Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love

by Maryrose Wood

  “But my presents no good!” Sensei continues. “She nice girl, no mean to me, but no love me, you know? I cry inside, cry-cry-cry, but still, I love.”

  I feel my cheeks start to flush. Does Matthew understand that this is how I feel about HIM? And ohmigod, is this how Randall feels about ME? Randall’s never given me a present, though.

  “Then,” Sensei goes on, “terrible thing happen! Her brother have big, stupid fight with my brother, because of nothing, a car they both want to buy. Her brother say to girl, no more! No more see me, no more take my presents. How you say, Randall, no more?”

  “Forbidden,” says Randall.

  “Forbidden! Forbidden to know me. Like I dead.”

  “That’s . . . tragic,” says Matthew, looking somber.

  “Like Romeo and Juliet,” muses Randall. I mentally award one point for literary reference to the Randinator.

  Sensei beams. “It was miracle!” he says. “I bless that rotten car. A Chevrolet! Once brother say ‘forbidden!’ to the girl, she change! She say, I no let brother tell me what to do! She decide she love me now. She sneak out of house to see me, she tell me she want to marry! ‘Take me away,’ she say. ‘Take me to New York!’ ”

  And did he? Now we’re dying to know.

  “Well,” says Sensei, relishing the tale, “the brother find out she love me. He come with his friends to beat me up. I always fast, so fast I could run from them. Most of the time I get away! But I hate that I scared. Hate that I run. That’s when I start to train karate. Now I run for bus, and nothing else! I no scared. Randall, you scared?”

  “Uh, sometimes,” says Randall sheepishly.

  “You champion. No be scared.” Sensei sits back, satisfied. His tale is over when his karate training begins, happy ending and fade out. But of course, what we X-investigators really want to know is what happened with the girl.

  “The girl! Ah, no-no, that’s another story,” says Sensei, waving away our question. We plead. “Okay.” He relents. “Her brother get mad at someone else and she fall in love with him! I think she hate brother more than she love me. Later I join the army, I leave Dominican Republic. She still in Santo Domingo, I guess, I don’t know. Old and fat now, maybe! But if I see her, she still beautiful to me.”

  “Why did you leave Santo Domingo?” I ask, curious. I can’t imagine leaving my hometown.

  Sensei Reynaldo looks at me as if I should already know. “To come to New York!” he says. “That’s why everybody leave where they are.”

  When you put it that way, he has a point. “Now you watch us train. You watch Randall,” Sensei says to us. “Your friend is great champion.”

  While Randall and Sensei go off to change their clothes, Matthew and I share our thoughts. Both of us feel there’s a usable hypothesis lurking inside Sensei’s story.

  “Cooking, I’m sure there’s something in that,” suggests Matthew.

  “No!” I say, excited. “It’s the Romeo/Juliet Thing!”

  He looks puzzled. “What kind of experiment could we design to test that?”

  “Easy!” I say. “What if we weren’t allowed to speak to each other anymore? And we had to sneak around and do everything in secret?”

  Matthew starts asking all kinds of scientist questions, like how could we record the results of the experiment if we couldn’t talk to each other, and how valid would the data be anyway, since we’d only be pretending, even assuming we got our parents and the Kittens and Dawgs to play along with us—

  But now Randall and Sensei are back, each dressed in a spotless white tunic and loose trousers that stop right above the ankle. They bow in the doorway as they enter the dojo.

  “This called a gi,” says Sensei. “Nice, huh?” I have to admit, Randall looks totally different in his white gi, with a dark brown belt tied low around his waist. It suits him. His upright posture is authoritative, not stiff and uptight the way I’ve thought of it before. And his quietness, so shy and goofy in the outside world, seems centered and serious here in the dojo.

  “Before train, we warm up,” says Sensei. I’m expecting jumping jacks and maybe some stretching, but instead, Sensei and Randall both kneel on the mats and touch their foreheads to the floor. Then they sit up, eyes closed, and breathe deeply for a full minute.

