We begin again... Session 2

 We begin again… 

Wednesday 30^th July 1984 – a cloudless, sunny day, idyllic even…

Failed, failed, useless drones, you failed us, failed, disgrace, exile them, you failed, failures, disgraces, failure, expel them, failures, failed, failed, useless drones, you failed us, failed, disgrace, exile them, you failed, failures, disgraces, failure, expel them, failed, failed, useless drones, you failed us, failed, disgrace, exile them, you failed, failures, disgraces, failure, expel them…

Frisk shook his head trying to rid himself of the voices and looked over the dorm at Chang, head buried under the pillow. There was only one thing they could do, they had to rectify the disgrace they had caused. Frisk had seen the images, it wasn’t even their fault, that Williams kid was fast and strong, but he couldn’t have won without the other kids interference, they had to make sure it didn’t happen again, even if it meant breaking the code…

Jodie reached out, her fingers crimped around one of the gnarls in the ancient trees hefty branch. What was it the Easton kid always said? Three points of contact at all times, she hooked her left leg over the underlying branch momentarily swinging on her hands. This allowed her to pull her other leg over and onto another branch, the cocoons were getting closer. Suddenly there was a sharp pain like a sting on her rear, she looked down, where had they come from? It was the boys who had lost the race to Jake. The tall, blonde, one hissed at her to come down and to do it now. Why should she, she could climb higher, there was no way they could get to her, no matter what they said. But something in the boys look, his stance, his face, maybe his eyes made it clear – she probably should. Deftly she dropped down but was instantly surrounded by the three of them. She was scared, she didn’t want to be, she wanted to be mad, they were treating her like a little kid, she wanted to be mad, but she couldn’t be, she could only be scared. As the trio walked away the message they had given her echoed in her head, 

“Tell your so called brother that next time his friends will not be there to save him..”

What did they mean? But whatever it was she had to tell Jake, she wanted to stand next to him, to feel safe. Shaking her head Jodie tried to remember if it was the dojo or the sport’s field that she had heard him mention. It was probably the dojo, always was the dojo with Jake, she would try there first..

Avery Rose followed Ellis at a distance, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had a friend with him she would have trotted to catch him up, pretending it was a coincidence and that she was just on her way to the mall as well. Being metaphorically invisible to people was useful, one of her favourite things in fact, well it was until one wanted to be noticed and Rose was almost sure that she wanted to be noticed, perhaps, oh the confusion. Sudden stings on her face, the unconscious action of shutting her eyes saved them from too much dirt and grit but her face stung from the sod of earth and grit that had landed on the sidewalk in front of her and exploded shrapnel like. When her eyes refocussed there they were, the kids from the swim meet, motionless, silent, staring at her… Did they know it had been her? Rose tried to carry on walking, not even worrying about making sure not to step on the cracks in the sidewalk, but the boys seemed to close around her. Rose’s heart felt like it was in her throat, her stomach tightened as she listened to the hissed accusations, she called out, called out to Ellis. Around the looming, hissing face of the Academy kid she saw Ellis turn and start running back towards her, he was coming to rescue her. 

Ellis had heard his name, turned and looked, was that Rose calling out, was that the kid from the Academy in her face? It only took a second to decide what he was to do, he’d go and call them out, take Rose by the hand (well maybe not actually take her hand). I mean they were not going to cause trouble on the main street for goodness sake, surely they wouldn’t.

Ellis’s eyes snapped open as the kindly older woman splashed water on his face and slapped him. Hey,  wait, maybe she wasn’t too kind, she was slapping him! Memories of the last few minutes managed to push themselves past the searing pain he was feeling on his right cheek, maybe the pain was linked to the drop of blood that splattered on the pavement between his outspread legs. Frisk had gone to kick him and Ellis had moved back and to the side, out of his peripheral vision he had seen Rose throw soil in the other kids face. He remembered thinking that was the time for them to run, to grab Rose and run. But that thought was just before Chang has punched him in the side of his head. True Ellis wasn’t exactly used to being punched but he had been on the end of Theo’s beatings often enough to know that that punch was something different. 

