Black Warrior

by Tiffiny Hall

  A sound cracks over my shoulder and I whip around in a tiger stance. I peer into the darkness, but no one is there.

  I return to the hole in the shed. Elecktra is on the microphone introducing herself. She looks radiant. Other girls are wearing the standard strapless gowns or dresses with shoestring straps, but no one is wearing a kimono gown.

  ‘Tonight, dancing is mandatory and the Fun Police have taken the night off. Welcome, Hindley Hall!’ Elecktra screams and the crowd cheers. Sidekicks begins a piano solo that is soon joined by a triangle, then a guitar. A raucous song by Vampire Weekend erupts and everyone sways to the dance floor.

  There’s a rustle in the bushes behind me. I spin around. Nothing.

  Watching the kids, I notice that Hero and his crew haven’t arrived yet. I hope they’re not planning anything sinister. There’s enough trouble brewing in Lanternwood without those guys. I won’t let them ruin this night for Lecky. I rub my eyes to see clearer and forget about my make-up. My fingertips turn black. Oh well, my smoky eye just became a black eye.

  As I wrestle with Old Roxy in the bushes to work up the courage to go in, there’s a green flash. I press my face against the hole as Jackson’s eyes enter the room. He is wearing a black suit and a thin black tie. He looks so handsome I could die. His hair is spiked off to the side and his skin is olive from playing sport outdoors. He looks amazing and all the girls know it. As soon as he walks in, they crowd him, ants to a crumb. Elecktra approaches Jackson and fobs the girls away elegantly. I strain to hear what she is saying to Jackson, but he laughs. I summon the wind to be quiet, but still, I can’t hear a word. She takes his hand. My gut crunches. No! She pulls him towards her. No! She looks up into his lightning-green eyes. No! No! My sister is stealing my boyfriend! He smiles down at her. She picks a piece of fluff off his shoulder intimately. The music swells around them. I have never felt so alone, so Gate Two. The other kids hover on the dance floor and I lose sight of Elecktra and Jackson for a moment. My chest is tight, my mouth dry, as thoughts of them dancing, holding each other, needle through me.

  ‘Arghhh!’ I scream as something pokes me gently in the side. I jump into a fighting stance.

  ‘Elecktra said you would be hiding,’ Jackson says, softly pushing my guard down. He puts his finger up to his lips to indicate quietness.

  ‘I’m checking security,’ I say.

  He arches one eyebrow.

  ‘Yeah, scanning the perimeter,’ I add. ‘I know Cinnamon wouldn’t miss tonight for anything in the world, not with her new dress. Maybe she’ll turn up?’

  Silence answers my question.

  He turns me gently to face the moonlight and studies me. ‘You look beautiful, Roxy,’ he says.

  My cheeks heat in the darkness. He cradles my head in the nook of his elbow. The heat swells into my lips, the air moves across them and the world fades away. Jackson leans down and presses his lips against mine. The weight of him is magical. I summon the wind to move his hair into my face.

  ‘Oh, you guys,’ a bright high-pitched voice detonates behind us.

  We jerk apart.

  The silver Christmas baubles around Sergeant Major’s neck sparkle in the moonlight. ‘Inside, pumpkins,’ he says. ‘Wouldn’t want to miss the music.’ He flashes his palms and twinkles his fingers. His eyes are white and wide in the darkness and he has a bizarre bleary stare, as if he has had cold-and-flu night tablets during the day.

  Jackson and I look at each other, expecting a ‘cease and desist’. Sergeant Major’s acting weird. There’s no way he would have ever mentioned a doily in the past, let alone endeavour to rearrange one. And now we’re ‘pumpkins’ to him? Maybe he’s spent too much time with Lecky. She’s the only girl who could turn us soldiers into pumpkins. I glance again at Jackson; he hasn’t taken his eyes off me.

  ‘Right on!’ we hear Elecktra cheer as we enter.

  The flutter of pride unfurls inside me. I never thought I’d be the girl in the bushes with a hot guy, but I am! I really am! Fourteen is the best. We walk over to the food, moving through shifting clouds of perfume.

  ‘Nice of Hero and his crew to skip the party,’ Jackson says with a full mouth of dip.

