Ballad of a......

chapter 4

Ch.4

The musty smell of left over sweat from old ball games played here in the gymnasium lingers in our girl's locker room. Its in the middle of changing that I realize this is going to be the one class that could make or break my newly devised plan. Holly and I have always had it out for each other, ever since the second grade. I came to school the first day back from our break and told the class of my trip I went on with my mom to South America and did a photo shoot for a children s magazine down there. She got jealous and told everyone I was a liar because she wanted the attention I was getting. When parents day came, mine didn't show, they never did. They were always too busy. So, everyone just assumed I was always a liar and labeled me an outcast orphan from that day on.

Its true I had never been very good at school sports, but then I never tried. Holly was always there to remind me of what a loser I was, so I never tried hard, just enough to scrape by with a C. I guess today would be a good day to try, I mean I'm not completely horrible at sports, I'm actually pretty good at some things. My mom put me in dance and gymnastics from the time I was three so I am pretty flexible and graceful. I like to run so I have endurance. I just cant let her get to me in this class I have to stand up for myself and finally show everyone what a non-loser I am. This will be the final straw with her. If I can beat her in her own domain she will be forced into retreating and leaving me alone for good, and maybe except the fact that she is no longer queen bee at this school anymore.

I finish dressing down and step out onto the padded gym floor. Coach Wilson steps out holding what appeared to be a sword. Great! He is going to let us kill each other. What better way to beat her than to just stab her with a long piece of metal and say I was learning?

"this is a foil." he begins, "this week we are going to go back in time, when this was your only form of protection, back when everyone relied on this to show everyone else they meant business." he paces up in down in front of the class, then proceeds to take out his cell phone and show the class. "this is today's biggest bully, did you know that? I'm sure most of you have seen the commercials against bullying on TV and heard them on the radio. Well, our school is making a pledge this year to stop bullying, that is why we are teaching self defense this month, starting with a little defensive fencing practice." he then goes to the closet and pulls out white suites and helmets with masks and tells us to find our size and put one on. He will assign the partners.

"Great," I say to Anthony, "this isn't going to be the class I wanted to beat her in, our chances of getting paired together are like 1 in 30"

"Well, look on the bright side, at least it gives you more time to practice other sports and push her around in our other classes," he replies with a giggle. At least Corbin isn't in this class, I don't think I would be able to focus on a metal stick coming at me with him in here.

We all line up boys on one side, and girls on the other. He pairs one boy with each girl, only there are two more girls that there are boys, so with our luck guess what, me and Holly end up paired together. I see Anthony raise his eyebrows at me from across the room and wiggle them. The gesture makes me smile.

"alright kids, remember what I said, we are practicing defense today. I don't want to have to send anyone to the nurse on the second day of school." he says, then gestures me and Holly to move to the front of the class to be his examples of what we should be doing. "okay Holly I want you to stay completely on defense, and Zya, I just want you to pretend to be offensive, don't stab at her or try to point, just put a little pressure on her to act fast. And remember, your going to try to mirror your opponents movements."

He tells us to start, me with some fancy footwork and a little waving of my foil. Instantly Holly is on the move mirroring every move I make. Then after hitting my foil out of her way with hers, she stabs at my chest. I look up to Mr. Wilson who just reminds her we aren't going for points, and tells us to go again. Almost the same thing happens, only when she goes in to stab me, I step out of the way and bring my foil under her left ankle, causing her to fall backwards. Again Mr. Wilson doesn't seem to think we understand what it is he is asking us to do, but he still applauds my fancy work.

That really makes Holly mad. She gets up swinging fiercely. I have to instantly get into action or she is going to take my head off. We dance around the room, I take a stab at her, but she is quick and moves out of my way. She then tries to counter it and I jump backward in a somersault landing next to the bleachers. I step up to the third level and she is on the first we are still swinging so fiercely neither of us hear Wilson yelling a warning at us. Then right as I can sense her about to lunge, I lunge at her wrist causing her foil to go into the air, and I catch it with my other hand. Wow! That was totally like something I saw on pirates im sure. She just stands there looking helplessly at me, with anger written all over her face.

Right when I think she is just going to lunge at me and knock me off the bleachers, Mr. Wilson steps over to us clapping. "well, even though the two of you certainly do not know how to listen, you sure did put on a good show." he splits us up and tells us to watch the other pairs of kids and help them with their defense, thinking that we already know what we were doing, when truth is neither of us had a clue. We just wanted to see the other on her butt. But if it gets me out of working with her for the rest of the class, I'll go with it.

I think I "helped Anthony and his partner more than any other, mostly because they both kept asking me where I had learned to do that. They didn't believe me when I told them I had never done it before, but I don't think I would have either. The bell rang to signal it was time to hit the showers, so we head back to the locker rooms to change.

I get out of the shower, and I notice all my clothes, have all been taken out of my locker. All I have is the towel I am wrapped up in. I am the last person in the locker room, and the final bell to signify the end of the school-day is about to ring. Great! Now what am I going to do? I peek out into the hall to see if anyone is out there and I run to my locker. All I have in there is my pink love sweater, so I go to the lost and found, still dripping wet, and search through, and like sent from heaven someone happened to leave a pair of flip flops, and a scarf. I knew it wasn't much, but it was all I could use so I slip on the flip flops, and take the scarf and start to run back to the locker room. I turn the corner and run smack into Kenny, and fall backwards a little before he grabs me.

"Well now, if it isn't miss im too good for you now." he says with a sarcastic smirk on his face

Then, if life couldn't get any worse, the final bell of the day rings. The entire student body begins pouring out of their classes, and all I can do is stand there because Kenny is still holding my wrist. I turn my face towards the wall so no one would look me in the face as I tried to release his grip on me.

It all happened so fast after that, "what the..." is all I hear before the smack of a fist going into someones face. My wrist is released and I turn to see Corbin and Anthony on top of Kenny. Corbin sitting on his chest, and punching his face. Anthony trying to pull Corbin off of him. All I could think to do was yell. If no one had noticed me standing half- naked in the hallway yet, im sure they did now. Everyone stopped and looked straight at me. I just grabbed Anthony by the wrist and pulled him into the locker room with me, and began crying as I sat curled in a ball next to the shower.

"what the hell happened out there?" he asked me getting down on my level on the wet floor.

"I was taking a shower and when I got out all my clothes were gone," I managed through heavy sobs, "I tried to go to the lost and found before the bell rang and on my way back I bumped into ken and he wouldn't let me go. He just held me there while everyone stared at me. It was so humiliating."

I couldn't get anything else out except more sobs, which seemed to only grow heavier. Anthony just sat there and held me telling me everything would be OK. He managed to find my stuff thrown on top of a locker in a basket. I quickly dressed and went out to the empty parking lot. The only people left out there besides us was corbin, and Ken. Corbin just looked at me and shook his head in a displeased way as I got into my car.

Great, now he probably is thinking I did something with Kenny. Oh well, guess my reign at this school is over. I'm sure there is a video of me already out of you tube. All I wanted to do for the rest of the day is go home and sulk. Which is exactly what I did.