How to Pack for the End of the World

by Michelle Falkoff

  Candace ran us through some warm-up exercises and taught us a few basic punching and kicking techniques: jabs, hooks, cross-punches, uppercuts; front kicks, side kicks, roundhouses. Wyatt was giving it his all, going at it with so much goofy energy he got himself turned around doing a roundhouse kick and ended up falling on the mat.

  “You okay?” I asked, extending my hand to help him.

  He bounded up, smiling. “I’m great!”

  There was the Wyatt I knew, bounding and smiling and not caring how obvious it was he was excited about what he was doing. I had no idea how he’d managed to stay this carefree, and I wanted desperately for it to last forever.

  “All these punches and kicks are well and good if you have the right opportunity to use them on a potential attacker,” Candace said, after we’d run through each move several times. “But the key in self-defense is making the most use of whatever opportunities your attacker provides you, and using whatever advantages you have to save yourself. It’s not about being able to injure your attacker, though if injuring him is what it takes, that’s what you’ll do. Sometimes your best move is just to yell, if you think there are people around who might hear you. Let’s try it.”

  Silence.

  “I mean it,” Candace said. “We’re not used to yelling, are we? We’re used to being polite, to watching our tone even if we’re angry. But sometimes we have to do it. Sometimes we have to scream. So scream!”

  Someone had to get this started, but no one wanted to. Until I saw Chloe take a deep breath. Of course she’d be first. She opened wide and let out a high-pitched noise, between a yelp and a bleat. It was the sound I imagined I made in dreams, when I wanted to shout but found I couldn’t make a sound; the frustration of that feeling was infuriating, and remembering it gave me the incentive to yell myself. I began screaming too, as did everyone else in the class, Wyatt included. Pretty soon the sound in the room started to hurt my ears, at which point Candace signaled for us to settle down.

  “That felt pretty good, didn’t it?” Everyone nodded. “But it was harder than you thought?” More nods. “Remember there’s power in your voice. If it makes sense to use that first, do it—you might find it’s the safest way out of a bad situation.”

  We all nodded again. Candace seemed aware the class wasn’t one hundred percent female: when she discussed what body parts to target (eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knees, legs) she made sure to use gender-neutral language. After an hour of learning to gouge, poke, scratch, slap, and kick, and then practicing on each other, Wyatt and I were both red-faced with exertion and damp with sweat. We collapsed on the mat and waited for Chloe to say goodbye to her friend and join us.

  “So?” she asked, when she finally sat down. “What did you think?”

  “That was so great!” Wyatt yelled.

  “It was pretty great,” I said reluctantly.

  “And you feel more powerful than when you came in?” She was looking at me now.

  “So powerful!” Wyatt yelled.

  “How about it, Amina?” she asked. She wasn’t about to let me off the hook.

  “Okay, fine, yeah, I feel more powerful,” I said. “You happy?”

  She beamed. “You have no idea.”

  Chloe and I decided to go to the dining hall for lunch after we got back to campus; we asked Wyatt to come with us, but he said he had food in his room and he needed to go study. Chloe linked her arm in mine as we walked. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

  I grudgingly agreed.

  “And Wyatt’s really growing on me,” she said. “Kind of like a little brother.”

  “Do you have siblings?” I asked, realizing she’d never actually told me.

  “Sisters,” she said. “We don’t get along. Not like you and Shana.”

  I talked about my family way more than she talked about hers, I knew. “How come?”

  She flicked her fingers, as if swatting away a bug. “Not important. So, it was good to get to hang out with Wyatt outside of the group, right?”

  What was she getting at? “Sure, I guess.”

  “I was thinking on Tuesday we’d see if we can get Jo to come with us.” She picked at her salad all casual, but there was a strange note in her voice. I wondered whether she shared my fascination with Jo. We’d spent some time with her now, but I felt like I could still count the things I knew about her on one hand.

  “Sure,” I said. “It would be nice to try and get to know her better. Will she be into this, though?”

  “Oh, I don’t imagine this would be her thing,” Chloe said. “But I’ve got something in mind.”

