Sundial

by C. F. Fruzzetti

  He went to a mountaintop and saw a tiger stalking a flock of cranes. The young monk was in a conundrum; his teaching is to be one with nature, but his sympathy was with the cranes. Before he could decide to warn the cranes, the tiger attacked. At least one was doomed, he thought.

  Surprisingly, one of the cranes acted strangely. It made a lot of noise and moved in a different direction than the other cranes. The fluttering of this crane and the loud whooping caught the eye of the tiger, who swerved to pounce on this seemingly startled crane. The tiger missed. The monk saw its nose was bleeding. The tiger was irritated. The tiger turned and sprang even sooner. This time the monk, ready for the unexpected, saw what the crane did.

  Moving sideways, extending its wing to keep the tiger’s focus, the crane withdrew the wing at the last possible moment and jumped aside using the tiger’s snout to propel itself away and behind the tiger. The strong talons of the crane’s other leg raked over the head of the tiger, almost damaging an eye. It was incredible!

  The tiger seemed perplexed with this turn of events and attacked quicker, stronger, harder, and with greater effort, but with much the same result. After a while, the tiger was tired and bleeding. The crane had lost a few feathers but seemed unharmed. It slowly backed away, started running, and took flight.

  From the crane, the young monk had learned his spirit and method of approach to sparring and self-defense. The crane concentrated on distracting and surviving. Whenever possible, a crane will also give an attacker something to think about to help them see the futility of their attack. Cranes never start a fight but are always still standing to finish it.

  Mr. Parks had told me this story because I was a Shaolin panther stylist and a Shaolin crane would be my greatest challenge to fight. But I also remember him adding quietly that a panther and a crane together were virtually indestructible.

  Chapter Eleven: Homework

  The house smelled of banana bread. I heard the oven door bang close as I walked inside. I tossed my hockey bag on the Delaneys’ couch and expectantly rubbed my hands together. Thinking about the banana bread was better than thinking about going back to hockey practice and back to school. It was hard to believe summer vacation was about to be over.

  “Perfect timing, as per usual,” I kidded as I walked into the kitchen. Blair was setting the pan with the golden brown loaf on a wire rack to cool.

  “You mean after the work is all done? Yeah, that’s your usual, all right, you scavenger,” Blair laughed. “I put chocolate chips in it so this is our dessert IF you eat something decent for lunch first. Try and digest some healthy calories for a change. My mom got turkey from the deli and fresh bread from the bakery. We have Hanover tomatoes and some Bibb lettuce. You have no excuse,” Blair lectured.

  “I know, I know. A slice of hot banana bread with butter would be a ridiculous lunch choice. Especially since it’s ready. I’d much rather make a sandwich. That’s a fine alternative.” Blair laughed and shook her head. She knew me too well—I always liked a shortcut.

  “You are ‘fine’ with a Pop Tart. This isn’t Ethiopia. Why don’t you learn to cook? Then you could feed yourself,” Blair suggested for the thousandth time.

  “Because that would mean real food already exists in my house—which it doesn’t—and that I would probably have to read directions, which I hate. I would rather find a manufactured tart in the pantry or endear myself to a terrific friend who sometimes has piping hot banana bread on the stove,” I said, reaching into the clear plastic bread bag and taking out four slices for sandwiches.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere. I guess I AM pretty terrific,” Blair conceded. She tossed the turkey, Jarlsberg cheese, mustard, tomatoes, and lettuce on the counter.

  After eating my sandwich, I sliced two large pieces of banana bread and poured two glasses of milk. The chocolate chips were soft and gooey inside. The bread was so moist I didn’t bother getting out the butter. Once we were finished, we went into Blair’s emerald green bedroom to pick out our outfits for the first day of school.

  Her room was covered in coordinating patterns of Laura Ashley chintz. She had a floral comforter with matching ruffled pillow shams and a lattice patterned bed skirt. The large windows were dressed in the same floral pattern. The wildflower overdose was tempered by the serene view of a large lake and woods in her backyard.

