by Beth Vrabel
“It was cancer. I was seven.”
She was quiet for a second. Around us, kids called out facts to each other. Seats shifted and squeaked on the linoleum floor. The long fluorescent lights above us buzzed. Miss Singer wrote in the notebook she always had with her at the desk in front of us. But somehow all I heard was the thump of my heart. All I felt was the small inch of space where our hands still touched and the soft breeze of her breath as it fell across my arm. The darkness to my right didn’t matter at all, because Jocelyn was at my left.
“Will the cancer come back?” She didn’t breathe after asking. I didn’t think she would until I answered.
“I don’t think so. I get scans every year, though.” But with planning the move from Addison, we skipped this year’s scan. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the thought. Again acting without thinking it through, I added, “I try not to think about it.”
“It scares you.” It wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
“You can’t stop thinking about it.”
This time I didn’t breathe. I nodded again.
“I was in … an accident. When I was nine.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Wrong move, because a half-second later, Jocelyn moved, yanking her sleeves over her hands and closing her notebook. It took me a bit longer to realize that I hadn’t been the one to break whatever spell fell over us. The bell had rang.
“Class is over,” Miss Singer said when I still sat there at the desk even as the class emptied.
Two miles doesn’t sound like a whole lot when you’re convincing your mom that you can walk home from school by yourself instead of taking the bus. But did you know that there are two thousand steps in every mile? So walking home means taking four thousand steps. And if each step is about a second-long, you’ve got four thousand seconds to think about the beautiful girl who lives next door to you and what might’ve happened to her when she was nine.
I thought about what I knew—what she had said and what she hadn’t said. I thought about the way she pulled her sleeves over her hands and wondered if she had scars on her arms. What kind of accident would leave scars? I thought of what she said when she told me about Gramps bringing her candy on Halloween, about how nice it was to laugh because everyone is so serious with her. What kind of accident would cause everyone to treat you differently? I thought about Max—how weirdly protective he was of Jocelyn, like it was his job or something. Even Mr. Waters was kind of like that.
At the end of four thousand steps I didn’t know anything more than when I had started the trek home—except that I was capable of thinking about nothing but Jocelyn for two miles straight.
Then, there she was, standing in Gramps’s driveway, with the same tucking-back-a-laugh smile and dark hair shining in the late afternoon light. Jocelyn’s eyes were bright, and for a moment, I felt my heart float right up to my throat at the thought that I had put that brightness in her brown eyes.
“Why weren’t you on the bus?” she asked.
“Walking is highly aerobic. Good for the heart. You should try it.”
“Maybe I will.” She smiled and stepped aside. “Looks like Gramps was busy while we were at school.”
And there was the yard horse, backpack gone, replaced with a karate uniform and eye patch.
“The old man’s hilarious,” I said.
Jocelyn grinned, her face so shining and bright that I wanted to give her something. I wanted to be the one making her smile like that, not the old geezer and his horrible yard horse. Something yellow caught my attention, drooping in the decrepit flower garden around the horse. A huge, sunshiny dandelion, its bloom nearly as wide as my fist. I bent, plucked it, and offered it to Jocelyn.
Her nose crinkled and she folded her arms across her chest. That bright smile faded. “No, thanks.”
“It’s a flower,” I said. “For you.”
“It’s a weed.”
“Don’t listen to her,” I whispered to the dandelion.
Jocelyn knocked the dandelion out of my hand with a quick swipe of her hand.
“Wow,” I said, “not even to class yet and you’re showcasing your wax-on, wax-off skills.” She made a face at me. “Now you’re showing off your ability to roll both eyes. Gotta put the new guy in his place, I guess.”
She groaned and turned toward her house, stepping right on the bright yellow blossom. “Get ready,” Jocelyn called over her shoulder. “I hear the instructor is tough on newbies.”
