White Ninja

by Tiffiny Hall

  I step closer to Jackson and tilt my head for a passing breeze of his smell. But, as always, as soon as I get close, he steps back. The only time he really touches me is when we’re fighting. I know I’m far too young for love combat. But I can’t help it!

  ‘Ninjas think of everything,’ I say. Everything but love.

  FOURTEEN

  Sergeant Major calls Years Seven to Ten out of normal classes for a special fitness test. The other teachers obviously aren’t happy, but there is a big focus on sport and fitness at Hindley Hall. This was one of the reasons Mum chose the school for Elecktra and me, particularly when she met Sergeant Major at the school open day and was impressed with his army training and emphasis on fitness and discipline.

  Sergeant Major lines us all up on the oval. ‘Side line side,’ he commands.

  We look left and raise a straight arm to the shoulder of the person next to us.

  ‘Straight arms. Look right. Straight line!’ Sergeant Major yells.

  We shuffle again as kids push in.

  ‘Not fast enough. Squats!’ Sergeant Major yells.

  We put our hands on our heads and begin a series of squats. The ‘groaners’, as Sergeant Major calls them, are instructed to do it double time. We count forty squats in unison. Sergeant Major blows his whistle and we stop.

  ‘Side line side!’ he yells again, and this time we make the formation in twenty seconds. He clicks his boots together in approval. We stand at attention, hands in fists by our sides, staring into the distance.

  ‘Today is a simple fitness test,’ he says. ‘To see who is fit, who is fast, who can evade, dodge, defend and stand their ground. And you will all show me this with a simple game of Tiggy.’ He smiles. The older kids groan. I can tell Year Seven is excited. Tiggy is our speciality.

  We are instructed to split into groups of ten. The aim is to tag as many kids in your team as possible. If you get tapped on the shoulder, you are out.

  ‘The last person standing will be the winner,’ Sergeant Major says.

  Elecktra and Jackson are way down the line, but I can hear Elecktra giggling. That gaping hole in my heart becomes a canyon. Jackson knows Elecktra is my sister. What if he likes her more than me?

  To make it more challenging Sergeant Major divides us into groups that contain a mix of older and younger students. I can’t believe it when he puts Hero, Bruce and Krew with Cinnamon, Jackson, Elecktra and me.

  ‘Ready ready,’ Sergeant Major calls.

  The game starts and we are all sprinting in different directions; it’s already total madness. My heart is bursting after a few minutes of trying to keep out of everyone’s way. Elecktra is running after Jackson, but he’s too quick for her. He catches my eye and folds his hands into the water sign. Even from across the oval, I see his moss-green eyes wink at me and I know he hasn’t forgotten about me — yet. I understand his message. My mission is no longer just to tag other kids. This is a ninja training session.

  I pause and close my eyes, then fold my hands into the water symbol representing the Water Tiger Scroll: left palm pointing up to my chin in prayer position, right hand making a fist and held an eyelash distance from the left palm. I feel the strong rock of my right hand and the fluidity of my left palm pushing against it to create a magnetic force that keeps my mind clear, my breathing deep and my body motionless. I feel myself lift slightly off the ground. I let my mind unload beneath me, shedding all the things that have been weighing me down: Hero’s threats, Mum’s attack and then her departure, Elecktra not wanting to know me at school and trying to take Jackson for herself, not knowing who my father is or what to do about my powers. The power of water runs through me. The invisible streams erode old beliefs like rocks and nourish new thoughts like trees.

  In a single moment I am no longer the awkward kid who never says the right thing or wears the right clothes. I am me, Roxy Ran, thirteen-year-old ninja-in-training. And that is more than enough. Like an orchid, I blossom. All those hang-ups rinse out of my skin and soak deep into the grass.

  When I feel as light as a ninja star, I open my eyes and bring my hand up to my face. Nothing. I look down to my toes and again, nothing. For the first time, I am completely invisible.

  I look over at Jackson and he is smiling through me. Hero runs past Jackson and slaps him on the shoulder. Jackson is out of the game, but exits with a smile.

  Sergeant Major sends more kids into the game and the oval is chaos, with kids running into each other. It’s easy for me to flash invisible without being noticed. Everyone is too busy saving themselves to see what I’m up to.