Whispering to Rose that they needed to find Jake and find him quick the pair of them hobbled towards the hospital, just for long enough to placate the adults that had congregated around them. Luckily, he had dissuaded the woman from fetching the local cops… that would be the last thing his family needed. He and Rose looked around to see if the Academy kids were around, when they were sure they weren’t they ducked into the woods and began to run along the ‘school’ trail that led around the back of the school to where they thought Jake was watching baseball practice. 

At least Coach was in a good mood mused Jake, he took pride in his part in that. He had won against the odds and against the Bees. A win that was on him, not on the Sarge, not on his Sensei, not on his Mum, just on him, he had done it by himself and he always will do, he will always do it by himself, he needs no one. No-one, and certainly not his little step-sister, what the fuck was she doing here? He hoped she wasn’t coming for him but then she was running straight towards the bleachers where he sat watching the baseball team winding up the practice session. 

Jakes world turned topsy turvy, literally… Only his dojo reflexes from hundreds of ukemi reps had made him put his arms in front of his face and to turn his head so instead of splatting nose first into the wooden plank of the bleachers his arms had taken the force. Instinctively he held on to the plank as his legs were dragged backwards, backwards through the gap in the bleaches. Realising he couldn’t resist he deftly let his resistance go and twisted to land on the sand below, landed like his super heroes did in the comics. 

As he glared towards the perpetrators of the ‘attack’ he saw it was the Academy kids he had beat at the swim meet. WTF why were they here? Before he could think or ask Chang advanced towards him with a series of straight Wing Chun punches (the kids around school would call them Bruce Lee punches). Jodan uke, jodan uke, two upper blocks, two blocks designed at making the puncher commit their entire body weight forward into another punch. But Jake didn’t intend to block this one, instead he spiralled inside the punch lightly grabbing the punching arm and guiding it forward, the attacker’s body seemingly stumbling after it. Jake heard the cry of pain, saw the bleachers wobble slightly as Chang went head, well face, first into the metal pole that was supporting the lattice of scaffolding above them. Jake turned to Frisk and did his favourite signature move, copied from Bruce Lee, he wiped the trickle of blood from his lip with his thumb and flicked it to the side. Then he raised his hand, palm upwards, fingers beckoning Frisk to attack him. Well, that’s what would have happened had the action been a Shaw Brothers’ film… What actually happened was a blinding fast spinning roundhouse kick that saw a heel connect with the side of Jake’s face. As he lay on the floor, darkness encroaching his vision, Frisk was over him, hissing in his face, threatening that next time he needed his friends to help him win would be his last… As his consciousness eventually lost the battle his eyelids closed as he heard his little sister’s (did he just think of her as a sister?) voice screaming out…

Jodie sat on the sand watching the three of them argue. She couldn’t help thinking that Jake was missing the point here. Sure, he seems to have figured out that Ellis and Avery Rose had had a hand in his win, but for goodness sake the Academy kids had just beaten half their little gang (she presumed they were a gang now, even if only by default) up and all over a stupid swim meet. Jodie didn’t follow everything they were saying. Jake was cussing Ellis, saying that his brother was a junkie. Jodie still wouldn’t believe that, not that she knew exactly what a junkie was. But, she knew it had to do with drugs and that Theo wasn’t the kind of kid to do drugs, were any kids in fact, Jodie was dubious about that. 

Somehow the argument seemed to wear itself out and now the three of them were talking about sneaking into the Academy as they had convinced themselves that something was going on. Well, Jodie was dubious about that too BUT there was no way she was being left behind like a little kid. It took threatening to tell her Dad whom Jake called ‘Sarge’ to get him to agree to let her tag along. Ellis had stood up for her, like she knew he would, if only she was older and Rose was out the picture, Jodie had never had a boyfriend…

The four of them met at the edge of the woods off the main drag, Jake still smarting from his Sensei’s words, ‘just the one of them, you disappoint me Jake’. Ellis wondering if all this has anything to actually do with his brother, maybe, just maybe the rumours were true, maybe Theo was selling drugs to the Academy kids, they had the cash to afford them after all. Rose was wondering where this was all going and to be frank, why did she care, she’d never really cared before, it was all confusing. Jodie pursed her lips, her rucksack was heavy, perhaps too heavy with all the outdoor gear she had crammed into it… but they were going to be glad that they had taken this ‘little kid’ with them this time. 

Lost in their individual thought the four of them set off into the woods to follow the fence perimeter as it winded between the trees.