by Beth Vrabel
“Does that mean you’re planning on going?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it, kiddo.”
I hung out in the quilt club room until about thirty seconds before the last bell for homeroom. As I was walking into school, I realized that the thread stockpile totally made more sense if organized in Roy G. Biv order, you know? My head throbbed like it had been quilted by the time I was done, but it felt good to bring some order to the club. Not that they’d appreciate it. Janet May already snarked that the alphabetical order she had institutionalized was just fine. Control freak, that one. Can you believe she accused me of trying to skirt running into Max in the hall, too? Totally untrue. I was avoiding Jocelyn, who was waiting for me in homeroom.
“Where’ve you been?” Jocelyn said as I slid into my seat.
“I’ve been sick.”
“Too sick to return my texts?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, meaning it. I thought about telling her I also ignored about fifty texts from Alice. I was an equal opportunity ignorer.
After bio, Miss Singer called me to her desk just as Jocelyn turned to me. I shrugged. “Catch up with you later.”
Jocelyn bit her lip. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“I know.”
Jocelyn looked down, her dark hair covering her eyes. Without thinking, I swept it back with my fingertips. Jocelyn smiled in response, and for some reason that made me feel worse.
“Mr. Raymond,” Miss Singer snapped as I approached her desk. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, realizing too late I was flapping my hand the way Gramps does. I let my hand drop. “Just a stomach bug, I guess.”
Miss Singer nodded. “Nothing to do with what happened on Monday?”
“What happened on Monday?” I asked, like I couldn’t remember. “Oh, you mean in the cafeteria—with Artie?” I flapped my hand again. “That was nothing. Guys have been high-fiving me all morning. It was hilarious!”
She nodded again. “Are you using the notebook I gave you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“If you’d like to talk to someone, I’m here. But if you want a professional, our school counselor is excellent—”
“I’m good,” I snapped.
Saturday morning, I woke up to a note waiting for me on the kitchen table. Something urgent came up, Ryder. Gramps will take you to the tournament and I’ll meet you there.
“Wouldn’t miss it, huh, Mom?”
“You talking to yourself, boy?” Gramps tied a black and white bandana around his head like the old Asian guy in the first Karate Kid movie. I had a sinking suspicion the yard horse had a matching ensemble. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Let’s go!”
I switched out my usual so-sad-even-plastic-trees-make-me-miserable playlist to something more upbeat to get into the right fighting frame of mind as we drove down the block. Then I gave up entirely when Gramps jammed to this epic ’70s tune with all these trumpets and clarinets that made my heart wiggle in my chest. He bopped along so hard that the Oldsmobile rocked.
“Come on, kid!” he yelled. “If this song was good enough for Rocky, it’s good enough for you!”
“Good enough for who?”
“Pschaw!” Hand flap.
I have to admit, by the end of the song I might’ve been hooting an imaginary jazz clarinet. We were laughing too hard when the song finished to realize the next one was a total downer. Some dweeb singing way too sincerely about liking to dream. I fake puked at the next lyric, about holding each other in paradise until he wakes. Then I saw Gramps, his goofy grin gone, replaced with twisting, shaking lips.
“Haven’t heard this song in a long time.” His voice was thick. “Go ahead, change it, Richie Ryder.”
I almost did, and had my hand on the knob to change the station and everything. Then I said, “Nah. I like it.”
Gramps nodded. “Your grandma liked it, too.” He smiled. “She was the happiest person you’d ever met but listened to the saddest drivel you can imagine.”
“Hey—I do that, too!” I said.
“How ’bout that,” Gramps murmured, a smile still on his face.
The tournament venue was about an hour away and my stupid chest didn’t start freaking out until we pulled into the packed parking lot. Tons of martial artists poured into the building, many of them holding weapons—long swords, evil-looking curved blades, wooden staffs. Others had uniforms that looked more like what you’d expect a boxer to wear, all silky and shiny. Granted, a bunch were skinny and scared looking, too, but most carried themselves like nothing—and no one—could touch them.