  Her sports trophies and plaques jockeyed for space on the hutch over her desk while pictures of family and friends monopolized the crowded wall under it. On her closet door was her Ferris Bueller’s Day Off poster that she had taken as a “memento” from the local movie theater, but it hardly could compete with the shrine of photos she had collected of Greg Louganis. She tore out everything she could find of the bronzed diver and his pictures encircled her bed.

  There were already sorted piles of clothes on the floor. “What are you going to wear? I think I’m going with my green Izod shirt dress. And how great is this belt with it?” she asked as she cinched a hot pink belt with white and green lighthouses on it around her waist. “Oh, and don’t let me forget to remember Band-Aids for my new black penny loafers. They are so painful to break in.”

  “It’ll be worth it. Who knows, maybe you will catch a glimpse of Patrick tomorrow?” I said lightheartedly. “Or should I say maybe Patrick will catch a glimpse of YOU?”

  “You’re right. Rule number one: always look good. I don’t know what some girls are thinking going to school in sweats. Ick. Sweats should be illegal. For you, I’m thinking these,” she said, tossing me a pair of black Bermuda shorts with red and white crabs embroidered on them. “Then your monogrammed white knit sweater and white bucks should go perfectly with it.”

  I would wear whatever she recommended. “Sounds great.” I grabbed a magazine and flopped onto her bed.

  “What are you two up to?” Eileen asked as she walked in to Blair’s room taking a bite of a sandwich. She arched an eyebrow at the heaps of clothes on the floor and on the bed.

  “Back-to-school outfits. What are you wearing?” Blair asked, reviewing shirts she ripped down from hangers and not looking at Eileen.

  “What I want to know is what are you wearing of mine?” Eileen asked. She picked up a Britches rugby shirt that Blair flung past her from her closet. “Hey, I’ve been looking for this!”

  “Would you please calm down? I’m wearing my new Izod shirt dress.” Blair rolled her eyes to me and sighed as if Eileen was vexed for no reason. We would put her closet back together, after all…at some point.

  “I’ll figure something out. I have seventeen more hours. Come on, let’s get going to hockey practice.” Eileen shook her head at our fastidious preparation.

  The first day of school always began too early in the morning but the bouncy ride in the Jeep’s backseat managed to keep me awake. We hit a pothole and the lap belt dug into my stomach. It made me question the logic of not riding shotgun with Reid until Eileen said she had been asking her friends what Karen Eubanks had been up to over the summer. Suddenly, I was alert for the gossip bulletin. I chided myself for being such a creature of comfort—this was worth a little seat belt burn.

  Being ignorant on the ski boat helped me to keep my cool, but that approach would not serve me well in the daily trials of high school. Good and reliable information was key, and I was glad Eileen had decided to do some preemptive digging on Karen.

  She had discovered that Karen was not invited to join Gamma, one of our high school sororities, because of her questionable reputation. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter—what mattered was that someone in Gamma thought it was true or didn’t like her for a more personal reason.

  Unfortunately, Eileen reported, Karen was a shoo-in for Zeta. Her mother had been a Zeta president and Karen was expected to pledge that sorority this fall. This information gave us all pause since Eileen was also pledging Zeta, making Blair a legacy once Eileen was a sister. It went without saying that I would not want to be in the same sorority as Karen. The decision of what so
rority I would pledge just got more complicated.

  “When pledging starts, I will be able to keep close tabs on Karen. The bad news is that she may be at more social events than we would like if she makes it through pledging,” Eileen said as she turned the wheel with the palm of her hand into the Gramercy High parking lot. “Let’s not overdrive our headlights. Karen isn’t in yet.”

  The sprawling high school building stretched out in a variety of directions. The doors and trim were painted in Gramercy’s deep blue school color. The sparseness of windows made it look as suffocating as it felt inside.

  Designed as an open campus, several two-storied wings sprawled in different directions from the rectangular main building. The benefit of this arachnid architecture was that it had so many entrances and exits, no one knew if students were coming or going—a feature exploited at every opportunity.

