“Play fighting?” Jake broke in. “You do play fighting there?”
“We practice,” Luke repeated.
“You dress up in special outfits,” Jake said. “That’s playing.”
“Okay,” Luke said. “Some of the people at our school play that they’re fighting with knives and sticks, too.”
“Knives? Really?” I exclaimed.
“Well, they’re made of wood,” Luke admitted. “But you learn how to disarm someone who is attacking you with one of them.”
“Will we be doing that soon?” I asked hopefully.
“In a year or so, I think,” Luke replied. “You have to be a red belt before they teach you that.”
“Hope nobody attacks you with a knife before then,” Jake said as he went to work on one of the dirty cartoons he liked to draw in class. “Especially a real one.”
Chelsea was a red belt. That meant she’d be learning the knife stuff soon. She was so cool.
I was almost glad I was taking taekwondo because Luke and I would have something to talk about now besides all the movies he was seeing without me. Then I thought, Hey, I could talk with Chelsea about taekwondo. Not during our taekwondo classes, but here at school.
In fact, I wondered if maybe that was what Happy Kid! had meant when it said things wouldn’t always go the way I expect them to. I could still use taekwondo to form a satisfying relationship with her. Only not at the dojang the way I’d planned.
Okay, then. If that was what Happy Kid! was telling me I should do, I had to think of a way to get a conversation started with Chelsea. How hard could that be? I just needed to get to social studies early so I’d have a chance to talk to her before class started.
Even moving as slowly as I was, I got to social studies in plenty of time. I was actually heading across the room toward Chelsea’s desk when I noticed Ms. Cannon was looking at me.
I assumed she was going to start talking about graduate school because she hadn’t mentioned it in days and was overdue. Imagine my surprise when instead she said to me, “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Fine,” I said as I kept walking. “I started taekwondo last night, and I guess I overdid it.”
“Oh, really?” Ms. Cannon said. “What got you interested in that?”
I couldn’t believe it. She always chose the worst possible time to pay attention to me.
Then I realized that if I started talking taekwondo with Ms. Cannon, it would be really logical for Chelsea to get involved with the conversation, too. So I stopped where I was and said to Ms. Cannon, “I got interested because I have friends who study taekwondo.” Just to make sure I’d said enough to get a discussion going, I added, “I’m working on a yellow belt.”
It worked. Ms. Cannon was interested. She said, “So what is taekwondo, anyway?”
“Um, you know, it’s a martial art. Master Lee uses it in his movies,” I explained.
“Oh, I don’t watch those,” she said with this little laugh, as if maybe I shouldn’t have brought that up. “Isn’t there a philosophy behind taekwondo? What is that about?”
A philosophy? Things definitely weren’t going the way I expected them to, because I didn’t even know what philosophy was.
“Don’t you take taekwondo, Chelsea?” Melissa asked, butting in to a conversation that had nothing to do with her.
“Yes,” Chelsea said, smiling. “I’ve been training since I was in third grade.”
Ms. Cannon turned toward her. “How does that work? Do you get different colored belts as you get better?”
“That’s right. You start off as a white belt and move up through yellow, a couple of greens, a couple of blues, a couple of reds. Then you get to brown and black.”
“What belt do you have?” one of the kids asked.
“Red.”
Ms. Cannon said, “You’re really right up there!”
What was I supposed to say then? I’m a white belt! You just don’t get any lower than that, right, Chelsea? It didn’t seem like something that would keep me in the discussion for very long.
They were just getting started on how Chelsea was about to start learning how to disarm attackers who were holding knives when I slouched back to my desk. Chelsea was having a conversation about taekwondo, just as I’d expected her to. It just wasn’t a conversation that involved me.
Just like Happy Kid! said: “Every plan has a flaw.” I wondered if maybe the passages in the book weren’t advice but warnings and I just didn’t get them.