  I feel a bit of seaweed stuck between my teeth from the sushi roll I bit into. I smile at Jackson, deliberately flashing my gums. He laughs hard. I bloom with happiness. If only Cinnamon were here. Without Hero, she would have had a great time and blown the boys away in her new dress.

  A blood-curdling scream silences the band. I whip a chopstick out of my hair and spin around, ready to attack. The dance floor freezes. Then I hear it. The beating of wings.

  Sergeant Major is rigid. His gargantuan muscles flexed, he listens as if being beckoned, as if under a spell.

  Screams alarm outside, flying around us like vultures. Then we hear the race of frantic feet. The room snaps out of the freezer of fear and kids hurtle towards the exit. Jackson and I slide under the food table, crawl around to the back of the stage and slip through the back door.

  Outside, the night has draped three shades darker and I lose Jackson instantly in its folds. I trip over something and bend to feel around in the grass. In a heartbeat, the night crashes down around my chest. I hear something swoop from above, bigger than a plane, stronger than a bulldozer, ploughing through the clouds towards me. I see a flash of white bone, of yellow claw; two blue lights sting the dark. Then I’m hit from the side. I fly through the darkness as something whips me in the face. I land hard against the grass. The wind knocks out of me. I gasp for air and touch my cheek where it is stinging from the lash. My head spins.

  ‘W-what was that?’ I stammer into the dark.

  I hear footsteps ahead. I slowly stand in a fighting form. The clouds shift and the moon spotlights Jackson. He runs when he sees me and I drop my guard.

  ‘Samurai,’ Jackson growls.

  ‘I don’t think that was samurai,’ I whisper, moving my jaw from side to side to loosen its stiffness. ‘Something hit me.’

  Hero drops out of a nearby tree. My eyes adjust to the darkness and I can make out the outline of his black belt hanging below his suit jacket.

  ‘Reeks of samurai,’ Jackson says, stepping closer to Hero. He points to Hero’s eyes, which are slow to heal. ‘Enjoying those?’ he asks.

  I feel Hero’s face gnarl into the blackness. The cave fight is still fresh in all our minds.

  ‘You wanna enjoy my foot in your mouth?’ Hero slings back.

  Jackson pushes him. Hero pushes Jackson back.

  ‘Try it,’ Jackson says, raising his voice.

  ‘Jackson,’ I say, tugging at his jacket sleeve, ‘not tonight.’ He ignores me and puffs his chest against Hero’s. I try to wedge myself between them.

  ‘Hero knows exactly what’s going on,’ Jackson says. ‘His clan is kidnapping people and trying to blame something else. They’re building an army against the ninjas. They are formulating an attack.’

  ‘You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?’ Hero says.

  ‘It’s not Hero,’ I say, finally managing to wrestle my way between them and push my hands against Jackson’s broad chest to make him back away. I strike my fingers against my leg and they light as torches so we can see each other’s faces. The boys don’t blink at my powers now.

  ‘Why are you taking his side?’ Jackson asks, the darkness creating shadows around his eyes and making him look, for the first time ever, menacing.

  Hero shrugs and winks at Jackson. ‘Your girl’s on my side, man. How’s that make you feel?’

  ‘I’m not on anyone’s side. There’s something really bad out there. I’ve seen it! The monster is taking people and when they come back, they’re different,’ I blurt out. It sounds crazy, saying it out loud, but no more crazier than the Cemetery of Warriors in Lanternwood or the cave dojo up at Samurai Falls.

  Jackson blows air up into his hair. ‘Garbage. Samurai are stinking up the place. It’s only a matter of time until the ninjas rebel,’ he says.

/>   Hero laughs. ‘Go on. We can take ya.’

  ‘Save it.’ Jackson steps forwards again, crunching his knuckles into fists.

  ‘We can take ya,’ Hero repeats, this time in a growl. ‘Me and my clan.’

  Jackson laughs. ‘What clan? Everybody knows the samurai think you’re a joke. You’ve failed every attempt at the Cemetery of Warriors, lost the Tiger Scrolls. You think you’re tough, but you never train and spend every minute with your mum.’

  Hero explodes towards Jackson with a flying side kick. His foot punches Jackson in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Hero stomps the blade of his foot across Jackson’s neck. ‘Don’t you ever mention my mother again,’ he spits, then something remarkable happens. His next words hook in his throat and he sniffs. Is Hero crying? I watch him swipe his cheek with his sleeve. The scratches on his cheek reflect in the moonlight.