Chapter Nine
Dad must’ve been at his laptop when I sent him an email, because I had a reply almost right away.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Life with Gramps
Hey Ryder, sorry to hear my dad’s been up to his old tricks. Be thankful you didn’t grow up with him. I remember my first sleepover, how he had helped me pack everything up. That night there I was feeling cool at my buddy’s house and I grabbed my sleeping bag, tossed it out to unroll it, and out falls a roll of toilet paper and a baby binkie. Everyone made fun of me all night. When I woke up in the morning, the binkie was in my mouth. One of the guys popped it in there while I slept. I didn’t talk to my dad for a week.
Man, I haven’t thought about that in years. Dad said he thought it’d make everyone laugh, kick off the fun at the sleepover. The man can be clueless.
If he gives you more trouble like that quilting class, just tell your mom. She’ll keep him in line. But try not to let him get to you. Old man means well. He’s just misguided.
About that girl next door, yeah, I think I do remember hearing something about an accident. She and her brother, I think. Some sort of fire, and he didn’t make it out. Sad story. I think they were nine and ten at the time.
Dad was really broken up about it.
All right, gotta get back to the grind. I’m collecting dung samples today. Wish you were here.
—Dad
P.S. About the karate class—what have you got to lose? You were pretty awesome at it before. Never backed down.
Gramps’s Goldsmobile shut off with a growl and puff of gray smoke outside Waters Martial Arts studio. I cranked on the handle to roll up the window and spare the ears of the kids walking in from the atrocity of “Disco Duck.” (It’s a song. For real. YouTube it. On second thought, don’t. Just know that it’s as terrible as the title suggests. Then picture an old man shimmying his butt in the seat next to you as he quacks along.)
“Ready to knock ’em dead, Richie?” Gramps asked as I opened the door.
I ignored him. “Class is an hour, so you can head home.”
I tried to ignore the way his face puckered a little bit and his hand slid from his own door handle. “Oh. All right. See you tonight.”
“Bye, Gramps.” I felt a smidge guilty and wasn’t sure why. I mean, the guy is a jerk to me all the time. Dad’s voice rang in my ears, about Gramps being lonely. Maybe the tae kwon horse wasn’t a jab but rather a show of support. Maybe he’s not awful. Maybe I’m the awful one. I paused and turned around. “Do you, um, want to watch or something?”
Gramps yanked the keys out of the ignition so fast I thought he’d whip himself in the face with them. “Let’s go!”
I don’t remember much about my last karate studio. I mean, I was only seven after all. (Truthfully, most of my two-eyed memories are blurry. The irony isn’t lost on me there.) But I vaguely remember a matted floor. White walls. A lot of trophies in cases. Pretty quiet, except for a couple moms chatting while we went through forms and kicks.
Waters Martial Arts? It was nothing like that. At all.
Music boomed from huge speakers in the back of the room. A hip-hop song melted into punk rock, followed by a guitar-heavy ’80s anthem, and then alt-rock. Only one thing was common with each song—intense and fast beats.
“Ah, you’re here, Mr. Raymond.” Max’s dad crossed the huge open gym in long strides. He wore a black b
elt with a red stripe through the middle. I noticed that as he passed us the kids in his path moved out of the way. One of them called him “Master.” I wondered if I’d have to do that. I think “mister” is plenty polite, don’t you?
“I told your grandfather on the phone earlier that Wednesdays might be a better day to start, since today is our most intense workout day. Most newbies wait at least a month before taking on Full Throttle Tuesdays.” We both turned toward Gramps, who was cackling into his fist. That almost-sorry, nearly-ready-to-bond feeling I had earlier? Whoosh. Gone.
“Maybe you’d like to just watch today,” Mr. Waters suggested. Just then Max passed by to get a drink from the water fountain. But first he snickered.
My chin popped up. How hard could it be? I don’t mean to brag, but I can run a mile in under seven minutes. Top of my class at Addison.
“No, I’d like to start today,” I said.
This, I soon realized, was both the right and wrong thing to say.
