by Yazz Ustaris
Turning the corner, I took a deep fortifying breath before we made our entrance into the Mess Hall. I heard the chattering of voices fall to hushed whispers as we worked our way to the buffet table located along the back wall. Naturally, we had to pass by every single table in order to reach the food. To my dismay, I saw that we were the last to arrive, so I made a mental note to make sure I woke up extra early the following morning. I frowned slightly as my gaze flicked from one table to another and briefly skimmed all the faces that were turned my way. At the mini barracks, I had grown used to the penetrating stare of Sergeant Ramsey, but I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to being subjected to the intense scrutiny of 10 new people. Even though I possessed a certain amount of self-confidence, unlike other girls, I did not enjoy being the center of attention.
My gaze was caught and held by a blond haired guy sitting alone at one of the tables. He was distanced apart from the majority of the group and was leaning back in his chair as he stared at me with his arms crossed in front of his chest. His expression was almost…angry. I forced my attention away from him as I wondered what the hell his problem was. As I casually scanned the crowd, my eyes fell upon a girl on the opposite side of the room whose expression was nearly the mirror image of the blonde haired guy. She had dark eyes, dark skin, a mass of dark curly hair, and a dark expression to match. Yeowch! What the hell?! Well, I guess I know who belongs to the “Anti-Teagan Club”.
Quickly, I averted my gaze and saw Logan, Cassidy, and Gabe from the night before. They were sitting at the same exact table, in the same exact order as they had been several hours prior. It was almost as if they had never left. As their eyes met mine, they each smiled and waved enthusiastically at me, causing Kyrie to turn to me in question. “I’ll tell you later,” I whispered to her as I continued dragging her along beside me.
To my relief, I saw Sam waving at the last table closest to the food. By the look of things, he and Gideon were already finished with eating breakfast. I smiled at them, instantly feeling better as I took in their grinning faces. They both looked amused as they watched us approach.
“Way to make an entrance, Teagan,” Gideon smirked at me before turning his attention to Kyrie. “Good morning Kyrie. You two need to hurry! You only have 20 minutes to eat before we’re supposed to meet “The Ram”,” I nodded and tugged Kyrie with me to grab a couple of plates and see what Amos had to offer. I loaded up my plate with two hard boiled eggs, some turkey bacon, a few slices of melon, and a banana. Refilling my purple cup with water, I took everything back to the table and started to dig in, trying to ignore the fact that nearly everyone was still staring at me. G’ah!! What is up with that!? I didn’t like it one bit.
As I bit viciously into my bacon, I looked over Gideon’s shoulder at the dark haired girl sitting all alone at the next table. Her back was to us, but I recognized her posture. Marisol. I waited until Kyrie finally joined our table and plunked herself down into the spot next to me before asking her, “Why don’t you go invite Marisol to come join us? We still haven’t officially met yet.”
Kyrie’s look was guarded as she shook her head and said, “I can’t. She’s shy. She’ll introduce herself when she’s ready. We can’t push her. Nurse Jamie said to give her time.”
I nodded my head in understanding as I considered her words. Shoving half a hard-boiled egg in my mouth, I felt my eyes bugging out as I noticed what was on Kyrie’s plate. Casting furtive looks at the guys, I saw they were both staring at her plate too. As I swallowed my egg, I cleared my throat and pointed out, “Sweetie, that’s not breakfast…that’s half a bakery!” Loaded on her plate was a little donut with pink frosting, a little donut with purple frosting, a large cinnamon roll oozing with white frosting, and a large croissant. To round out her breakfast was a tall glass of orange juice.
Defensively, Kyrie’s bottom lip stuck out in a little pout as she explained, “Some people enjoy savory things for breakfast. Other people like sweet things for breakfast. I’m one of those people that needs sugar to start my day.”
Now I knew where all her energy came from. I winced, realizing she was about to eat sugar on top of sugar. “Okay, but do you think you can scarf all that down in 15 minutes?”
She nodded enthusiastically as she picked up the pink donut and got to work.
