by Beth Vrabel
Something about the way Miss Singer blinked at me, her eyes wide and watching for my reaction, made me think about when I was a little kid, still wearing a patch over what would soon be Artie, sitting in front of Therapy Panda as he prattled on and on about it being okay to feel however I felt. And deciding that I was only going to feel happy from then on.
I felt the wave pull back. I swallowed down the thick emotion, pushing it to wherever it had escaped like a geyser. No. I smiled, even though it felt nasty on my face.
“Is this some sort of quilt club intervention?” I asked.
“That depends,” Miss Singer said, still in her Therapy Panda voice. “How’d we do?”
“Sew, sew,” I said, grabbing my backpack and letting the door slam behind me before they could figure out the joke.
Chapter Thirteen
“Whoa,” Jocelyn said that night at Waters Martial Arts. “You’re fired up tonight.”
I shrugged.
“Everything okay?”
I didn’t answer, just punched the targets a bit faster. Jocelyn didn’t push for details. A side effect of having no social life—and, fine, also having an enormous crush on the instructor—made me a model student. I usually joked around between forms with the other students, but nothing seemed all that funny tonight. Maybe it was because Gramps was watching from the sidelines. Things had been a little awkward between us ever since I let him know I heard him talking to the yard horse. I guess that’s why I asked him if he wanted to come in and watch class tonight. “I’ll stay for a minute or two,” he had said. “Your mom’s going to pick you up. It’s free donut night for seniors at the Stop N Shop, so I can’t miss that.”
Jocelyn had been teaching us forms, calling out cues for each move. Anyone who messed up a step or couldn’t keep up had to sit down on the mat. Soon, I was the only one standing. Jocelyn called out cues faster and faster, but I didn’t miss a single move. I glanced over at Gramps when Jocelyn turned to straighten her belt. He gave me a thumbs up before heading out to his Goldsmobile to leave for his free donut.
My “reward” was target hitting. Jocelyn put a younger black belt—Peggy, the ten-year-old with pigtails of fury—in charge of the rest of the group, running them through the forms again and again. Meanwhile, Jocelyn picked up the handheld targets to work on punching and kicking with me. At the last class, Master Waters said I was inches away from sparring for real.
“You’re doing really well,” Jocelyn said.
The door swung open, letting in a blast of cold air. I didn’t turn from the target but watched Jocelyn’s face change when her eyes slid to the door. Her mouth twitched into a quick smile. Max.
I punched a little harder, kicked a little faster. Jocelyn’s smile now was turned on me. “Add in a sidestep.” She mimed the move, throwing out a roundhouse kick for me to dodge, then holding up the target for a jab, twisting it out for my side kick. My moves were dodge, jab, side kick. Dodge, jab, side kick.
“Faster!” she ordered. Everything else—even Max and the other guys watching from the mat—faded away. (Mostly.) Dodge, jab, side kick. Dodge,jab,side kick. Dodgejabsidekick.
Only I guess I went too fast because a side kick actually did hit Jocelyn, knocking her just above the belt and pushing her back a foot.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I yelped as she fell back on her butt.
“Don’t be sorry! That was awesome!” Jocelyn grinned.
Master Waters strode forward and held out his hand for Jocelyn, hoisting her to her feet. Everyone on the mat—and everyone waiting for the advanced class, including Max—seemed to be holding their breath. No one spoke. Turning back to me, Master Waters said, “Good skill set, but can you fight when the target fights back?”
I nodded. “I think so, sir.”
“Are you serious?” Jocelyn asked. “Am I finally off rookie duty?”
Master Waters crossed his beefy arms. “How about you stick around after your regular class for sparring next week,” he said to me.
“Yes, sir.”
Jocelyn bounced on the balls of her feet. I grinned at her and she clapped her hands.
“Does this mean I get to take class tonight instead of just teaching the rookies?” Jocelyn asked Master Waters.
“Suppose so,” he said.
“Finally!” Jocelyn darted to the edge of the mat, where Max whirled her around in a circle.