  I was curious what she was up to, but I’d have to wait until Tuesday to find out. In the meantime, I studied. I’d gotten over my panic about my Chinese class; between the flash cards, the study aids I’d found online, and the fact that my teacher had all but told us what would be on the test, I felt pretty good. Poli sci was pretty much a snap, too—the reading was fun, and I knew the exam would be all essay, which was my favorite. I was more worried about the history classes, and math; my hatred of numbers extended beyond calculations to memorization of dates. I really liked my math teacher, though. She was a newer hire, and while I knew that meant she probably had a failed stint somewhere else under her belt, she’d stepped up her game. I hated studying for her class, but I wanted to do well, just to show her I was trying.

  By the time Monday morning rolled around my eyes were burning from reading all weekend, even with my glasses. The last thing I wanted to do over breakfast was read the school paper, but the pre-election profiles would be out today, and I was curious to see what the girl who’d interviewed us had to say. She was a junior and on the student council herself, so I imagined she’d have opinions.

  It quickly became clear as I read that opinions were the least of our concerns. The article about me was inoffensive enough; it included basically what I’d told the interviewer, plus a few other facts she probably found on the internet. The emphasis on my hard work and interest in politics had the benefit of coming across as an endorsement, even as it outed me as a scholarship kid. But as I read through the rest of the profiles, it started to feel like the interviewer had an agenda, and that agenda was to embarrass the candidates as much as possible. I’d been let off easy, unless she’d thought I minded people knowing my family didn’t have much money; her ammo was reserved for everyone else.

  Jo had been right about Ken Zhang. His profile revealed he’d been kicked out of his last private school for selling his mother’s prescription oxycodone to fund his cocaine habit. The profile hinted strongly that he hadn’t stayed clean, though the interviewer steered just shy of saying it. The implication overall was that he’d be a terrible candidate for class rep. The other party boy didn’t fare much better. His secret turned out to be that he’d cheated on the entrance exam to his previous private school; it wasn’t hard to see how that might disqualify him as well. Stacie’s #fleabagfail made it into her story, presented as a personality flaw: a candidate who would blindly follow someone into that kind of fashion victimhood could hardly stand up for her fellow classmates.

  But the worst of the vitriol was for Hunter. The profile started out positive, talking about his athleticism, his friendliness, his desire to make the world better, but it devolved quickly. “Does anyone really believe the son of the most powerful oil magnate in Houston is the best advocate for the environment? Maybe if Hunter Fredericks found a way to separate himself from C&H Energy then he’d be credible, but as long as Daddy’s paying the bills, we’re not buying it. Hypocrisy is not a stellar quality in a class rep.”

  I finished reading with a pounding headache and a lot of feelings. First there was anger—at the interviewer for taking advantage of us and writing such hit jobs; for whoever had helped her do her research, since she couldn’t possibly have gotten all this dirt from just talking to us. Then I felt horrible for everyone who was running—if these profiles had taken all the joy out of the elections for me, how must everyo
ne else feel?

  Then, underneath, there was something else. A small, ugly feeling, one that reddened my face even though no one I knew was in the dining hall to see me. A sad feeling, too, because I knew it applied to all the profiles of the other candidates.

  I agreed with them.

  And I was really angry at Hunter.

  Sure, he’d dropped some hints. He didn’t get along with his parents; his dad was on the wrong side of the issues; he’d been sent here so he wouldn’t become an activist like his brother. But there were light-years between those things and being the heir apparent to the biggest oil company in the world, one so big even I’d heard of it, though it never would have occurred to me that C&H stood for (as it must) Caleb and Hunter. C&H money was funding Hunter’s education; C&H money had funded our trip to the protest site. It had even funded the hot chocolates that cheered us up in the bad weather. And he’d never told us. It felt dirty.

  I went to class not knowing what I’d say to him, but it turned out I didn’t have to worry—he didn’t show up for poli sci, or the class after it. “Have you seen Hunter?” Chloe asked at lunch. “Is he okay? He’s not answering my texts. You saw the article, right?”

