Barking Up the Wrong Lead - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

“Well, I must say, I wasn’t expecting such a sight when I walked in.”

Mr. Hughes’ voice echoed off of the glass and chrome walls.  He looked so natural, standing in his training room with a cup of coffee in hand (because even a town as remote as Nokesville, Virginia has a Starbucks, apparently).  The girls in his gym, however, probably looked anything but natural.

Alice was balancing along the railing of the second floor loft, making certain to show off plenty of handsprings.  Blair was working on her pull ups while reading the advanced copy of Vogue Italia that Faith was balancing on the back of her tablet.  To someone who didn’t spend an abundance of time within the Gallagher Academy walls, it was probably a pretty spectacular sight, but to us, it was just another Saturday afternoon.

He set his coffee down on the side of the room and felt at his back pocket for something.  “Funny,” he said, striking a look of accusation upon the four of us.  “I don’t recall giving any of you a key.”

It was Alice who responded (mid-flip, no less).  “We improvised.”

“Or the key code,” Hughes continued, crossing his arms at us and a super disapproving way. 

“Your code could use a few more digits,” Faith said without looking up.

He smiled, either because he was impressed or because Hughes was always smiling.  He approached me, which probably took some guts, because I was pretty sure that I looked completely unapproachable.  My knuckles were taped up and my hair was pulled back.  If you looked closely, you could see streaks of blood on the punching bag that I was pounding on.  “You know,” he said.  “If you were more consistent with your punches, your knuckles would callus up and that wouldn’t happen.”

I threw another hit.  “Consistency and I have never really gotten along.”

He sighed.  “Do you know what my gym is for, Virgo?”  he asked me, gesturing to the wide-open space that he called home.

“Blowing off steam?”

“Practicing.”  He crossed the room until he reached the table with the bright red cross on it, picking up a roll of medical tape.  “If consistency is a weakness of yours, then we practice it until it becomes a strength.”

“I never said a lack of consistency was a weakness,” I grumbled as he grew closer.

“No, actually, that message was delivered to me by your bloody knuckles,” he said, pointing to the stained tape that I had wrapped around my hands.  He tore off two think strips of tape and stuck them onto the bag, one crossed over the other.  “The trick is to focus on the target instead of focusing on the punch.”

“Professor Dove says—”

“Professor Dove has done a beautiful job perfecting your punch execution,” he cut off, tossing the roll of tape back in the general direction he’d gotten it from.  “All I want to do is make sure that you can keep punching.”

What a joke.  I didn’t need someone to teach me how to keep punching.  Bloody knuckles couldn’t stop me.  They never had before.

Hughes grabbed the opposite side of the swinging bag with both hands, bracing himself.  “Let’s see it.”

“See what?”

“Blowing off some steam.”

Oh.  Okay.  He wanted me to blow off some steam?  I’d blow off some steam.

I whipped out everything I knew about throwing a punch.  I wanted to show him that I was worth it.  That I could throw a hit despite my gender or my age or my missing mother.  That I was capable and skilled.  That I, Morgan Goode, was perfectly able to join my mother’s team, even if no one else though I was.