  Cinnamon and Lecky are out, leaving me against Hero, Bruce and Krew, who are spread out across the oval, ready to capture me. I manage to creep up behind Krew, flash visible at the last second and then slap him on the shoulder without the others noticing. Krew jumps, his pin eyes expanding to walnuts when he realises it’s me.

  Still visible, I run to the other side of the oval. Bruce has his hands on his knees and is panting. I cruise up behind him, hiding myself from the rest of the class, then flash invisible and slap him on the shoulder.

  ‘What the —?’ he says, looking around and seeing no one is there. I flash visible and smile like a Cheshire cat. He is furious.

  ‘Out,’ Sergeant Major calls and Bruce storms off.

  Now it’s only Hero and me left. He charges after me. He’s so fast it’s as if his feet don’t touch the ground, as though he’s levitating, dragging his toes through the air. I can’t flash invisible now; it would be too risky with all the other kids watching. I must rely on my other super power — courage. It’s the hardest to muster. I run as fast as I can, hearing Hero gain on me and feeling the wind of his chase through my hair. I can’t run forever. I decide to surprise attack. I stop, turn and somersault towards him. He isn’t expecting me to dive low, and before he can screech to a stop, I smack him on the shoe. Tagged!

  ‘Roxy wins,’ Sergeant Major calls across the oval. ‘Well done.’

  As we’re all trooping back to class, Jackson comes up and whispers in my ear, ‘Pretty impressive, Roxy Rox.’

  My cheeks heat at the compliment and I think, I am ninja. When I gaze after him, I see Hero staring at me with evil in his eyes.

  The next day, I cruise through Gate Two unscathed. Are the bullies having a day off? I’m deep in thought when I hear cheering and spy a congregation of Gate One kids in front of the mansion. I shove my way through the crowd. In the middle of the circle, Hero is holding Jackson in a headlock. Cinnamon is cowering on the sideline. Elecktra is standing behind Cinnamon’s afro, hiding.

  ‘Say it!’ Hero demands, gripping Jackson’s throat tighter in the crook of his elbow. His knees are bent and you can see every joint in his body applying pressure to Jackson’s neck.

  ‘Jackson!’ I yell.

  Hero looks up. The veins in his forehead snake into his temples with the pressure of the hold. He smiles when he sees me. Jackson is grunting and trying to breathe.

  ‘Say Roxy Ran is a total loser!’ Hero yells.

  Kids are closing in around us, chanting and cheering Hero on. I am drowned in the centre of the circle. The world shrinks to a hurricane of sneers and insults. All I can smell is BO. The antiseptic taste of fear soaks into my mouth. Usually in a situation like this, I’d wish to disappear, but that won’t stop Hero hurting Jackson.

  ‘Say it!’ Hero jolts Jackson’s neck violently.

  Jackson shakes his head, grunts, stamps his foot, then yells with all his might, ‘You’re a total loser!’ He heaves another breath. ‘I used to beat you in comp and always will.’

  Hero’s face drains of colour. He wouldn’t want people knowing he’d ever been beaten in competition. Less glory for his trophy locker. He growls and pushes Jackson away, knocking him to the ground. I help him up. His nose is bleeding.

  The circle closes in, kids are shouting.

  ‘You know you want to,’ Hero sneers. ‘Say Roxy is a loser!’

  Jackson stands
tall and looks at Hero from under a bloodied brow. ‘No,’ he says.

  Hero takes a step backwards, winds back his arm and pushes Jackson. Jackson falls backwards. He hits the concrete.

  I want to take Hero on, but the jeering crowd and the power of him make me lose my ninja nerve. I turn away from Hero and bend down to help Jackson up again.

  ‘Pizza,’ someone calls and the crowd disperses. What is it with these guys and pizza?

  Jackson looks pretty dazed and I feel completely responsible.

  ‘You should have just said it,’ I whisper.

  ‘No, I couldn’t,’ he says. ‘So, you coming to the dojang later?’

  He sure is persistent. Persistently crazy.

  I have something to finish before I go to the dojang after school. I race home and burst into Elecktra’s bedroom.

  ‘Why didn’t you stand up for me today?’ I yell. ‘Jackson could have been really hurt!’

  Elecktra is combing her hair at her dressing table.

  ‘I’m thinking of running for Deputy School Captain,’ she says.

  I walk over to the dressing table and snatch her brush in my hand.