“Sparring drills!” Master Waters called to the class, who let out a cheer. Jocelyn knelt by her duffel bag, putting on her sparring gear.
Master Waters blocked my view of Jocelyn, stepping directly in front of me. “We have a sparring class on Monday between the beginners and advanced classes. Don’t think for a minute that sparring means you stop taking regular classes. You need to do both to be part of the team.” I nodded and Master Waters added that he needed a note from my homeroom teacher, verifying my grades were decent and my effort in class good.
“Just so I can fight?” I asked.
Master Waters nailed me with a glare so sharp it could’ve skewered one of Mom’s bugs. “Waters Martial Arts is known as a premier fighting school. No one beats us.” He gestured to the trophies lining the room. “The reason no one beats us is because of our unparalleled expectations for students. You will be successful on the mat, and you will carry that success off the mat in school and in your personal life.”
I bit back my urge to look over my shoulder for a camera crew. Clearly this speech was meant for commercials—or at minimum had been delivered in front of the mirror dozens of times. Given the fact that earlier today I discovered not everyone appreciates my finely tuned sense of humor, combined with the fact that this man could probably do some ninja trick that replaced my face with my butt, I opted to simply nod. “Yes, sir,” I added, when the skewer look didn’t soften.
Master Waters nodded. “I’ll make sure you have a set of sparring gear ready by Monday. Do you need to wear those glasses?”
I nodded. “Mom’ll flip if I don’t. They protect my good eye.”
“Most kids who wear glasses try to get contacts for sparring.”
“That won’t work for me,” I snapped. Master Waters’s eyes widened. “Sir,” I added hastily.
Master Waters mashed his lips together. “I think I have a helmet with a face shield in the back somewhere. Wearing it’ll be tricky as it affects depth perception, but then you won’t have to wear the glasses underneath. They’ll fog up fast.”
I nodded, trying to feel excited to be in sparring. I mean, I was excited, about three seconds ago when Jocelyn was cheering. But then I thought she was cheering because I had done such an awesome job. But, no. She was cheering to be rid of instructing me!
Like he could read my storming thoughts, Max walked by, fake punching me in the shoulder with his padded-up hand. “Thanks, man,” he said around his mouth guard. “Glad to have my girlfriend back again.”
I didn’t say anything, just shrugged.
“And already looking forward to Monday’s fight,” he added in an undertone as his dad walked off.
I slowly left the mat and took a seat in the chairs lined up along the wall for moms and dads. Mom was already twenty minutes late. I texted her about ten minutes later, tired of watching Max maneuvering to be next to Jocelyn in line. Tired of him glancing over to make sure I saw, too.
Mom, where are you?
A minute later, she replied.
Sorry, Ryder! Had to find a good place to pull over and respond. In traffic. Be there in ten.
But ten minutes later, the advanced class was over and Mom still wasn’t there.
Max grabbed a giant broom and swept down the mats. Jocelyn pulled targets to the corners of the room. Master Waters turned off lights in the changing rooms and bathrooms. I pretended to be invisible. Can you picture the awkwardness? The three of them shutting down the place; me just sitting there. I thought about asking what I could do to help, but it’d be oh so much more awkward when they finished the clean-up routine
even earlier thanks to my help and Mom still wasn’t there. So I just sat there, staring at the phone on my lap, wishing Gramps had a cell phone so I could pull him away from his jelly-filled treat to come and get me.
I would’ve waited outside but it started raining (of course) and was just barely above freezing.
Eventually, Master Waters stood in front of me. “Do you need to borrow a phone to call your mom?” he asked, even though I was, in fact, holding my phone.
“She’s on her way, commuting from DC and stuck in traffic.”
Master Waters nodded and crossed his arms. He was too far away to confirm this, but I think the squeaking sound I heard was his teeth gnashing.
“I can wait outside,” I said. “There’s a coffee shop across the street. I’ll text her to pick me up there, instead.”
“Great,” Max said. “Let’s go.” He put his arm around Jocelyn. I could feel her watching me but didn’t look her way.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. I did look then and saw her shrug off Max’s arm. “Master Waters, Ryder lives next door to me.” She turned toward me for a second. “Can you just give him a lift, too?”