  And then, with a barked word from Sensei that I don’t understand, they spring into action. Punches so fast the hands blur, kicks to the front, the side, the back. Leaps that turn in midair and land on a dime. Sensei grabs one of the padded Fred Flintstone clubs and starts whacking away at Randall, who blocks every blow so quickly I can barely tell which hand he’s using. Then, with a high kick that snaps out from his knee at impossible speed, Randall knocks the club out of Sensei’s hand, spins around, and sweeps his leg under Sensei’s. A second later, Sensei is flat on his back on the floor, and Randall throws a lethal-looking punch that stops in midair, a half-inch from Sensei’s face.

  “KEEEEEEEE-YAH!!!” Randall roars. He freezes and stays there for a long, long moment.

  “Yame!” says Sensei, finally. Randall drops his position and holds a hand out to Sensei, who takes it and springs easily to his feet.

  “Not bad. Watch you leg! Back foot straight, not turn out,” Sensei says to Randall. “Not bad.” He turns to us. “You want to try?”

  Well, of course we do! And need I say that I am experiencing a whole new appreciation for Randall? He’s barely sweating. He tightens his belt with a tug and looks at me, not shy at all, with a half-smile that says, Look, see, this is who I really am.

  “Okay, I teach two things. Two different self-defense,” says Sensei. He proceeds to demonstrate how to escape if someone grabs you from behind. It involves reaching back and digging your middle fingers into this soft spot behind the other person’s ears. We all try it on each other and are amazed at how much it hurts, even when you don’t press very hard.

  “Next, more difficult. Randall, you attack. Felicia-Felicia, you defense. Don’t move, first time just watch.”

  Randall and I face each other. He assumes a relaxed, alert posture and takes several deep breaths. “Don’t move,” he repeats softly, almost as an afterthought, just as he starts to kick.

  But how can I not move? His foot is flying toward my head at the speed of light. Without meaning to I take a step sideways and start to throw up my hands.

  It’s no use, though. My Kittenpaws are no defense against the Randinator’s Flying Foot of Fate.

  “I said don’t move!” cries Randall, too late.

  When Sensei removes the ice pack from my eye, the first thing I see is Matthew’s concerned face looming in front of me. Randall is right behind him.

  “Oh my God,” gasps Randall.

  “Whoa!” says Matthew. “Nice shiner!”

  I gather from this amusing banter that, for the first time in my life, I am sporting a black eye. I immediately picture myself as Petey the dog, the patch-eyed mutt from the old Our Gang films.

  “Felicia-Felicia! You look like champion!” says Sensei, grinning. “Come back tomorrow, I want to show you to my students! See this girl? First time in dojo and she go home with trophy!”

  “I’m so sorry, Felicia,” says Randall. “What a jerk.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I say, my head throbbing. “I shouldn’t have moved.”

  “See?” says Sensei, handing me a Coke from the machine. “She champion, too.”

  My mom is not always the most coddling-type mom, but she does have an admirable way of getting on with things. After a brief round of hysteria when she saw my face, she pulled herself together, went to the medicine cabinet, and came back with a tube of arnica ointment. She dabs it on the bruised skin, saying, “I’m enrolling you at the dojo. You can take self-defense classes with this kid Randall and next time it better be him who ends up with the shiner.”

  And that would have been the end of it, as far as she was concerned. Unfortunately, while I was out getting my face kicked by the boy who may secretly love me, my d
ad called and left a message that tomorrow was the only day he could do lunch, and that Matthew and I should meet him at one o’clock at La Trattoria Ristorante Something Italian blah blah blah, and to wear a dress please if I could since it was a fancy joint and ask what’s-his-name-who’s-not-my-boyfriend to bring a tie if by some miracle he owned one.

  Without even discussing it, Mom and I both knew that nobody’s life would be made better by me showing up at a five-star restaurant in a pretty dress with a black eye, trying to get Dad to talk about love while his gazillion-dollar clients dined at nearby tables, watching and wondering if he beat his kid.

  In fact, I was in favor of not mentioning the eye thing at all. All we had to do was postpone any Felicia-Dad contact for a couple of weeks by claiming I had the chicken pox (I felt sure he would forget I’d already had it). But Motherdear, invoking the O word, would have none of this.

  “Better to be open, honey. I’ll talk to him,” she said, resolutely dialing the phone.