Gideon crossed his arms over his chest as he declared, “This I’ve gotta see.” He was clearly doubtful, and I had to nod my head in agreement as Sam and I turned to watch Kyrie eat. The corners of Kyrie’s mouth quirked as she noticed she was the center of our attention, and I saw a determined look enter her eyes as she continued eating her pastries. She was on a mission to prove us wrong. Both donuts now gone, she picked up her fork to dig into her cinnamon roll. Five minutes and two sips of orange juice later, her cinnamon roll was demolished. I had already finished my food and was worried about the croissant possibly coming back up later. She had no idea about the type of workout she was going to get later in the Gym.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that several of the others had crept closer to our table, clearly curious about what we were doing. A minute after that, I saw the arrival of the sergeants as they came up behind them, and just that quickly a crowd had formed. Catching my eye, Sergeant Ramsey held up seven fingers indicating we had 7 minutes left, and I gave him a slight nod of my head in understanding. I rested my chin on my fist as I watched Kyrie go to town on her croissant. I was slightly mollified when I saw a little bit of egg and ham peeking out between the flaky layers. Whether she knew it or not, her body would need the protein in a few hours. Nervously, I waggled my left eyebrow at Gideon and Sam as I felt my lips spreading into a smile of anticipation.
When she finished with three minutes to spare, I grabbed her left hand with my right one and raised her arm victoriously in the air. “Woooo! Behold the Pastry Champion! Yay Kyrie! She’s so small…where does it all go? It’s a mystery!”
Gideon and Sam both laughed but admiration was apparent in their eyes as they gazed at Kyrie in wonder. “She’s like a Mini-Teagan in training!” Gideon laughed at his own joke as we heard resounding chuckles all around us. I was shocked when I saw the blond haired guy on the outskirts of the crowd. A very slight grin decorated his mouth as he looked at Kyrie. Good to know he doesn’t hate everybody.
“Alright, play time’s over!” Sergeant Flynn announced to the entire group. “Everyone report to the Gym! Now!”
We all stood up to put our trays away and I followed Sam and Gideon to where Sergeant Ramsey waited by the glass doors. I was excited to get started because yesterday I hadn’t done any exercise at all, so today I was ready to get sweaty. Besides that, I was finally going to find out where the Gym was located. As weird as it sounds, the Gym symbolized a place of comfort for me. Sergeant Ramsey had us fall back and wait until we were the last group to leave the Mess Hall, and then we exited the building and turned left. About fifty feet away was the Gym, and I saw that it wasn’t connected to anything else. From the outside it looked enormous and just a wee bit intimidating.
As we entered the building I saw that the other sergeants had their units all spread out on one side of the Gym. It looked as if they had stations set up for different exercises. All along the back wall, every single piece of exercise equipment known to man was lined up for our use. I saw barbells, kettle bells, medicine balls, Swiss balls, and there was even a large plastic bin holding brand-new unopened packages of boxing gloves. Glancing around the room excitedly, I saw a few punching bags hanging from the ceiling in one of the very far corners. On the West side of the Gym was a rock-climbing wall! I grinned at the guys and gave them high-fives of happiness at all the new “toys” we’d get to play with. The entire back wall behind the row of exercise equipment was made up of a large floor to ceiling mirror. Staring at it in amazement, I figured it must’ve recently been cleaned because it was spotless and showed us our reflections with perfect clarity. I smiled at Sam thinking he’d probably be itching to do aerobic dance
workouts in this Gym just for the mirror alone.
Sergeant Ramsey led us to the opposite side of the mammoth Gym away from everybody else. Our half alone was easily triple the size of our pitiful little gym at the smaller barracks. I saw that the floor on this side was lightly padded and our shoes sank a little into the mats as we stopped in the middle of our new exercise arena. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that this building was easily the size of a football field and a half. Gargantuan!! I quirked an eyebrow at Sergeant Ramsey. “You’ve been holding out on us, old man.” I jumped up and down in place, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I rotated my shoulders in a few quick warm-up moves. Wind-milling my arms, I smiled and said, “What are we waiting for? Let’s do this!” I was in love with this building and felt completely in my zone.