  “Oh, I saw it.” I fixated on my peanut butter sandwich. Chloe was the one who’d set up the interview; she was the last person I wanted to hear from about it. But she could talk about nothing else.

  “Can you believe her? I talked to the editor in chief myself and she promised me she’d find someone good to write about you. She swore it would be a total puff piece, just a little something to clinch the election. I didn’t even know they were going to interview everyone—I thought it would just be you two.”

  “That would hardly be fair, would it?” I said.

  “You’re mad at me!” Chloe frowned. “Don’t be mad. I was only trying to help. I won’t be able to stand it if you’re angry and Hunter’s ignoring me. I’ll have to convince the girls to wear all sorts of horrible outfits so you’ll have to think about me constantly.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. It did sound pretty awful.

  “Okay, you can’t hate me if you’re laughing. Just promise we’re still going to hang out tomorrow night. I’ve roped in Jo, and you know that’s not easy. She’s weirdly busy for someone who doesn’t seem to have any friends.”

  “I don’t get her,” I admitted.

  “I think that’s how she likes it,” Chloe said. “But we’ll crack her. By the end of the night tomorrow we’ll all be besties.”

  I wasn’t even sure I wanted Jo to be my bestie, but I was still curious about her.

  Now that I was annoyed at Hunter, it was nice to have someplace else to focus my energy.

  Hunter skipped the rest of the day too, and though he didn’t text to cancel our study session, I assumed he wasn’t coming and skipped it myself. My rational self knew I wasn’t being fair; it wasn’t like he’d lied about his family, and it wasn’t like I believed someone with his background couldn’t genuinely care about the environment. I just hated feeling lied to, even if the lie was one of omission.

  Tuesday rolled around with no Hunter. I was tempted to check on him, but I resisted. I’d lost a lot of study time stewing over those profiles, and I needed to focus. I did take careful notes in class with the intention of giving them to him later on, but I found myself holding them back, waiting for him to text me. I went to Chloe’s room for whatever workout nightmare she had planned, but I was starting to worry. “Have you talked to Hunter at all?” I asked.

  “We texted. He’s kind of a mess but he’ll be okay.” She’d already moved on in her mind, and she started walking down the dorm hallway. “We’re meeting Jo at the place. It’s going to be epic. I’ve been trying to get her to tell me what her whole workout regimen is—she’s so long and lean, like a dancer, but not super graceful, you know? She just laughed and said she did her own thing, and she was up for trying anything.”

  Chloe did not like people laughing at her, I knew. “What are we doing, then?”

  “I wanted to find something that would be challenging for her but also interesting for you, right? Also something that fits our theme—you know, getting ready to defend ourselves if the world falls apart.”

  Oh no. I had a feeling I knew exactly what she had planned. “Are we doing Krav Maga?”

  Chloe whipped her head around; she’d gotten a few steps ahead of me, as usual, but this time I’d caught up. “How did you know?”

  “You said self-defense plus challenging plus something for me. The something for me is the Israeli part?” I was hardly in good enough shape to do the Israeli military’s workout program, but maybe she and Jo would have a good time without me. I started to turn around.

  Chloe grabbed my arm. “Don’t go! Please! It’ll be okay, I promise. There’s a club here, and I talked to this guy named Avi, and he said he’ll do a private lesson for us.”

  “Yeah, I know Avi.” He’d shown up at a couple of the Hillel dinners but it was clear he was only there to hit on the first-year students. Once he got shut down enough times, he stopped coming. He’d never hit on me, though. He probably wouldn’t even remember having met me. Not that I cared. He was a tool. Tamara and I made fun of him all the time.

  “Look, they’re already here,” Chloe said.

  We’d reached the exercise room, where Jo and Avi were chatting. Jo seemed way more comfortable than I felt, contemplating Krav Maga for the first time. She wore all-black workout gear and her bleached hair was cropped even shorter than usual. She was slim and muscular and a fascinating combination between boyish and feminine, and based on the look on Chloe’s face, she was even more intrigued than I was. Though maybe not in the same way. I hated that I tended to assume people were straight unless they indicated otherwise; I really wanted to change that about myself.