CHAPTER 10
On a Thursday morning more than a week before Halloween, I decided to check out Happy Kid! while I was on the bus. I had let it open that morning right after I got up and again when I finished in the bathroom, but the book kept flipping to the same “Nothing Comes Easy” chapter I’d been seeing for more than two weeks. I really didn’t have much hope that anything would happen on the bus, but I didn’t want to spend the whole ride to school reading ahead in my copy of The Odyssey, either. So I pulled Happy Kid! out of my backpack and let it fall open.
There it was, a new message.
Say Yes to New Opportunities!
There are lots of opportunities all around you for great experiences with great people. But you’ll never get a chance to take advantage of them if your mind is closed to anything new. If you automatically say no to everything new and different, you’ll be spending a lot of time at home, where everything is old and the same. Say yes to new opportunities.
New opportunities? I thought. There is no way I’m going to like this.
Sure enough, the first new opportunity came up in English class.
“We’ll be coming to the end of The Odyssey soon,” Mr. Borden announced at the beginning of class, which was a huge relief as far as I was concerned. “We should be finishing in two to three weeks. It will be time, then, for another presentation here at Borden’s Playhouse.”
Some girls clapped their hands. Even a couple of the boys looked excited. I thought I should try to show some A-kid-type enthusiasm, just in case Chelsea was looking my way, so I managed a weak “Oh. Yay. Borden’s Playhouse.”
Then Mr. Borden asked, “Who wants to be part of the creative team behind ‘Scenes from The Odyssey’?”
If Chelsea volunteered, I would, too. I didn’t have a clue what we’d have to do, but if Chelsea was on a creative team, I was going to be there with her.
Slowly, smoothly, Chelsea’s hand went up. My arm shot up with a snap. (It felt a lot like a perfect taekwondo punch, as a matter of fact, though in a totally wrong direction.)
“ . . . Melissa and . . . oh, Kyle,” Mr. Borden said, sounding surprised. “Very good. So that’s Emily, Gillian, Phil, Melissa, and Kyle. That should be enough.”
I looked away from Chelsea to Melissa. Melissa looked away from Mr. Borden to me. I hoped the expression on my face wasn’t half as disappointed as the one on hers. A quarter , even.
A second opportunity almost came up at lunch.
It being Thursday and all, I had hoped someone at lunch would mention going to the movies Friday night and there would be an opportunity for me to say, “Yeah, I guess I could meet you there.” That was a really, really positive thing for me to be thinking.
But instead of making plans to go to the movies the next night, Luke started talking about Halloween, which wasn’t for another week.
Ted said to him, “You know what I was thinking we should do for Halloween? We should use our doboks for costumes.”
“Yes!” Luke exclaimed. “That will look cool—especially now that we have yellow belts to wear with them.”
“What are you guys doing for Halloween?” I asked, trying to sound as if I really wasn’t paying too much attention to the conversation.
“This girl in our English class asked us to a party,” Luke said. “I don’t think you know her,” he added awkwardly. “You’re in accelerated English, you know.”
I knew.
Oh, this is a great opportunity, I thought. An opportun
ity for everyone to know that I’m alone—again—on Halloween. For everyone to see that no one wants to be with me.
While those thoughts were going through my mind, I heard someone say, “I don’t know what I’ll be doing on Halloween. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
That someone was me.
Everyone around me started talking about what they were doing on Halloween. Hearing all their plans didn’t bother me nearly as much as I thought it would because I was just so glad that they were talking about something, anything, and not silently wondering what was wrong with Kyle.
The third opportunity came later in the afternoon.
I got to science class and in walked Jake, who came up to me and said, “Hey, you’re not going to this kid Halloween party little Lukie’s going to, are you? Tell me you’re too cool for that.”
“I’m too cool. Way too cool,” I told him.
“Good. Why don’t you come out with Brian, Kenny, and me? We’re going to hang out at the mall. You can be part of my posse.”
