and as a ninja she can’t afford to indulge in sentimentality.

  I wish we had a study with a safe I could crack. But we don’t. I think half the reason we live in an open-plan warehouse apartment is so nothing can be hidden away. Our house is secret-proof.

  Downstairs, I don’t bother with the kitchen or the living room, but go straight to the antique cabinet that houses the photo albums. I still have a fantasy that one day I’ll stumble across an old, curled, yellowing photo of my father holding me. I’ll keep it in my school diary and show people, saying, ‘He was a great man. A legend.’ Maybe I’d even tell them I was now an orphan to up the sympathy.

  The cabinet smells of the bush — eucalyptus. I open the glass doors. The photo albums are numbered by year. I take out 2000 and flick through the pages. I am one year old and Elecktra is four. Elecktra has a bowl haircut, buckteeth and a big nose. I open 2007: Elecktra is eleven and has grown into her nose, but she’s wearing braces. One year later and the photos reveal her battle with chronic acne. Who knew Lecky used to be ugly? I slide out a photo of her in the full get-up: the braces, acne and a square fringe that’s thicker than the rest of her hair. It is the worst photo I’ve ever seen of her. I put it into my pocket for insurance.

  I search the rest of the photo albums, but they only feature Mum, Art, Lecky, me and a few random friends of my parents, like Art’s German mate, Hacky, who’s a sculptor.

  Sometimes when I look at Lecky now, with her flawless skin and fountain of blonde hair, or watch Mum’s superb knife skills, I feel like I don’t belong in this family, like I got kicked out of the gene pool to wade in a weak puddle. My heart sinks. I know the reason I feel so different, the reason why bits and pieces of me have been flashing invisible all week, has something to do with my mother, and I’m somehow going to have to find out what it is.

  SEVEN

  I hurry back to school and arrive just in time to meet Jackson on the street near Gate One.

  ‘Hey, Roxy!’ he calls.

  As he jogs towards me, he grabs the bottom of his hoodie and lifts it over his head. I watch him wrestle with the arms and as he approaches he hands it to me. ‘Go on. You look cold.’<
br />
  I’d put another T-shirt on at home, but take his hoodie anyway. It smells comforting, a mix of washing powder and hot pasta sauce.

  ‘You ready, Fancy Face?’ he asks and turns to leave. I love it when he calls me that.

  ‘Wait,’ I say.

  He spins back around, his blond hair whipping his forehead. I blink myself out of the slow-motion picture I keep seeing whenever he moves.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ I say. ‘I need to take a picture and send it to someone.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says. It takes two minutes to rephotograph the photo of Elecktra and send it to her. Jackson stretches as he waits.

  ‘Done,’ I say as I pocket my phone.

  We set out at a pace that ordinarily I would struggle to maintain, but today I’m too fast and Jackson has to tell me to slow down.

  We go to Becker Hill Parade, to a school about twenty minutes from Hindley Hall. A group of kids dressed in white martial arts uniforms is standing next to a trailer.

  ‘Who are they?’ I ask.

  ‘My Taekwondo instructor’s demo team,’ Jackson says. ‘They’re here for the school open day.’

  ‘Demo?’

  ‘Entertainment,’ he says and signals me to follow him.

  The huge trailer is parked at the back of the school oval. You couldn’t miss it. A life-sized photo of a man doing a front kick stretches from the trailer’s tyres to the top of its steel cabin. Across his billowing stomach are the words Discipline. Focus. Fun. painted in primary colours. A trestle table with only three good legs wobbles beside the trailer; on it is a pinboard of photos showing kids doing a range of martial arts moves and a signing-up list for classes.

  Jackson takes me inside the trailer, where the demo team is now circled up among kick pads, mats and sandwich-board signs. Their uniforms look a bit more grey than white and a recent outdoor demo has stamped red Vs on the exposed skin of their chests.

  ‘Who’s the king of the demo?’ a man in his fifties calls. He is wearing the white uniform too, with a black belt with four stripes.

  ‘You are, sir, Sabomin, sir!’ the team yells in unison.

  Jackson tells me ‘Sabomin’ is the Korean word for ‘teacher’, but the students call him ‘Sabo’ for short.

  ‘Hands in,’ Sabo says.

  They all put their hands in the circle.

  ‘It’s showtime, team. This is what it’s all about. Performing for the people. You’re only as good as your what?’

  ‘Last demo,’ they chorus.

  ‘Let’s go over the plan. Ed will kick things off with a pattern — get them hook, line and sinker. Then I’ll step in and seal the deal. Salvatore, you holding my board?’

  ‘Yes, Sabomin,’ Salvatore says.

  ‘Okay, Ed, get kicking. Sally, balloons. Kellie, play it cool. Salvatore, tell the audience ten minutes until showtime. This is a big demo for us. Let’s really Glee it up!’ Sabomin blows his whistle twice, then yells, ‘Kiyap!’

  The team punch their fists forwards from their chests, stomp and yell, ‘Ay-yah!’, before spilling out of the trailer onto the school oval.

  I guess it must be an ordinary kind of open day: there’s a sagging jumping castle with a sprinkling of children collapsing into its folds, a few stalls selling handmade lipstick cases and tea cosies, and a sausage sizzle to raise money for the school library. Kids congregate in packs away from their parents, who stand around chatting while they wait to tour the school. The school buildings around us are the same colour as the grey asphalt; they shiver in the shade. The cindery dust of the oval clouds my eyes.

  Sabomin presses Play on the stereo and thumping music mangles out through the metal casing.

  Ed takes his place at the centre of the oval and begins his pattern. I see how he concentrates on his technical precision, angling his eye line with the degree of his kick, twisting through his hip on his body blocks to create extra snap in his uniform, and flicking his wrist so that his knife hands sound like whips.