“Don’t you and Max want to head to our house for some grub like you usually do?” Master Waters asked.
“I have a lot of homework,” Jocelyn said. “I’d rather just go home tonight.” Two bright red splotches appeared on Max’s face. I worked very, very hard on not smiling.
“All right.” Master Waters opened the door. “Let’s go.”
We ran from the school to Master Waters’s Jeep, the rain blasting against our heads. The air was so bitter I had to fight not to shiver, though my teeth did clack together slightly. Artie gets cold fast, and I felt streaks of heat down my cheek as tears joined the raindrops on my face.
Jocelyn hopped in the back of Master Waters’s Jeep and Max pushed me backward with his shoulder to slide in next to her. “Sit up with me, son,” Master Waters said to Max. “You’re not going to want to switch seats when we drop these two off at the same spot in this rain.”
This time I didn’t bother to hide my smile. I let it loose right in Lash Boy’s furious face. His nostrils flared.
“Come on!” said Jocelyn, interrupting our stare off. “It’s cold.” I slid into the seat next to her and pulled out a bottle of eyedrops from my duffel bag. When Artie starts tearing up, a few drops usually get things back to normal. I didn’t want it to look like I was crying or something because Mom wasn’t there. Master Waters, Max, and Jocelyn suddenly all seemed very preoccupied with their seatbelts.
“It’s just eyedrops,” I said. “I’m not taking it out or anything.”
“Does—can you go in the rain?” Max stuttered.
“Yeah, I only take it out every couple of months. It’s just the cold, not the rain, that’s bothering me.” Lash Boy’s mouth dropped open, and I knew another question he didn’t want to ask and I didn’t want to answer was about to trickle out. Sometimes I wished I had a FAQ sheet to distribute to answer questions such as: Can you sleep in it? Yes. Can you swim with it? Yes. Can I hold it? No.
Max sucked on his lip. His cheeks flushed red for a moment. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Nah, don’t sweat it,” I said. Maybe it was the lashes, but sometimes it was actually tough to be mad at the guy. He was so freaking nice, you know?
Just then, yellow lights lit up the inside of the car. Mom’s station wagon pulled up behind us. She beeped in two quick bursts.
“Isn’t that your mom’s car?” Jocelyn prodded when I didn’t move.
“Perfect timing, as usual.” I slipped out of the seat, grabbing my duffel bag. “Thank you anyway, Master Waters.”
“Hang on a sec, son,” he said, and opened the glove box. He rummaged for a second and pulled out a brochure while the rain drummed against the back of my neck. Master Waters handed me the paper. “Give this to your mom. It has our schedule printed, so she remembers when to pick you up.”
I stood there a second too long, almost ready to spout out that it didn’t matter if he tattooed the time on Mom’s forehead. If she—or Dad, if we’re being honest—got caught up in research, nothing else mattered. Not eating, not other commitments, certainly not pickup times. But I didn’t even make a joke. I just closed the door.
Mom’s apologies pelted me faster than the rain as I got into the station wagon. “Oh, Ryder! Traffic was awful! If I had known that two more minutes in the lab would mean forty more in traffic, I’d never have done it.” But then her voice rose to buzzing hum. “But, Ryder! We’re so, so close to determining the temperature threshold for insect development. The possibilities this implies, especially for emerging mosquito populations …”
On and on she droned, not even noticing when I slipped on earbuds.
Late that night, the rain stopped. It ended so suddenly it was like a door slamming shut. One second rain bulleted against the windows of my bedroom. The next, silence. Sleep was just out of my reach anyway, but impossible in the sudden quiet.
I crept out of the bedroom, not turning on any lights. My head was such a mess—a karate-chopping, cup-stacking, girl-crushing mess. I used my newbie ninja skills to be super quiet so Mom and Gramps wouldn’t wake up and ask me what I was doing. I just might’ve told them the truth when what I really needed was to figure out a way to push it all aside and clear my head again.