For a minute or two, Gramps and I just stared. “You better get moving,” he finally said, and pointed to the glowing red clock on the dashboard. The tournament was going to start in five minutes. “Don’t you have to register or something?”
“No, just need to check in. Max handled the registration.” Honestly, just thinking of Max brought my nerves to a whole new threshold of what-the-heck-are-you-doing-here.
Gramps clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Either you win or you get your butt kicked,” he said.
“Great pep talk, Gramps.”
He dropped his arm to take the key out of the ignition. “Either way,” he continued, “you’ve done something great. You put yourself out there, and that’s the scariest thing.”
I waited for the punchline, but it never came.
Picture the tournament: an enormous gymnasium broken up into ten rings. By ring, I mean a square mat with judges stationed in each corner. After I signed in, the registration person handed me an index card with the number of my ring (7) and a schedule. First up were weapons, then sparring. So I had some time to kill.
“You sure this is your ring?” Gramps asked as we made our way to the bleachers in front of ring 7.
I double checked the card. “Yeah, this is it.”
The bleachers were packed, and the ring was too far away for me to make out the martial artists going through their weapons forms. (Just so you know: no one fights with weapons. Man, that’d be a show, huh? Each person just does a form with the weapons. If they drop their weapons at any point, they’re automatically disqualified.)
A groan and then a smattering of applause broke out from in front of the ring. “Aw, man. Someone dropped their weapon, huh?” I said to Gramps.
He just nodded, eyes on the ring.
“Hey—you look worried,” I said to him. “I got this!”
Gramps’s eyes slid to mine, then back to the ring. “Who was it that registered you here? Master Waters?”
“No, Max.”
“Huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Gramps said after too long a pause. “There’s your team.” He pointed to a cluster of people walking through the doors. I recognized the white and black uniforms, got up, and hurried toward them. (I know what you’re thinking: Hurrying toward them? The people you’ve been avoiding all week? Here’s the thing: maybe all the jazz clarinet scrambled my brain, but something Gramps said in the car triggered a need to talk to Max. That thing about the scariest part being actually putting yourself out there.) I ran into Master Waters first, as he walked away from Jocelyn and Max. “Ready to go, Mr. Raymond?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good. School’s counting on you and Jocie, too, since Max can’t compete.” He crossed his arms and glared at me.
“Ah.” I took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll be at ring seven, okay?” I tried to scoot around him.
“Seven?” Master Waters echoed.
I nodded, hurrying after Max.
He and Jocelyn were whisper fighting. Not good. Put yourself out there. I stepped closer to them. Jocelyn turned to me, pressing a hand into my chest. Max turned away. “Jocelyn, can I have a minute to talk with Max?”
“Ryder,” she whispered, “maybe we should talk first …”
“No, I really need to talk to him.”
Jocelyn sighed. “All right.
Come find me after, okay? I need to sign in still anyway.”
I nodded without really looking at her. Max found a seat on the edge of piled up mats beside the bleachers. Up close now, I could see the faint bruising under his eyes. His nose looked a little swollen but not much. The way his face was twisted, though, and the way his shoulders slumped, he looked like he was in major pain.
“I’m sorry about your nose.” My words rushed out before I wimped out of saying it. “I don’t know why I hit you. I shouldn’t have. It’s like, you … you make me see everything that’s wrong with me. Everything I don’t want to see.” I half-snorted. “And I already can’t see a lot, so that’s something.”
Max didn’t react, just kept glaring at his feet.
“Anyway, I shouldn’t have done it.” I heard my voice harden. “And you shouldn’t have done what you did to me in the cafeteria.” Again I paused, but he didn’t so much as flinch.
“I didn’t do anything in the cafeteria. You tripped,” he spoke in a whisper.
I shook my head. “I tripped on the chair you kicked into me.”
Max shrugged. “How was I supposed to know your eye would fall out?”