  ‘Hey, you okay?’ I ask him quietly.

  Hero steps away from Jackson and turns his back to us. Jackson slowly stands up and dusts himself off.

  I clear my throat. ‘Ninja and samurai should work together,’ I say.

  Jackson stares at me as if I’ve suggested we all attend a communal knitting class. ‘I’ll never work with filthy samurai,’ he sneers. ‘And why are you defending him? He is always trying to kill you.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ I say.

  Still, Hero doesn’t turn around.

  ‘I’ll leave you both to “work together” then,’ Jackson says and storms off.

  After a few moments, I take a seat on a nearby log. Hero shuffles his feet in the dirt, then turns around and comes and sits beside me. I expect him to say something nasty or pull out his spit-bomb straw, but he simply leans his elbows on his knees and drops his head in his hands. He smells of leftover casserole. We sit on a moment of dead air.

  ‘Sorry about your mum.’ I don’t know why I say this — it’s too personal, I hate Hero, we’re not friends — but it slips out of my mouth. Elecktra told me Hero’s mum is really sick and that’s why he has been away from school a lot lately. I’ve noticed him missing; everyone has really enjoyed his absence. I can’t help but think how I would feel if my mum was sick and I didn’t have Art.

  Sentences snag on Hero’s tonsils. He tries to speak, but only manages a shrug.

  I don’t know this guy sitting next to me who seems really lost. I only know Hero for causing trouble, not just at school but also in our neighbourhood. He doesn’t live too far away from me and loves to have roundabout parties. He gathers all his mates on a roundabout, they decorate it with chairs and fairy lights, then blast loud music and act like the roundabout is a territory with its own rules separate to the rest of the world. Grown-ups circle the roundabout in their cars, yelling for the kids to turn down the music, but they never do until the police show up.

  I stare up into the starless sky and think of all the times Hero has stolen my school lunch, hurt me, spat at me — was it because he was feeling bad about his mum? Maybe he never intends to hurt anyone. Maybe taking it out on others is a way to help him cope with his mum’s sickness and father’s death. I study his scratches in the darkness. Did a bully do that?

  ‘It’s not samurai,’ Hero says finally. ‘I was up there waiting for it.’

  ‘How long were you in the tree?’ I feel sorry for him. He was out here waiting for the monster while everyone else was inside having fun. It must be hard work being a bully sometimes. You must feel like you don’t fit in.

  He doesn’t answer me.

  Seeing his face twist with something unrecognisable, I say, ‘I want to help.’

  ‘No one knows how to kill it,’ he mumbles.

  ‘No, I want to help you with your mum. If I can.’ What am I doing? This guy hates me! He wants to kill me, steal my powers, hurt my family. If I were stuck down a well, there’s no way he’d save me. But again, the words slip out of my mouth.

  Hero sinks his eyes down into his lap. He squirms, then smooths his knuckles down to his knees. I smile when I see his black belt hanging by his thigh. Even with a suit, he refuses to take it off.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask.

  Hero hesitates. I study him again and this time I don’t care that he knows: his hair the colour of the night, his stone-washed skin, eyes that seem all pupil. If I could stare him into talking, that would have to be better than this sitting-in-silence scenario. His black belt has three stripes at the tip, indicating he is three levels higher than black belt. Pretty impressive. The scratches on his cheek are at that scab stage where they look like studded rubies. I have to restrain myself from hooking my nail into them and ripping them off. There’s nothing more satisfying than picking a scab. I have the sense Hero’s ripped off a few scabs in his time. The ones on his elbows and knees as well as a few that never heal — the ones on your heart. And then there is the ring he wears on his thumb. He’s the only boy I’ve ever seen who makes a thumb ring look tough. It has a Japanese symbol on it. I only know the symbol for my surname, Ran, which means orchid. This symbol looks angry.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I ask, reaching out with a lot of nerve and touching the ring in the fuzzy darkness. Hero’s silence starts to make me feel as hollow as the log I am plonked on. So I cut sick, throwing random questions at him:

  ‘Why’s your mum sick?’

  ‘What happened to your dad?’

  ‘Why are you so angry all the time?’

  ‘If you could have any superpower, what would it be?’