  A kid approaches with his parents. Despite Salvatore’s coaxing, they refuse to stand where he suggests and instead watch from afar with all the enthusiasm of waiting in a queue at a supermarket checkout.

  ‘One, two,’ Ed says under his breath, tucking his knee into his hip and snapping the blade of his foot above his ear in a double side kick. I would give anything to be able to do that. He breathes through the movements, measuring his steps so that he finishes in the exact same position as he started.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ I say to Jackson.

  Jackson blazes his green eyes towards me and smiles proudly.

  ‘My favourite-ever demos Sabomin’s done are one: the Island Cheese Company “Cheese is our life” convention, on a floating barge on a river; two: Petra Peters Real Estate; three: a sixth birthday party at FunCity; four: a performance for a top athlete, who loves Taekwondo and bumped into Sabo at the Olympics. Sabo had to drop everything and demo on the spot. Five: Mega Eyewear for “Eye Love Sunglasses” day. Plus, Sabo won an award,’ Jackson pauses casually, ‘when we did a demo at the Royal Easter Show in 2006: third-best display in the Sports and Leisure Pavilion.’

  ‘Impressive,’ I say and nod at Ed. ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Practising on your own exercises the mind and teaches you focus,’ Jackson says to me.

  When he leans in close, the smell of him creates a kind of energy. I pretend to check out my nails like I’ve seen Elecktra do whenever someone is trying to explain something to her. I also try to ignore the fact that I’m wearing his hoodie and can’t escape his smell even if I wanted to.

  Sabomin’s voice pulls me back to the demo. Ed finishes and bows deeply … to no applause, even though Salvatore’s managed to drag a group of teenaged boys over to form a small audience.

  ‘When’s he going to smash someone?’ one boy yells.

  Sabomin takes Ed’s place on the oval. Salvatore and Kellie run out with an armful each of tiles and stack them on two blocks. Sabomin rolls a shin guard over his uniform and throws his whistle to the side with a dramatic open hand.

  ‘To bust tiles with your elbow is one of the most difficult things to do in Taekwondo,’ he says. ‘I consider myself a master in this.’

  Sabomin lowers his elbow to the tiles to achieve the correct position. He does it again, gritting his teeth, his breathing in sync with his movement. He signals Salvatore to cut the music.

  ‘Hannah. Dul. Set,’ he counts in Korean, then slams his elbow into the centre of the tiles with an ‘Ay-yaaayaya-yah!’

  The tiles crack with the weak sound of a window popping open. There are feeble claps from the audience.

  Sabomin turns to his team, who are leaning against the trailer, watching the master at work. ‘Damn,’ he says and shakes his arm out.

  He turns back to the spectators. ‘They were tiles, people. Tiles!’

  A sip of coffee, checking of a phone; nobody really cares.

  Salvatore appears with a square piece of pine wood and holds it out towards Sabomin’s head. His fingers grip the bottom of the board. Sabomin bows to the piece of wood.

  ‘Hannah. Dul. Set!’ he yells, then rushes at the board with the heel of his palm.

  Instead of snapping into pieces, the board flies out of Salvatore’s hand and lands intact on its side, rolling in a circle like a coin before tipping to the ground.

  ‘Stunt double!’ Sabomin calls. He points to me.

  I look at Jackson.

  ‘Don’t be shy,’ he says.

  I pick up the board and hand it to Salvatore. Is this what Mum means by getting your ninja on? Usually I wouldn’t have the confidence even to stand up in front of a crowd and now I’ve walked out and committed myself to breaking wood with my limbs. I must be mad!

  Salvatore holds the plank of wood above his head between his outstretched arms. I’ve never done this before, but that feeling of instinct returns and, without counting to three, without thinking, I jump into a climbing double front kick and snap the
board into three pieces. Two of them fly so high into the sky they seem to disappear. The third bit of wood almost hits a pram. The mother kicks off the brake, spins the pram violently and steers her child back towards the jumping castle, which is now so deflated the kids are touching concrete on every bounce.

  ‘If anyone wants to sign up for classes, please come talk to me. I run boot camps too,’ Sabomin says to the three people left watching. They are arching their heads to the sky, still searching for those pieces of wood.

  ‘Do you do yoga classes?’ a mother asks, clutching her empty coffee cup. I’d seen her look of horror as she refused the instant coffee being handed out by the parents’ committee.

  ‘As a former champion,’ Sabomin says, placing his hands on his hips, ‘I know how important it is to have mind control. Meditation is a big part of any martial artist’s life.’ He pauses and smooths his hand down his chest to soothe his heartburn, then burps in his throat and excuses himself. ‘But has yoga ever saved anyone’s life?’ he says, staring the woman right in the eye.

  The woman holds his stare then leaves, shaking her head.

  ‘Roxy, wait here to sign people up. I’ve got to find the school principal,’ Sabomin says.

  ‘But I don’t … How do you know my name, Sabomin?’

  ‘I’ve had an idea,’ he says, ignoring my question. ‘And call me Sabo.’ Then he asks, ‘Heard of a swagger coach?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘The team needs a bit more swagger, more polish. All the US hip-hop artists use them, you know?’ He taps a finger on his chin, which is covered in stubble that shines grey in the sun. ‘Leave it with me,’ he says and hurries off.

  Jackson is talking to other members of the team, so I walk over to the trestle table to look at the demo photos. Salvatore is there too, talking to a kid he’s managed to get to take a flyer.

  ‘Taekwondo’s the best,’ Salvatore says.

  ‘Taekwondo’s lame,’ the kid argues. ‘All that protective gear you fight in. You don’t punch in the face.’

  ‘Why punch in the face when you can kick in the face?’ Salvatore says.