“You weren’t,” I said. “But when it did, you could’ve stopped what happened next. You know you could’ve. If you had just—”
“Just what?” Max asked.
“Told them to stop. They would’ve listened to you. Everyone listens to you. You’re like the hometown hero.” My stomach twisted, remembering how he had sat there in the cafeteria. The way he was just sitting there now. “So we’re even.”
“Even?” Max grunted. When he looked up at me, I stepped back at the twisted, hate-filled look he threw my way. He laughed, but it was bitter. “You punch me, then you steal my girlfriend, and you think we’re even because I didn’t stop other people from picking on you?”
“Well, it sounds a little one-sided when you put it that way.” I laughed nervously. Max didn’t. “And I didn’t steal your girlfriend. Jocelyn said you broke up with her.”
“Then you’re not with Jocelyn?” Max looked up, staring at me.
“Wait? What? We’re not … it’s not like that.” I mean, yeah, we kissed. But it wasn’t like she was my girlfriend or anything.
“You didn’t make a move on her less than an hour after we broke up?” Max spit out.
“No, of course not.” Because it wasn’t like, a move. Somehow we kissed. But I didn’t kiss her. It just happened.
Max jumped to his feet. “You know, I always try to do what’s right. But with you? I just can’t. And now—you standing here, lying straight to my face? I don’t even feel bad about it. We’re not even. Not even close.” He leaned in. I felt his hot breath on my face. “Yet.” His eyes flicked to the rings. “Better suit up. Your ring is ready.”
Jocelyn ran up to me as I made my way to ring 7. She smiled, and for just a moment, I felt the flicker of that old electricity. I grinned back. So it hadn’t gone as I had hoped (honestly, I sort of pictured that whole exchange with Max ending with fist bumps and maybe a pep talk or something), but I hadn’t dodged something that scared me, and that felt pretty good.
“How’d that go? When I told Max we were together, he didn’t—”
“What? Why would you say that?”
Jocelyn’s cheeks flushed. “Because we sort of are.”
I backed up a step. “Listen, Jocelyn. I like you. I do. But let’s just slow down a minute.”
“Are you serious?” Jocelyn’s voice pitched. “You made how you felt pretty darn clear again and again when I was with Max. Now I’m not with him and you want to slow down?”
“Well, yeah.” I grabbed my hair in a fist.
Jocelyn stared at me. Her eyes were wide and hurt. She looked delicate as a doll (if, you know, a doll could whup my butt in five seconds flat). Her lip trembled. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to tell her it would be okay. I wanted to kiss her and tell her she was beautiful and that I was a wreck and I didn’t deserve her. More than anything—I wanted to want to be her boyfriend. But I didn’t.
I didn’t feel anything.
“Something is wrong with me,” I whispered.
Over the loudspeaker, the announcer cut in: “All sparring contestants, report to your rings. Competition is about to begin!”
I half stepped toward Jocelyn, who took a full step back. “Go.” So I walked away without even wishing her good luck.
At ring 7, I grabbed my duffel bag and put on my sparring gear. I looked around for Gramps in the bleachers but didn’t see him. I didn’t see Mom, either, which made me feel even worse. Where was she? A judge, wearing a martial arts uniform and a master belt (black with a red stripe through the center), asked for my card. He studied it and then squinted at me. “Okay,” he said after a minute, “you’re up first.”
I jammed the helmet on and lowered the face shield as I stood in the ring, bouncing on my toes, thinking through what Master Waters had told me about the tournament. The first person to get three hits or kicks wins. Head contact was allowed. Kicks only counted above the waist. Be first, Master Waters had told me. But don’t forget dodging. I closed my eyes and mentally ran through some combos I wanted to try—roundhouse-rib jab-side kick was my favorite.
Just as I was trying to get my game face on, I registered Gramps and Master Waters yelling about something to the side of the ring. I opened my eyes to see the judge and my opponent in front of me. Only my opponent wasn’t exactly standing. He was about my age, maybe a year or two older. His arms were enormous; this guy could totally knock me out. But his legs were skinny. Probably not much of a kicker. Considering, you know, that he was in a wheelchair.