  ‘Ouch!’ she screams.

  ‘Not ouch,’ I say. ‘Ouch is having everyone chanting awful things about you and seeing your older sister hiding behind your best friend’s hair. Ouch is having a new kid, who’s known you five minutes, get pushed around while your sister, who’s known you your whole life, just stands there.’ I lean in closer. ‘Ouch is knowing that I would do anything for you, Lecky, and you don’t care one bit about me.’ I let go of her brush.

  Elecktra stares at me, her dark eyes oiling with tears. ‘Cat, you’ve never yelled at me like that before,’ she stammers. Her bottom lip quivers.

  I choose not to stay for the drama. ‘Oh, stop fake crying,’ I say and slam her door behind me.

  I’ve been hanging out for today’s lesson on fire training, kaki. Since the dojang sits behind an abandoned petrol station, Sabo suggested we drive to a nearby deserted quarry to practise. Jackson’s brought the gunpowder and wants to show me how to handle fire safely. It’ll also be useful for when I go to the Cemetery of Warriors. Samurai are famous for their predilection for fire.

  Sabo sets up a fold-out chair, rests a fire extinguisher underneath it, takes a sports drink out of his Esky and sits down to read the paper. His Taekwondo uniform works as a suntan reflector, beaming rays up into his face. He puts on his sunglasses. He doesn’t need to tell us to be careful as Jackson has done so much fire training.

  ‘You haven’t said much about the Cemetery of Warriors lately,’ I say to Jackson as he sets up the explosives. He has a black eye from Hero. The dark bruising under his eye makes the green flecks flicker.

  He shrugs. ‘The warriors are there to protect their lineage and the purity of their fighting art.’

  Suddenly, I’m seized by panic. I can’t defend myself against any kind of warrior! I’m a newbie ninja — hardly a ninja at all. I still can’t throw my ninja star straight, and my strikes and kicks need more work. How am I meant to defeat a master?

  I grip Jackson by the shoulders and shake him. ‘What if I can’t do it?’

  ‘It’s just one move at a time,’ he says, calmly removing my hands and placing them in a prayer meditation position.

  ‘Stop speaking in bumper stickers,’ I say. ‘I could die!’ Why does he believe in me so much when no one else does?

  Jackson fetches a carton of pre-prepared hollowed-out eggs from the van. He uses a straw to blow some gunpowder into an egg, then throws it to the ground at his feet. Nothing happens. He tries again with another egg. Still nothing happens.

  ‘The gunpowder’s meant to make an explosion,’ he says, ‘and I would vanish behind the smoke screen.’

  ‘And?’ I say, hands on hips.

  I roll my eyes as he tries and fails for a third time to make himself vanish with an egg.

  We move on to attaching gunpowder-filled paper tubes to arrows, which we shoot at trees. Every time Jackson hits the target, Sabo cheers.

  ‘Usually we’d aim for flammable surfaces,’ Jackson tells me.

  I aim at the tree, pull back my elbow and release the arrow. It shoots backwards, not forwards, and pierces the soil close to Sabo’s feet.

  ‘Watch it, girl!’ Sabo yells as a small fire emerges. ‘My eyebrows are a feature — I’d like to keep them.’ He fans the drifting smoke away from his face and throws his sports drink on the flames.

  ‘Sooo, I hear you’ve been hanging around with my sister, Elecktra,’ I say as we practise with the arrows.

  ‘Yeah. Elecktra’s cool,’ he replies.

  My heart shrinks to a pin. It has taken some bravery for me to mention this and it wasn’t the response I wanted to hear.

  ‘She’s super cool,’ he adds.

  In boy language this translates to ‘super cute’. I throw down my bow and arrows and storm off into the bushes. Jackson catches up with me and spins me around.

  ‘You still think she’s super cool, even though she didn’t stick up for me?’ I search the green horizons of his eyes.

  ‘I know, I’m being pathetic,’ Jackson says.

  ‘And I’m pathetic at being a ninja,’ I sigh.

  ‘No.’ He puts a hand on my shoulder and I feel lighter than I do when I flash invisible. ‘You’re learning.’

  ‘But I can’t fire arrows. My weaponry is lame. I’ll never get to the Cemetery of Warriors at this rate,’ I say, kicking rocks with my tabi.