  ‘Do you have any piercings or tattoos?’

  ‘How’d you scratch your face?’

  ‘What’s your favourite colour?’

  Hero is definitely weird. He looks down at his feet. I watch him dig in his pockets and take out his phone, click it to check the time. The phone lights his face and he looks like he wants to talk — his lips are in word formation. Then finally he offers me something.

  ‘Mum has dementia and Dad was killed in battle,’ he says.

  I don’t know how to respond. I feel like we could even hand hug with a high five, ‘Dadless, yeah!’, but he’s too hard for that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I eventually say. ‘That really sucks.’

  Hero holds up his ring and clicks the phone light over it. ‘This is the symbol for father,’ he says. The word slices into me. ‘If I could know my father, it would be better than any superpower.’ He clicks the phone light off.

  The darkness hides my pain. ‘I know what you mean,’ I say.

  He turns to look at me. I watch his face remember that I’ve never met my dad. For the first time our eyes meet properly, eyeball to eyeball.

  ‘What’s dementia?’ I ask.

  Hero shifts uncomfortably. ‘Dunno, really. Mum has had a few small strokes that blocked blood to her brain. Then she had a big one and now she’s really confused all the time and forgets important stuff.’

  It sounds so serious. No wonder Hero takes his anger out on everyone else. It would be so hard to deal with.

  ‘So, um …’ He gulps some air. ‘I need to take my mum to the hospital for a check-up. I think she’s had another small stroke, but I can’t tell. We don’t have a car and —’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ I say.

  I guess Hero’s faced a lot of monsters in his life, but nothing compares to the threat of losing someone you love. Maybe he has more in common with Jackson than he knows. Then he speaks in a voice I’ve never heard him use before, a voice of undiluted honesty.

  ‘I thought becoming the White Warrior would give me the powers to heal Mum.’ His words have sharp edges. I see him struggle to spit them out. ‘I didn’t mean to nearly kill you,’ he says softly.

  I smile at him. ‘You’re a bad guy, Hero, but not such a bad guy — if you know what I mean.’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Thanks for the save too,’ I say, standing up.

  He looks at me, surprised, as a smile sprouts on his face. ‘How’d you know?’ he asks.

  I flick his belt. �
�This hit me in the face.’

  He looks embarrassed. He sinks his head back between his knees.

  ‘You don’t always have to wear it around, you know,’ I say.

  His eyes swallow the darkness for a moment, then he says, ‘It’s how Mum knows it’s me.’

  I don’t understand what he means, but there is something in the way he suddenly grows really small and spikey, an echidna on the attack, that I know my questions are done.

  THIRTEEN

  Art’s long socks rib gently together as he power walks past me to the front passenger seat. Elecktra drums her watermelon-pink nails on the steering wheel. She is wearing a nightmare of a dress that is covered in a print of tiny green cactuses with platform sandals. My heart beats to the rhythm of death metal. This is a bad idea.

  ‘You’re incredible,’ Art says, looking down at Elecktra’s footwear.

  She gives a dramatic huff and removes her platforms and changes into a pair of ballet flats from her bag.

  ‘Accelerator, brake, indicators, rear-vision mirror,’ Art instructs.

  Lecky looks up at the rear-vision mirror and puckers her lips.

  ‘Having your side mirrors adjusted so you can see the sides of your vehicle leaves you with blind spots,’ he says, reaching out his window to adjust Lecky’s left-hand mirror. ‘Trick is to angle the side mirror out until you can see an overtaking vehicle overlap your rear-view mirror.’ Lecky has already tuned out. Art claps his hands for her attention. ‘The best road safety for you will be a rear-vision mirror with a policeman in it,’ he huffs.

  ‘Does she have to drive?’ I ask from the back seat.

  ‘She’ll be driving you around one day,’ Art says.

  Lecky winks at me and revs the engine.

  ‘Got a helmet?’ I ask.

  Apparently driving comes naturally to some people. Lecky isn’t one of them. Her driving is the opposite to Art’s. He drives in no hurry. Traffic hoons around him, but the urgency is lost on him. He’s always taking it at his own pace, absorbing the world through colour, the navy swirls of tar on the road, the cinnamon flecks of dust on the windscreen, the neon galaxy of lights from fast-food chains. Driving for Art is an artistic experience.