No, no, no. This was an opportunity to do something new and different, and I was saying no to it. I didn’t care what kind of message Happy Kid! was trying to give me. I was not hanging out at the mall with Jake.
“We might go in some kind of costumes, but we haven’t decided yet,” Jake continued. “We’re going to hit the Mexican place at the food court, and then go into some nice stores and fart in the changing rooms. We’ve done that before. It is hysterical. You don’t know any girls you’d like to invite, do you?
It would be really funny if we could get a girl to gas up at the food court with us and then head on into the women’s changing rooms.”
Jake couldn’t find a girl on his own to “gas up at the food court” with him? Why wasn’t I surprised?
“Ah, that sounds great. I’m not going to be able to make it, though,” I said.
“Why not? You going out trick-or-treating?” Jake sneered.
“Ah, no, no, of course not. Haven’t done that in a while,” I said, trying to buy some time while I came up with a good excuse. Behind Jake’s back I could see Luke staring at me and silently mouthing a word. He had to do it a few times before I picked up on his meaning.
“Taekwondo,” I said to Jake finally. “I have to go to taekwondo class that night.”
“On Halloween?”
“Hey, martial artists don’t care about Halloween,” I told him. “They’re going to be training that night just like any other Friday night.”
Oh, no. Halloween is on a Friday this year, I realized. I just told someone I was going to spend Halloween and a Friday night at the dojang. It sounded a lot like a nerd twofer to me.
“They have classes six days a week,” Luke broke in. “Kyle needs to go to some extra classes because . . . he’s not very good.”
Thanks for the help, Luke.
“So, that’s why I can’t go with you,” I said to Jake. “Thanks anyway.”
I was used to having bad days when things didn’t go my way and nothing came easy. And that particular bad day probably wasn’t much worse than any other. I was just getting so tired of them, though.
When I got to the dojang that night, I was way past caring if people saw me stretching, punching at myself in front of the mirror, or standing on my head. I warmed up and then practiced my roundhouse kick in front of the mirror. Turn. Kick. Turn. Kick. Turn. Kick. I saw Chelsea’s reflection in the glass. Turn. Kick.
Then I went through the moves for the poomse, or form I was learning. It was a series of punches, kicks, and blocks that I had to memorize. Low block. Punch. Low block. Turn. I could see Chelsea out of the corner of my eye practicing something with an older girl. Low block. Punch.
“Line up, please,” Mr. Goldman called.
“Sir!” I shouted and ran to my place.
“Ten jumping jacks!”
“Hana!” I shouted with the others, counting in Korean each time our arms went up into the air.
“Follow me, Paul,” Mr. Goldman said to the highest-ranking black belt in the room. The rows of people fell into place behind Mr. Goldman as he led us in a run around the dojang. When we were done, the long line that had snaked around the big room immediately broke up and silently rearranged itself into three rows, three people across, for warm-up and drills.
How much longer do I have to do this? I wondered as we started the drills. Punch. Shout. Punch. Shout. Punch. Shout. Why don’t they have a clock in the front of the room? Palm strike. Shout. Palm strike. Shout. My fingers should be together. Shout. Kick. Shout. Kick. Shout. I want that foot higher. Shout. Bring the knee up and then straighten the leg. Shout. Higher. Shout. Switch stance. I can do that faster next time. Kick. Shout. Kick. Shout. Higher. Harder. Louder.
We did self-defense training that night and then lined up in front of the heavy bag for another kicking drill. I was bouncing on the balls of my feet, keeping everything loose and ready to move when I noticed Chelsea was somewhere ahead of me and realized that I’d lost track of her earlier in the class. Then I had to look away from her and toward the bag. I had to keep my hands up to guard my face. I had to guard my chest. I had to turn on my left foot, bend to my left so my body was parallel to the floor, bring my leg up, and kick the bag. The next time I came through the line I hit the bag harder. The next time I hit it at a higher spot. Harder. Higher. Harder. Higher. I just kept coming through the line toward that bag, over and over and over again.