“What’s going on?” I looked around. Master Waters was pointing at me and yelling at the person who took my registration. That guy was holding up his hands and shaking his head. Gramps wasn’t yelling anymore. He simply looked over at me and shrugged.
“Fighters, begin!” the judge called.
I looked at the guy I was supposed to fight. The guy in a wheelchair. My fighting stance (hands up, one leg bent slightly at the knee and in front of the other) dropped. My opponent’s jaw clenched and he glared at me. “Come on!” he yelled.
“I can’t.” I backed up.
But it wasn’t fast enough. Because this guy—somehow he made that wheelchair fly. He jumped—I’m serious!—wheelchair and all and slammed into me. His ridge hand knocked me so hard the face shield splintered. All I saw were jagged cracks.
“Hey!” I snapped.
“Point!” the judge called.
“Call the match!” Master Waters yelled.
I pulled off the helmet as Master Waters stepped onto the mat. “There’s been a mistake. Mr. Raymond shouldn’t be in the special needs division. There was a registration error.”
“Hey!” the registration guy called from the sidelines. “Mistake? Your school signed him up for this division. Not us!”
“What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
Gramps waved me to the side of the mat. The guy I was fighting made his way over, too. “Max signed you up as special needs,” Gramps said. Something flickered in his eyes. Was it pity? “Might’ve been a mistake.”
“It was no mistake,” I said, thinking of Max’s warning that we weren’t even yet.
The guy I had been fighting cough-laughed. “Man,” he said. “Some kid signs you up as special needs to humiliate you, then you go and get your butt handed to you by a guy in a wheelchair. That sucks, dude.”
“I’m—I didn’t mean …”
“Nah, it’s cool.” The guy held out a fist.
I bumped it. “I’m Richie.” Gramps nudged me with his elbow. I’m not sure why I said Richie instead of Ryder. It just slipped out.
“Nate,” the guy said. “Sorry about your face shield.”
“It’s okay. I hate wearing it anyway.”
“Why don’t you just get a usual helmet?” Nate asked. “I mean, you’d have a shiner now, but you’re n
ot going to face anyone as good as me in the normal division.”
“Dude, no one is normal,” I said. “I’ve got to wear this to protect my eye. The other is a fake.”
“That sucks, Richie,” Nate said as he wheeled away.
My actual division—the one I should have been registered for—was just beginning in ring 5. Master Waters was already there, reaming out Max. “I trusted you, kid. You let me down. You let your team down.”
Max didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry, son,” Master Waters said. “You’re off the team. I can’t give you special treatment.”
Max still didn’t say anything.
“We’ll discuss this later. Jocelyn is about to go on the mat. Are you coming to cheer her on, or what?”
Max tilted his head at the mat. “I’ll stay here. For Ryder.”
Master Waters nodded. “That’s a good step in the right direction.”
This division was a lot bigger. Already there were two kids fighting on the mat and three more of us waiting. I tried to block out Max watching from the side, Gramps trying to round up a different face shield, and the noise of Jocelyn’s division a few rings away. And where the heck was Mom? She said she’d be here! I tried to concentrate only on the fighters I’d be facing, taking note of the way one kid did nothing but side kick—I’d sidestep and roundhouse him—and another blitzed from the second the match began—whirling out in an explosion of punches. It was a good move but it only worked once, and this guy was doing it every time he fought. If I faced him, I’d stop him with a well-timed side kick.
Everything else—the messed up feelings with Jocelyn, Max declaring himself my mortal enemy, even the stuff with my eye and school and Gramps and Mom and Dad and … everything. Everything melted away. It was just me, getting ready to fight.
For a second, something flared inside of me, which was directed at Max. That he would take this escape away from me, making it about what was wrong with my body instead of what it could do, sizzled inside me. I tamped down the fury and concentrated on the sparring instead.