  Baseball and softball fields flanked Gramercy. The stadium field was across the crowded parking lot, which resembled a European import car dealership. There were plenty of second-hand Mercedes, Volvos, Saabs, Audis, and BMWs in the parking lot. The brand new cars were the ones that stood out.

  There was no black BMW there yet. I wasn’t surprised; Reid would probably cut it as close as he could to the final bell.

  I thanked Eileen for finding out the current scoop. She nodded. “I’m on it. She’s trouble and you don’t want to get caught up in it.”

  I no longer felt jittery about my first day at school. I was too busy mulling over the social royalty of our high school: Gamma and Zeta, and their elite sorting system.

  Gamma and Zeta had been in existence for decades. They were billed to parents as social service clubs but they primarily served as the social fast track. The sororities ruled the weekends through elaborate and posh parties and rented big houses for ski and beach getaways.

  If you were in one of the sororities, your social ranking was secure for your high school career. You had been crowned one of the elite. Your Greek lettered sweatshirt was a status symbol that let everyone know you belonged and served to alert them to treat you with respect—otherwise they may find themselves blackballed from the next event or be removed from the potential pledge list.

  The pledges always kept parties entertaining from July through October. They were hazed through embarrassment and obedience. Generally, they looked absurd and performed ridiculous stunts. Gamma pledged during the summer and Zeta pledged during the fall. There was not an official rush; all freshmen girls were unofficially rushing from the moment they walked through the high school doors. Those who were legacies—daughters or sisters of those who had pledged before them—were usually given a courtesy invitation.

  Gamma invitations were on thick, white Crane stock and embossed in purple ink. Their initiation event was the Doily Dress Tea. All girls attended the lawn party in lacey, white dresses and had sweet tea and lemonade. It was very refined, civilized, and proper. Gamma was the girls-only country club of Gramercy.

  Zeta was Gamma’s rival. Their invitations were on glossy black paper with its letters branded in red across the top. Zeta was edgy and trendy. Their Pledge of Allegiance initiation party attire was black T-shirts and designer jeans. They held their initiation event at night in a condemned dungeon of a crumbling fort along the river. The fort was built during the Spanish-American War and was now part of a heavily wooded park along the Potomac River. The decaying buildings were locked with chained padlocks, but the Zeta president passed the key down every year. Pledges who were too afraid to wind their way through the dark forest into the dungeon were deemed not worthy. You had to be stylish and fearless to be a Zeta girl.

  I was distracted thinking about it, hardly seeing the faces of students who bustled by as we hurried to our lockers. Blair led the way through the crowd. I looked up to find my locker number and saw Sean Haggerty in his usual pose: leaning against the locker next to mine. He smiled and I could smell his Polo cologne cascading toward me.

  “Is that you this year?” I asked, tilting my head toward the metal numbers on the top of the locker.

  “No, I’m further down. I was waiting to see where you were. How can I harass you if I don’t know your home base?”

  “Oh good, so you know it IS harassment. Admitting you have a problem is the first step,” I joked, happy to slip back into our usual routine. I chucked my practice bag into the unusually empty locker. It made a loud thud against the metal.

  “Who said I am admitting to anything? Ollie North is my hero. I’m taking the Fifth. Besides, I have been warming up my voice all morning to serenade you with the Welcome Back, Kotter theme. ‘Welcome back, welcome back, welcome baaaack.’”

  “Clearly, you missed the cut for the glee club. Stick with wrestling.” I felt unencumbered with only my backpack and had stopped thinking about Karen. My conversations with Sean were always light and easy.

  “Is that a promise? I can give you a full nelson demo. You don’t really have to go to class right now, do you?” Sean’s green eyes gleamed. I slammed my locker and walked away laughing. Sean’s attention always boosted my ego. I met Ruth at the outside of the locker banks so we could walk to science together.

  Ruth was wearing Doc Martens boots and a short, black skirt. Her legs were as white as the men’s dress shirt she had buttoned up to her neck that was either ransacked from her dad’s closet or from a thrift store.