  Jackson takes five steps backwards, then shoots an arrow into a tree trunk directly above my head. It’s a perfect shot.

  ‘Bow and arrow was my weakest weapon too,’ he says. He takes my hand and the world colours again. ‘Don’t give up, okay?’ He smiles. ‘Friends?’

  I squeeze his hand, and he squeezes it back.

  We return to the training and I learn how to twirl fire sticks with sharpened points at either end, and scrunch gunpowder balls of paper that can be thrown like bombs. They remind me of the brown-paper fertiliser bombs kids use on frenemies’ doorsteps. When you stamp on them to put out the fire, you step in the fertiliser. Disgusting!

  Although I’m still pretty hopeless at the bow and arrow, I manage to master the torinoke — the eggs blown with gunpowder that create a smoke screen for disappearing. Jackson is very impressed. After I’ve vanished several times, we move on to specialised weapons, such as the chain-and-sickle weapon, which is a length of chain with a sickle-shaped blade projecting at a right angle from one end and a weight on the other. The weighted chain is used to ensnare an opponent’s wrist or ankle and drag them off their feet, then the sickle finishes them off.

  ‘These weapons come from our early origins. They were all farming tools,’ Jackson says.

  ‘How were they used for farming?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he says. ‘But it sounds cool.’

  I arrive home from training exhausted. Art is painting the living room a glowing iridescent yellow. He reckons Elecktra and I have been fighting a lot lately and, in our mother’s absence, he is determined to calm us down with ‘colour therapy’. But my gut isn’t feeling it. I drag my feet up the stairs, turn the corner and stop when I see my door.

  I bend down to inspect the handle and smile. My doorknob is missing and in its place is Elecktra’s. She has covered it with pink rhinestones and in the centre is an encrusted sapphire R. I trace the rhinestones with my finger.

  ‘I call it handle-dazzle,’ Elecktra says behind me. ‘I’m going to do Mum’s too. I’ve already bought the gold rhinestones. I did my phone,’ she says and flashes her phone at me. It’s covered in multicoloured stones.

  I continue to inspect the doorknob. It must have taken her ages, the stones are set perfectly.

  ‘Cat, I’ve been so stressed. My stomach is bloated. I hate it when we don’t talk.’ She casts her eyes down. I notice that she’s wearing her school tie around her wrist in a bow. ‘Are we friends?’ she asks.
<
br />   I look at the doorknob, then at Elecktra’s pleading eyes. I can’t shake the memory of her hiding behind Cinnamon’s hair while Hero called me names.

  ‘Lecky, I don’t want to be friends,’ I say and open my door. ‘I want to be sisters.’

  I close my door and hear her storm off.

  ‘Well, that was a waste of sparkles!’ she yells.

  FIFTEEN

  The only ninja skill I’m really good at is being invisible. Go figure. Invisibility magic could come in handy — imagine all the things I’ll be able to do! Spy on my classmates, my parents, Lecky, read my report card early. The possibilities are endless!

  The next day at school, I can’t resist any longer. I follow Elecktra and Jackson into the boys’ locker room. The place is deserted and filled with forgotten sports gear.

  ‘It smells disgusting in here,’ Elecktra says.

  Jackson laughs. Why is he laughing at that?

  Elecktra takes Jackson’s hand and pulls him towards her. He doesn’t put up a fight.

  Elecktra giggles.

  My ears explode!

  Don’t fall for this! I scream at him in my mind. I feel my stomach turn to barbed wire, my mouth fills with sand. I can’t swallow or breathe. Just the one thought over and over: I saw him first. He’s my friend.

  I met him first. I’m training to be a ninja. He’s my instructor. Elecktra has everything already — beauty, popularity, straight teeth. He’s the first guy who has ever even noticed me. And now she’s stealing him.

  I calm my mind, allow all thoughts to drain out of me and slowly turn invisible. I walk up to them, so close I can see Jackson’s long eyelashes twitch. I slow my own breathing and take a piece of cotton wool out of my pocket and shove it up my nose to reduce the sound of my breathing even more.

  ‘Roxy?’ Elecktra blinks at me under the silk fans of her eyelashes. ‘What are you doing here? I didn’t see you come in?’ she squeals.

  I am standing almost between them, my cotton-wool-stuffed nose a mere centimetre from Jackson’s jaw. Thinking negative thoughts caused my invisibility to fail.