The Sarge smiled as he gestured to the high ceiling where I saw that metal tracks had been built in. “Those tracks are so that we can manipulate how far away from the wall we can move the ropes.” Confused when I didn’t immediately see any ropes, I twisted to look behind me and saw six thick ropes resting along the back mirror. Wow! I was practically chomping at the bit to get started but the Sarge held his arm out to stop me when I began heading in the direction of the ropes. “The first exercise we’re doing today is high jumping, not distance jumping.” The three of us followed him when he began walking to the North wall and I saw that there were six thick, metal rings dangling from the ceiling by chains. Each metal ring was about the circumference of a dinner plate and they were spaced about ten feet apart from one another.
Taking a small device out of his pocket that looked like a little black remote, Sergeant Ramsey pointed it towards the ceiling and one of the metal rings began to descend. “Oh my God!!” I squealed. “That is SO awesome!” I clapped my hands before hugging one of Gideon’s arms. “Do you realize what this means? You and Sam will be able to catch up to me pretty quickly with all these new gadgets!” Turning to Sam, I saw that he looked just as excited as I was.
“Do you really think that Gideon and I will be able to jump as high as you?” Even though he was excited, he was doubtful that he’d be able to catch up. Silly goose. I hugged him around his middle as I smiled happily up at him. “I’d bet all the dark chocolate in the world that you’ll catch up before the end of the week.” My answer seemed to satisfy both him and Gideon, since they knew how serious I was about chocolate.
My gaze jerked to the Sarge as he snorted and said, “They’ll catch up way sooner than that.”
When the metal ring was finally about halfway down, Sergeant Ramsey stopped its descent and turned to look at me expectantly. “Well? What are you waiting for, Teagan? A personal invitation?” Grinning at the challenge, I jogged to the South wall where the ropes were located. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our little portable stereo sitting near the corner. Hmmm….how did you get there? Shrugging, I jogged over to it and chose a station for some mood music. The sound of reggae music filled the air as I jogged back to my starting position, but I just ignored Sergeant Ramsey as he started shaking his head in amusement at my selection.
Taking a deep breath, I focused my gaze on my target. I was a little worried when it seemed like the metal ring was so much higher up than I thought I was capable of jumping. Flicking my gaze uncertainly to my left, I saw that the other test subjects were doing shuttle runs from one side of the Gym to the other. A few of them looked in my direction, but for the most part the majority of them were all facing forward. I guessed they’d have to or else they’d run the risk smacking head on into someone else. The sergeants were all staring right at me though, so the pressure to succeed in front of them was high. At that moment, the door to the Gym opened and I saw the familiar forms of Dr. Duffy and Jamie both enter and start heading my way. Oh great! More witnesses.
Just do it, Teagan! You can do this! Failure is not an option! Sometimes I felt like it helped when I gave myself pep talks, and today was no exception. Exhaling one last breath, I darted forward and ran full speed at the wall, my gaze fully fixed on the metal ring that was spaced about a foot and a half away from it. As I approached the wall, I leapt and began running upwards, the toes of my sneakers finding purchase on the wall as I propelled myself up. I felt my fingers brush the metal ring and I flailed briefly before I found the strength to push up that tiny half inch more in order to grab the damned thing. Once I had it firmly in my grasp, I gripped it tightly and just dangled there for a moment, trying to catch my breath. Geez! I almost didn’t make it!
Hearing clapping and shouts of praise, I tilted my head back and grinned at Sam and Gideon over my shoulder. “That looked so much more impressive in person than it did on the video!” Gideon called up to me. I finally released the ring and dropped back down onto the padded floor in a crouch before collapsing shakily onto my butt. “Whew! I swear, I think that was the highest I’ve ever jumped!”
Sergeant Ramsey nodded in agreement. “It was! Quite honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d make it the first time darlin’. I’m proud to see that ya proved me wrong!” He pointed his remote to lower another metal ring on the other side of the one I had just jumped onto. When it was at the same exact level as my ring, he turned to both Sam and Gideon. “Okay, now it’s yer turn! Practice makes perfect! Go!”