It was right, because Mr. Waters’s eyebrow arched again. His bottom lip jutted out a bit and he nodded. For the first time ever, it felt like I wasn’t a boogie stuck in his nose but an actual person. “I admire that, son,” he said.
Max choked on his gulp of water.
But it was also the wrong thing to say because Full Throttle Tuesdays were designed by the devil. We had to run through different stations in groups of five, staying at each for five minutes at a time. These stations included standing up only to fall back down into push-ups, then popping back up to do it all over again, kicking targets, standing in a squat and punching the air in front of us, and alternating between panicking that your lungs would explode and wishing for said explosion. By the time I got to the plank station, I was grateful to stick to one position.
The whipped cream to top this suck sundae was that all of this was led by Peggy, a black belt in pigtails who might’ve been ten years old. “Dig!” Peggy bellowed at us as she skipped—skipped!—between stations. “Dig!”
You might think I’d whine a little. Maybe even cry or collapse or, worse yet, quit. No way, man. And this was crazy—totally insane—because I hurt all over. But not once did I slow or grimace or pause. And not because I’m in super shape or anything. Not even because I had something to prove to Master Waters or Gramps or Max.
I’m having trouble describing it but somewhere in the push-ups and the puddles of sweat, I lost myself and just became this body. This body that went through motions and pushed and even pulsed with the music that pumped through the air. This body that was listening and doing what I wanted it to do, not making me a product of what it inflicted on me.
Not that I wasn’t tired. I mean, my glasses fogged up. My muscles melted to goo. My arms flopped instead of jabbed by the end of five minutes. I’m pretty sure the moves I was doing weren’t the real moves, either. I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t going to throw up the chicken noodle soup I had eaten before class. But somehow I pushed that all aside and I was just there, following Peggy the Pint-Sized Punisher’s squeaky demands to “Dig! Dig! Dig!”
Maybe I could go all philosophical about it. Later that night, lying in bed, I sort of did, I guess. I mean, for a while after getting Artie, Mom and Dad made me go to this therapist. I had to sit in an office in front of this roundish man with deep dark circles under his eyes, accentuated by even darker thick glasses, and talk. I felt as if I were at the zoo, visiting the panda exhibit, except the animal kept asking, “How do you feel?” in a low, drawn-out voice. Anyway, nothing the therapist said really stuck with me except for this: “You’re allowed to feel however you feel. Let yourself feel it.” He had shifted in his chair and added, “And however you feel is normal.”
I remember that because, frankly, it’s total crap. Total. Crap.
You don’t have to feel bad if you don’t want to. I repeat: you don’t. You don’t have to feel sad or angry or mad. You don’t. I mean it. You just decide, “Nope.” That’s what I did. I decided that while looking at the sad panda man. I wasn’t going to wallow or be angry or whatever else would be a “normal” feeling. I was going to laugh. Mom brought the therapist a bamboo plant during our last session, so glad and relieved that I was so happy after just a few sessions. Therapy Panda warned that I’d need to deal with my emotions eventually, but you know what? That was seven years ago. Half my life ago! And I’m still doing just fine.
But do you remember where I was now? In the middle of Full Throttle Tuesday, doing knee drops across the mat, trying not to slip in my own puddle of sweat. Sorry if I distracted you with that digression, but for some reason, Therapy Panda popped in my head. And I think it was because, right then, I wasn’t trying to feel—or not feel—anything. I was just moving. No worries about doctor appointments. No jealousy over old friends making new friends. No crushes on beautiful, unavailable girls next door. No anger at stupid old men and stupider yard horses with eye patches. No nothing.
And it was awesome.
Toward the end of class, as I limped to the water fountain, Master Waters fist bumped me. Max, standing just behind him, carefully ignored me.
“Great job out there, son,” Master Waters said. “I haven’t seen so much potential in a kid on day one in a long time. Can’t wait to see you in the sparring ring.”
Later, I was pretty freaking thrilled at the compliment. But in the moment, I was just trying to stand upright.