“Line up!” Mr. Goldman shouted.
“Sir!” I shouted back with the rest of the class as I ran to get into line for the cool-down stretching.
Suddenly, we were through with even that.
“Charyot!” Mr. Goldman called, and we stood at attention.
“Kyungye!” We bowed.
“Kamsahamnida. Thank you for training this evening.”
“Kamsahamnida,” we all replied.
The class was over, and my mind was empty. There was just nothing in it. Probably this was because I hadn’t been able to think of anything but the moves I had to make for the better part of fifty minutes. For that whole time all I’d been able to do was move. I didn’t think about being the guy everyone believed had pulled a weapon on a school bus. I didn’t think about being the guy who sat next to Jake Rogers in so many classes. I didn’t even think about being a B-minus guy who wanted an A-plus girl to like him. As I left the dojang, I wasn’t that other guy. He didn’t exist there.
On the way home in the back of Ted’s dad’s car, I relaxed back against my seat and thought, Yes, I’ll keep coming here for a while.
CHAPTER 11
A week later I suddenly realized I had plans for Halloween. Halloween was the very next day, and I had a place to go. This year I wasn’t going to be stuck staying home with my parents, pretending I was having a good time handing out candy. I was going to taekwondo. Taekwondo, where, on Tuesday night, I had kicked the stuffing out of a target. Really, little bits of fluff were floating all around the person holding it for me. Where else can a guy kick something so hard, he knocks the insides out of it and the adults watching him tell him he’s doing a great job? Who knew I would be so good at this?
I didn’t even mind that Luke and Ted weren’t going to be there. You aren’t supposed to talk, anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t have any friends at the dojang. It might be the perfect place for me.
I was definitely feeling good in advisory the next morning, even though Friday was current events day in social studies again, and I was hunting through that day’s newspaper for an article to bring to class. A short article, of course, because the A-kids always went for the long ones.
Then Melissa arrived.
The first thing she did was start badgering me.
“It’s been over a week since Mr. Borden gave us the ‘Scenes from The Odyssey’ assignment. Do you know what we’re supposed to do?” she asked.
“Don’t you?” I replied.
“Of course I do. I spoke to Mr. Borden before class
yesterday.”
“Are you going to make me guess?” I asked her. “It would go a lot faster if you just told me.”
“Mr. Borden wants us to adapt scenes from The Odyssey into short plays and then act out the parts for the class.”
“We have to write plays? Well, it could be worse, I suppose,” I had to admit. “Mr. Borden could be writing them.”
“I picked five scenes I think would work best, and I’ve assigned one to each of the five people on the team. Yours is the scene where Odysseus meets the Cyclops.”
“What if I don’t want that scene?” I asked.
“I gave you the easiest one! How can you not want it?”
She gave me the easiest scene? She thought I needed the easiest scene? I could have pitched a fit about that, but I was afraid Melissa would take the easiest scene back and give me a hard one.
“I do want it. I like the Cyclops. I don’t blame him for hating Odysseus. I hate him, too.”
While we were talking, I glanced at a headline that read “Elderly Woman Trapped in Car for Two Days.” The article that accompanied it had only three short paragraphs. Perfect, I thought as I tore it out of its page.
“We’re all going to have to act out parts in each other’s play,” Melissa said as I opened my backpack and started sliding the rest of the newspaper into it. “I suppose it’s too much to expect you to memorize anything.”
My backpack was full, and I had to jiggle it and poke at things a bit in order to get the paper in nice and flat. Something slid out and landed on the floor. Melissa bent down to pick it up. “Oh, what have we here? I can’t believe it. You’re reading a self-help book.”
I couldn’t believe it, either. Once again something had fallen out of my backpack and was going to get me into trouble.
“A Young Person’s Guide to Satisfying Relationships and a Happy and Meaning-Filled Life!” Melissa read aloud as I tried to grab the book away from her. “This is sad. Really sad.”
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