When Sam and Gideon just stood there staring at him incredulously, he roared, “NOW! Run, Run, Run!” Sergeant Ramsey was yelling in his no-nonsense voice which immediately set the guys in motion. I scrambled out of the way as they both jogged to the back wall to get into position. Gideon went first, and watching him run at full speed was like watching poetry in motion. When he approached the wall, he mimicked my method and leapt before running up it. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that he only came up a foot short. It was pretty freakin’ impressive considering it was only his first attempt. My eyebrows were arched in surprise when I looked at Doc Duffy and Jamie in amazement. “Whoa! Did you guys see that?!”
I whistled loudly and clapped my hands as Gideon turned to head back to the starting point. I saw his pleased grin of acknowledgement as our eyes met. When it was Sam’s turn, he was only a couple of inches short of Gideon’s first attempt. Shocked, I turned to ask Sergeant Ramsey, “How is this possible? How did they progress so fast already? I had to practice for over a month before I could get to that height. Is it because they have more upper body strength than I do?”
There was no beating around the bush with Sergeant Ramsey. “Yes.” Smiling at me pleasantly, he once again raised his remote to lower a new metal ring so that it dangled a foot and a half above Gideon and Sam’s rings. Turning to me expectantly, he ordered, “Go!”
“Shit,” I groaned. It was gonna be a long day.
“What did you just say?!” Sergeant Ramsey’s voice was sharp as he glared at me.
“Poop! I meant to say poop!” I quickly amended.
“I’ll let that one slide just this one time since Kyrie is on the other side of the Gym and not within hearin’ range. Don’t let it happen again,” he warned as he gave me the stink eye.
I bobbed my head in understanding and cast a quick look his way before jogging over to the guys. Geez! He could be freakin’ scary sometimes when he got in one of his “moods” and acted all demanding. Once I fell in place beside Gideon, he gaped at my new ring in surprise. “He really expects you to make it that high? It’s impossible!” Sam just nodded his head in agreement as he frowned at how high it was.
To our surprise, Sergeant Ramsey slowly walked in our direction and looked all three of us in the eye before coming to a stop right in front of me. Looking down at me in consternation, he pivoted until he was facing the rings. Without warning, he crouched down slightly before sprinting at the wall. I had never seen the sergeant move that fast before and I stared wide-eyed as he easily ran up the wall and grabbed the new ring he had adjusted for me. I felt my mouth drop open in shock. Turning to Gideon whose mouth was hanging open even bigger than mine, I said, “Well he just threw your opin
ion out the window because apparently it’s not impossible. I can’t believe how easily he just did that!” We watched as he dropped back down to the mat and crossed his arms over his chest. He continued to stare at us as a self-satisfied smirk began to spread across his lips. “Showoff,” I mumbled. Clearly he still heard me because he threw his head back and laughed.
I eyed the other guys before saying, “I think we need a stronger beat.” Gideon obligingly jogged over to the stereo and set the station on hip hop. I bobbed my head along to the faster beat as I stared determinedly at my ring. If the old man could do it, then I sure as hell could do it too!
And this is how we spent our morning—with the guys determined to reach my height, and me determined to reach Sergeant Ramsey’s height. Two hours in when I was already glistening with sweat and my muscles were starting to ache, I plopped onto the ground in exhaustion and took a water break. The Sarge allowed it, so the guys dropped down beside me and drank greedily from their own squeeze bottles. We all watched curiously as Jamie took the remote from Sergeant Ramsey and lowered a new ring just to the left of mine. She stopped it about a foot above my ring and then turned to stride our way. When she was standing over us, she caught my eye and winked before turning and sprinting at the wall. That was when I finally noticed that she was wearing exercise clothes and not her customary blue scrubs. I watched her carefully as she used both her hands and feet to scramble up the wall and grabbed her ring with ease. Bloody hell! That’s it!