  After brief ex-spouse pleasantries, she got right to the point:

  “Felicia is not going to have lunch with you tomorrow—no, she’s not, because—”

  Pause.

  “No, Robert, it’s not ‘my doing.’ She’s fourteen years old, she can form her own opinions of what you do with your expense account, she doesn’t need me to point out the materialism and hypocrisy—”

  Was that necessary, Mom? Big pause. She inhales, as if to speak. Exhales. Another big pause.

  “Robert—” she says, trying to get a word in. “Robert, please! Would you please listen? She doesn’t want to see you because she has a black eye and she thinks you’ll freak out.”

  Pause.

  “Yes, a black eye. She’s fine, it was an accident—”

  Pause.

  “Well, he was there, but it wasn’t him, it was this other boy—”

  At this point, Mom’s end of the conversation goes quiet. Too quiet, as they say in the Westerns.

  She says little else, in fact, until they’re ready to hang up. And then all she says is “I think you need to cool off, is what I think. Let’s talk again tomorrow. Goodbye.” She clicks off the phone, expressionless.

  “What happened?” I ask, my face shiny with ointment. “What did he say?”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey,” she says, suddenly very preoccupied with an invisible spot on the kitchen counter. “You can have lunch with your dad another time.”

  Mom offered to let me skip school the next day, but I really didn’t want to make a drama over this black eye situation, which looked worse than it felt. And I didn’t want Randall to feel more guilt-stricken than he did already. After seeing his display of precision ass-whupping with Sensei, I have no doubt that Randall was more than capable of NOT kicking me in the face had I given him half a chance.

  I was expecting people to ask questions and make sympathetic noises when they saw me, and I had prepared myself by practicing several short, whimsical explanations for my appearance. Polo accident, fighting off an alien abduction, that sort of thing.

  What I wasn’t expecting is what really happened, when I arrived at school that morning and found Kat and Jess buh-REATHLESSLY waiting for me in front of the Pound.

  It’s an overcast day, but they’re both wearing sunglasses.

  “Oh my GOD!” Jess cries, grabbing me by the shoulders. “We just ran into Randall and he told us what happened, you poor thing! But Fee! You will never, EVER believe this.”

  Slowly, Jess tips down her sunglasses. So does Kat.

  Jess has a black eye, too.

  So does Kat.

  9

  The First Experiment Is Unleashed!

  “My dad found the letter,” Kat begins, once we’ve finished screaming and gone inside the Pound, fixed our morning beverages (black decaf coffee for me, plain tea for Kat, and coffee with steamed milk, two shakes of cinnamon, one shake of cocoa for Jess), and sequestered ourselves in the Red Room, ignoring the many, many indescribable looks we received from various Free Children along the way.

  “What letter?” I say, confused, having recently suffered a blow to the head.

  “The letter from Dmitri!” Kat and Jess cry, in stereophonic Black-Eyed Kittensound.

  I am dumbstruck. I know Kat’s dad is a melancholy man, not terribly happy with his life as a building superintendent in Washington Heights, with a wife who refuses to leave her dying mother in Moscow and a dying mother-in-law who, since her diagnosis, has so far lived eleven years and shows no signs of expiring anytime soon. I also know (from many late-night, tell-all Kittentalks) that twice a year, once on his wedding anniversary and once at Christmas, Mr. Arlovsky is likely to consume an entire bottle of excellent vodka by himself and then sleep for two days straight. But the rest of the time he is a doting if stern father, and Katarina is his angel, his princess, his reason for living.

  “After I read the card,” Kat explains, “I was so flustered, I must have left it on the kitchen table with my books.”

  “I still can’t believe your dad read your personal correspondence!” declares Jess. “I’m almost POSITIVE that is a violation of the United Nations Directive on the Rights of Children, and I plan to look it up as SOON as I get home!”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Kat says. “He was going through the mail and the card was lying there. Once he started to read it, obviously it was addressed to me, but by then it was too late.”

  “Was he angry?” I ask, rather stupidly, since the girl is sitting here with a black eye.