  “Hi, everyone,” Chloe said.

  “Hi, Princess,” Jo said. “Hey, Amina, I didn’t realize you were coming too.”

  She’d called me Amina? Was I not even interesting enough for a nickname? “Chloe didn’t tell you?”

  “She told me,” Avi said, nodding at me with what seemed to be recognition. “You all ready to get started?” His overly prominent Adam’s apple moved up and down, belying the bluster in his voice.

  “I’m good,” Chloe said.

  “Me too,” Jo said, and I nodded. So much for getting to know each other. We were diving right in.

  Avi explained the basic principles of Krav Maga, which I’d heard before—how it had been developed for the Israeli Defense Force, how it borrowed some techniques from other martial arts but had its own spin, how it was more effective than any other form of self-defense because its practitioners weren’t afraid to hurt their attackers. “None of that avoiding injury stuff,” Avi said. “If we have to hurt people to survive, we hurt people.”

  It was basically the opposite of what Candace-from-kickboxing had said, but Chloe and Jo were both nodding. Apparently they were both fine with hurting people.

  Avi walked us through some preliminary concepts, starting with how to hit most effectively (striking with the side of the hand, making good use of knees and elbows), moving on to things that were helpful but unfamiliar (attacking from a defensive position on the ground, getting out of chokeholds), and then going into terrifying new terrain (defending against attackers who had weapons, disarming attackers who had guns). Avi was moving really fast now, faster than I could handle. Chloe was struggling too, but Jo seemed fine.

  “Ready to try some sparring?”

  No, I wasn’t ready for sparring. I glared at Chloe, but she looked kind of pissed off herself. She was in good shape, but not this kind of shape; she was in over her head. Beads of condensation had formed on her temples; wisps of hair had come out of her usually perfect ponytail.

  “Totally ready,” Jo said, cool as a Vermont fall day. She wasn’t even sweating.

  “I need a break,” I said. Someone had to be honest around here.

  “Yeah,
looks like it,” Avi said, and I wanted to punch him. Maybe I’d been wrong about not being ready to spar. “How about Chloe and Jo go first, and you and I can watch and evaluate?”

  Now I wanted to punch him less. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Okay, Chloe, you go ahead and attack Jo. She’ll be on the ground already. You can decide how to approach.”

  Chloe would have the upper hand. That should make her feel better. Yet, somehow, it seemed like Chloe had barely decided what kind of attack to attempt before she was on the ground, Jo’s hands pinning her to the floor, Jo’s knee on her chest, Jo’s face right by hers, their lips practically touching. “That was fast,” Chloe spat.

  Jo grinned.

  “Want to give it another shot, Chloe?” Avi asked. “You start on the ground this time, since you’re there already.”

  He had no idea who he was dealing with. I hoped Chloe didn’t ignore Jo and kill Avi. Chloe just needed to channel her rage, turn Jo’s strategy around on her, attack from the defensive position, get her knee up before Jo could—

  Now Chloe was on her stomach, Jo’s arm across her shoulder blades, Jo’s knee pinning her knees to the ground so Chloe’s body looked like a lowercase h. How had she done that so fast? I was beyond relieved I’d gotten myself out of this.

  “What was that?” Chloe asked. She was even angrier than I thought.

  “Sorry, did I hurt you, Princess?” Jo asked sweetly. Or as sweetly as she could manage.

  Avi started laughing. “Tell her,” he said. “Come on, it’s not fair anymore.”

  “Tell me what?” Chloe asked, but I had a feeling I knew.

  Jo just smirked.

  “She joined the club this fall,” Avi said. “She’s the best first year we have. She’s probably going to replace me as president at the end of the school year. She made me swear not to tell.”

  “Right,” Chloe said. “Well, thanks for helping out, Avi. See you around, Jo.” She stormed out of the exercise room, leaving me there with the two of them.