I grabbed a sweatshirt and pulled it on as I opened the front door. I wondered if I’d be able to see the stars now that the storm had cleared. Stars are something I remember from before. We’d go camping a lot on weekends, and I remember Dad pointing out the constellations and Mom turning them into stories. I used to be able to spot the Bear no matter where I was. But now, it was trickier. Twenty-seventy vision doesn’t affect me too much, but I do miss seeing the stars well. The only time I could really make out constellations was in Montana last year. There, the stars were so bright I think Artie could’ve made them out.
When I looked up at the night sky, all I saw were shades of gray and black. If the stars were out, I couldn’t see them. I sighed through my nose and leaned against the yard horse (which was holding a pumpkin and wearing devil horns).
“Trouble sleeping?”
For a heart-clenching second I thought the yard horse was talking to me! (That certainly would shed a new light on Gramps’s conversations with it.) Even more startling, the voice came from the horse’s behind. “I couldn’t sleep, either.”
By then I figured out who was speaking, though she was on my blind side. Even so, I said, “Well, that’s because you’re a cement horse.”
“Har har.” Jocelyn stepped around the horse toward me. “Insomniac?” she asked.
“It got quiet,” I said by way of explanation.
Jocelyn nodded. “I hate rain,” she said. “I could probably fall asleep now; I had to make sure it really stopped.”
I arched an eyebrow, waiting for her to explain why she hated the rain. But she didn’t say anything, just stared up at the sky. “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”
I didn’t bother looking up again. “Yeah.”
“So,” Jocelyn said, her face still upturned, “your mom.”
I sighed. “She gets caught up in things.”
“Are you okay?” Jocelyn asked. She took a half step closer to me so that now I felt her hair tickle my cheek.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason.” Jocelyn turned toward me, her breath a warm cloud by my ear. For a second I thought, if I turned toward her … if I leaned in … But quick as a clap, Jocelyn turned away. “Good night, Richie Ryder. Enjoy the stars.”
“Good night,” I whispered as she disappeared into the dark on my right.
Chapter Fourteen
I guess I eventually fell asleep after going back to bed, because suddenly daylight streamed in through my windows. For a minute I had that oh-crap-what-time-is-it panic that always comes along with waking up with too much sun on my face on a Saturday morning. Then I
did the most reasonable thing: just rolled on my left side so my working eye was covered with my pillow and tried to fall back asleep.
“Cah, cah, cah!”
No such luck. Gramps was busting a gut about something in the kitchen. Even folding the pillow up over my ears wouldn’t block out the guffaws. I heard a second voice, though, definitely male. I popped up out of the bed, falling to the floor with a thud when the blankets swirled and tightened around my legs. Kicking them off, I shot to the door, throwing it open and rushing down the hall.
“Dad?” I called, sleep falling too slowly from me to remember to sidestep the General. She was in her usual spot at the end of the hall, ready to pounce. Which she did, wrapping her mean yellow paws around my leg and sinking her teeth into my calf.
I heard the chairs slide back on the linoleum floor. “Richie Ryder,” Gramps called, “it’s—”
“Dad?” I called again. I rushed into the kitchen, sliding in my socks, and finding myself face to face with Logan. (Don’t remember Logan? He was the skinny, ruddy-faced kid with floppy brown hair whose chair I stole on my first day of school. He’d given me the stink-eye every day since. Line up all the people who hated me at Papuaville Middle School and Logan and Max would pummel each other to be first.)
“Logan,” Gramps finished. He tilted his head toward me. “Logan, this is my grandson, Richie Ryder.”
“We’ve met,” I said before Logan could reply. “What are you doing here?” I scraped off the General with my other ankle and covered my nether-regions with my hands. Did I mention that I was just wearing boxers and socks?
Logan didn’t seem to know where to look. His mouth hung open. Eventually, he sat down and stared at Gramps.
“Let’s just get on with the interview.” Gramps sighed.
“Interview?” I said, pushing the General away a little farther with my foot. She hissed at me and slowly licked her leg while still glaring.