  “Furious!” says Kat. “But not at me. At Dmitri! Papa is so protective, you know, he’s told me so many awful things about the way things are in Russia, especially for women.” She sighs. “He wanted me to be a great musician, not some mail-order bride. That’s why we left Mama in Moscow and came here to New York to begin with.”

  Before continuing Kat gives her hair a little shake, as if to shake off the sadness of missing her mom. Sensei Reynaldo was right. People from everywhere do leave their hometowns to come to New York, and often for good reason. But they have to leave an awful lot behind.

  “Anyway,” Kat goes on, more softly, “he didn’t even know I was home, because I was in my room studying. I heard noise from the kitchen and went in to see. He was in a rage, throwing things. A can of peas went flying through the air and bam! hit me right here.” She taps her purple cheekbone. “Poor Papa! When he saw my face he was beside himself. I’ve never seen him so upset.”

  “Tell her about the recital!” urges Jess.

  Kat’s expression darkens. “He says I must have nothing whatsoever to do with Dmitri. He wants me to cancel my recital. Find a new accompanist, try again in six months, maybe a year.”

  “No! I’m so sorry, Kat!” I know how hard she’s been working. “You must be really disappointed.”

  Kat hands me a piece of paper. “I can’t cancel, Felicia. Look at this.”

  It’s a letter, on beautiful engraved stationery that reads “Argosy Records” on top. I skim the contents:

  Dear Miss Arlovsky,

  Thank you for your invitation. Please know that my sta f have been following your career with interest and I am rearranging my travel plans to be at your upcoming recital . . . one of the most promising young artists I’ve heard about in a long time . . . eager to see firsthand if the rumors are true . . .

  Et sweatera.

  “It’s from Edgar Chorloff! The head of Argosy Records! I’ve been trying to get him to come to one of my recitals for two years!” says Kat.

  “What if you told your dad about this Chorloff guy?” I suggest. “Wouldn’t he change his mind?”

  Kat rolls her eyes. “It might make it worse! He thinks I’m not ready. But he thinks I’m not ready to cross the street by myself, either.” A strand of butter-colored hair has worked its way into Kat’s mouth, and she chews it idly for a second before she realizes what she’s doing and spits it out.

  “The thing is, when my dad calms down he’ll change h
is mind about the recital, I know he will,” says Kat firmly. “But by then it’ll be too late. If Dmitri and I don’t keep practicing I won’t be prepared. And this HAS to be the best recital of my life!”

  A group of Free Children wander into the Red Room. They see us. Their mouths drop open in horror. They whisper to each other and back out of the room, looking rather smirky if you ask me. One black eye deserves sympathy. Three, apparently, are nothing but grist for the rumor mill.

  And speaking of black eye number three—it doesn’t take me long to guess the source of Jess’s shiner. But I guess wrong.

  “Nope! It wasn’t D. J. Amberson this time,” laughs Jess. “Though she did give me a bad set of skinned knees last week. I knew she tripped me that time, but I just pretended it was an accident.” She points to her eye. “THIS was from those girls at her school! The ones she was singing with. They jumped me in the bathroom and said, ‘Deej doesn’t need any new friends’ or something like that. Then one of them punched me and they ran away.”

  “That’s horrible!” I say. “Are you okay?”

  “It was a little scary,” concedes Jess, before perking up again. “But guess what? Now Deej wants to hang out with me, because she’s so mad at these other girls for trying to chase me off!”

  “But I thought she didn’t like you?” I ask, confused.

  “She doesn’t!” crows Jess in triumph. “But they only hit me because they didn’t want me hanging around Deej, so now she’s pissed at them and INSISTS on being friends with me!”

  Kat and Dmitri. Jess and Deej. I’m sensing a pattern here, but what is it? It’s out of focus, a blurry vision stoked by incense and twangy world music. “The thing is,” adds Jess in a low voice, “my parents want me to cancel the peer tutoring program now! I know they’re worried. But I’m finally getting close to Deej! I can’t let her down.”

  “Isn’t it strange?” says Kat. “I thought Dmitri was gross until my dad said I couldn’t see him, but now I have to find a way to meet with him behind my dad’s back! And Deej ignored you until these other girls tried to keep you apart, and now she wants to be your friend! I don’t understand it.”