  “I saw Lover Boy peel into the parking lot a few seconds ago,” Ruth said as I adjusted my L.L. Bean backpack and fell into step next to her. She had been standing near one of the only sources of natural light on the second floor: a floor to ceiling window that looked out onto the parking lot.

  “You mean Reid?” I asked. “That’s late, even for him.” We walked down the wide stairs heading toward the science wing.

  “Does he usually give Karen Eubanks a ride to school? She was with him.” Ruth raised her eyebrows and watched to see if I knew that already. I didn’t.

  This time I was ready for the blow. I had sensed I needed to strengthen my mental defenses. I had been working hard to protect my emotions and boundaries. Mr. Parks had told me to increase my meditation and breathing exercises and to imagine all my worst-case scenarios. That way, I could never totally be taken off-guard. I had already heard this conversation before, only it was in my own mind. I couldn’t shake the feeling that Reid was not telling me everything about Karen so I had prepared myself for the worst.

  I knew that Ruth was thinking Reid was proving his playboy reputation to be true. She didn’t hide the disgust on her face. Since I was not thrown for a loop, I did not waste my time with an emotional response. I needed to prepare and plan before reacting. Not everything was as it looked on the surface. Mr. Parks always said, “When you are ready to act, you need to act without hesitating. But make sure you know for certain the justifications for your actions.”

  I didn’t have all the information. I would have to wait before making a decision. “Forewarned is forearmed. Thanks for telling me. I will wait to see what he says—or doesn’t say.” The science wing smelled like rubbing alcohol and industrial floor cleaner. The strong mix combined with my image of Karen and Reid in my mind. It made my stomach queasy. This might have been easier if Dr. West had not clued me in that I loved him. Denial was less complicated.

  I slid into my assigned seat. Unlucky. I was next to a chatty girl who thought I was an airhead. She kept trying to be helpful by whispering tips to me while we were going over a review sheet. It was difficult to think while she was lisping in my ear. She looked and smelled like someone who had just rolled out of bed and skipped taking a shower. She obviously did not get the Blair Delaney dress for success fashion memos.

  My queasy feeling had not subsided. I pulled a Pop Tart out of my backpack. The sweet and fruity scent blocked out the other revolting smells long enough to focus. I took a bite and spun the paper further away from Chatty Kathy. I cruised easily through the questions. Instead of turning it in, I held on to my paper and doodled
on the bottom, thinking about Karen and biding my time.

  Karen was a year older than me and trailed around with a large and wild pack of girls in her class. Most of these girls were Zetas—those with new dandelion-colored Mustang convertibles and personalized plates like YLLWPNY or a new Saab 9000 with EXPNSIV as its tag. They were a reckless lot that lived for the weekend. She was not a great athlete, a sharp mind, or even a particularly nice person. She was just there—like a lot of other high school girls— just taking up space and not really doing much of anything. They were empty inside and relied on their clothes, their purse, or their shoes to define them. I thought about how Mr. Parks would classify this opponent. His swift decision sliced through my mind like a samurai sword: stupid. And stupid, he said, always destroyed itself.

  I grabbed my backpack to head to Latin, not hearing a word of what Chatty Kathy was saying as I walked away from our table. I wanted to be sure to catch Blair before I saw Reid.

  Ruth was waiting for me outside the classroom door. “Well, do you have a strike team coming in to take her out?” she asked with half a smile. “Do I need to find a bunker?”

  “Ha ha. Not yet. Let’s go for a more sophisticated and quieter approach. I would appreciate you and Shannon finding out whatever you can—or letting me know what you hear. Tell Shannon that Karen is using Reid to get rides to school and that it is desperate and tiresome.” Ruth raised her eyebrows. I didn’t need to explain I was using Shannon’s inability to keep a secret. Shannon would have told half our class this story by lunch. “The last thing I want going around is that I am upset or for Reid to think he is in the middle of a tug-of-war.” I answered the question of concern in Ruth’s curious eyes. We threaded our way through the packed hallway.