“You and me both,” Max muttered. He popped a plastic mouth guard between his lips and trotted out to the advanced sparring class starting behind us. All of the students wore foam padded helmets and padding on their hands and feet. Some of the fighters wore harder chest protection, too. In pairs, they kicked, punched, and pummeled each other. I sank into the seat next to Gramps to watch—and, okay, to gain the strength to stand again.
This one kid was smaller than the rest but with moves that were like a blur. The opposing fighter ducked and blocked as best he could but was no match for the smaller fighter who just took the hits and barreled ahead with pure aggression. The fighter’s leg pumped kicks without ever dipping to the ground. Whap, whap, whap into the bigger kid’s side and then a slice through the air to land a hit to the head.
“Wowza,” Gramps muttered beside me.
The bell rang, ending the match, but the fight kept going anyway, the smaller fighter rushing the larger fighter, who finally must’ve had enough. As the smaller fighter rushed him, he lifted his leg in a quick side kick, sending the smaller fighter flying backward to land sprawled on the mat.
I was so caught up in the fight, I hadn’t noticed Master Waters’s scary purple face. Without even checking to see if the kid was okay, he yanked the smaller fighter upright and screamed, “What the hell were you thinking? Never rush into a kick! How many times do I have to tell you? You’ve got to fight with your head, too!”
I sucked in my breath as the kid reached up to pull off the helmet. The sleeves of the kid’s uniform slipped down, the fluorescent lights making the puckered white scars shine.
And I knew who it was before the helmet was off. Jocelyn. She sucked in air, her shoulders rising with the effort. Funny, I had always thought she seemed thin and sort of delicate. But now I knew. She was strong and tough as braided wire.
And apparently in major trouble with Master Waters, who looked ready to throttle her again. “What’s wrong with you today?”
“I don’t know,” Jocelyn said. She shook her head, letting her black hair swing around her head. “I’m sorry. I’ll concentrate more next time.” She slipped a hand up under the chest gear, rubbing at her ribs, where the larger fighter had kicked her. Max took a half step toward her, his eyes narrowed on that spot.
The larger fighter—I recognized him now from the halls at school—held out a hand to shake Jocelyn’s. “Sorry if I hurt you,” he said, eyes flicking to Max and back to Jocelyn. I think he was apologizing more to him than her.
“No, no,” she said. “My fault for rushing you. Stupid rookie mistake.”
Master Waters crossed his arms and nodded. “Good word choice. You’re on rookie duty.” He turned his back on Jocelyn.
“Wait!” Jocelyn called out at the same time Max said, “What?”
Master Waters didn’t bother turning back to them, just tapped two other fighters on the shoulders and reset the timer. “I mean it, Jocelyn. You’re in charge of training the newbies. Until you can focus on control, you’re not sparring. In fact,” he said, glancing over at me, where I suddenly felt like a boogie all over again, “you can start training again when someone in the beginners’ class reaches the point where he or she can spar.”
“But that takes weeks!” Jocelyn snapped. Max shook his head at me like this was all my fault. Again, I did something both very smart and very stupid. I grinned at him and winked. Smart, because it felt amazing, especially when his head practically imploded, going all sorts of scary colors before settling on white. Stupid, because I was pretty sure he’d murder me at his first opportunity.
“You have a death wish, Richie Ryder?” Gramps muttered. “That boy looks like he wants to break your face into splinters. I just saw him break a board. He could do it, boy. He could turn your face into splinters.”
I sighed. “I’m just messing with him. He thinks I’m after his girlfriend.”
Gramps nodded and crossed his hairy arms. “Which you are.”
I shrugged and Gramps laughed like a crow. “When he breaks your face into splinters, I’ll pick up a piece or two—maybe one with a freckle—to send to your dad. Give him something to remember you by.”
I elbowed the old man, trying to quiet his cackling enough to listen to Master Waters.
“Yeah, it might take weeks. Or longer,” he was telling Jocelyn, his back still to her. “Depends on the student and your ability as the teacher. For now, that’s you, Jocie.”
