Karate Kick (7 page)

When the match finally ended, he had earned just one point. She had earned five, a sound victory. With a triumphant smile,
she pulled off her helmet, shook out her hair, and went to the cubbies to put her gear away.

Now!
Cole’s mind screamed at him as he followed her to do the same.
Apologize now!

But he was too late. She had moved into one of the judge’s spots. After a moment, he moved to another. Once more, he tried
to catch Marty’s eye. But Marty refused to look at him — not then, while he was still judging, or after he had his turn in
the sparring ring, or later, when they were performing katas with Sensei Duane.

Class ended soon afterward. The senseis bowed them out and one by one the students retrieved their belongings. Cole didn’t
grab his bag, however. Instead, he pulled out the typed-up kata and left everything else behind. Then he worked his way through
the crush of students, looking for Monique.

He found Marty instead.

Or rather, Marty found him. He grabbed Cole by the arm, pulled him into a side storage room and, hands on hips, demanded,
“Well?”

O
kay, okay, I took it!” Cole confessed. Then he waved the paper in his hand in front of Marty’s face. “But look, I brought
it back, typed and everything!”

Marty grabbed the sheet from his hand and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Cole cried. To his relief, Marty hesitated.

“It was a terrible, rotten, stupid, mean thing that I did, stealing Monique’s kata,” he admitted, his words coming out in
a rush.

“You left out awful, nasty, cruel, and downright horrible,” Marty muttered. “What were you thinking, man?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I was angry at her for hiding it from us.” He frowned suddenly. “That wasn’t the only thing she was hiding,
you know. She didn’t have to leave to babysit her sister last night. She left to —”

“Come here and have a karate lesson with Sensei Ann,” Marty finished. “I know. She told me when she called to see if her bag
was at my house.”

“She… did?”

“Yeah. She said she had mixed up the days. Last night was her private lesson. Tonight is when she babysits for her sister.”

“Oh.” Any righteous anger Cole might have believed he deserved to feel vanished instantly. In its place rose a wave of shame.
He slumped against the wall. “Marty, I feel so badly about taking that kata,” he said, his voice low. “Do you think you can
forgive me?”

Marty let out a long breath. “Yeah, I’ll forgive you. I know you were mad. But that didn’t give you the right to steal. And
if you ever do anything like that again —”

“I won’t!” Cole promised. He glanced out toward the main dojo. Most of the students, including Monique, he saw, had packed
up and left, making way for a group of adults to train. He sighed with frustration.

“I guess I can’t apologize to Monique now,” he said.

Marty laid a hand on his shoulder. “Dude, you’re going to have to do a lot more than just apologize. I’ve never seen her so
angry, or hurt, either.”

Cole rubbed his shoulder where one of her punches had landed earlier. “Yeah, I kind of figured that out during sparring,”
he said ruefully. “You think she got it out of her system?”

Marty shook his head.

“I didn’t think so,” Cole said. “I guess I’ll have to think of something else.”

As he spoke, he caught sight of the paper in Marty’s hand. He pushed himself off the wall, thinking hard. Then he smiled.
“Marty, I might have a way of showing her how sorry I am,” he said. “But I’m going to need your help!”

With that, he took the kata from his friend and began to explain his plan. Marty nodded as he listened. When Cole was done,
he had two questions.

“Will it be just you and me, or the whole class?” he asked.

“Just us. If too many people know, they might accidentally ruin the surprise.”

“Good point. Second question.” Marty fixed Cole with a meaningful stare. “Are you going to confess to Monique beforehand?”

Cole deliberated before answering. “If I get the chance, I will. But if I don’t, then I
promise
I’ll do it after. Okay?”

Marty nodded. “Then I’ll help you. In fact, if my mom will let me, we can start tonight over at your house.”

The two boys left the storage room. Marty got permission from his mother to go to Cole’s house instead of his own. They gathered
up their belongings and hurried to the door.

But as they were walking through the waiting area beyond the main dojo, Cole suddenly stopped. The walls of the waiting area
were decorated with old photographs of former karate classes. One of the photos had caught Cole’s eye. It was of a green belt
class. In the center of the shot was a much younger Ty!

“What’re you looking at?” Marty asked curiously.

Cole tapped the glass covering the photo. “See that kid?”

Marty squinted. “Yeah?”

“I met him the other day.”

Marty shrugged. “So?”

“So,” Cole said, “I’m pretty sure he’s the reason Monique is a green belt now. But he doesn’t know that — and neither does
she!”

He laughed at the look of complete confusion on Marty’s face. “Come on, let’s go,” he said as they stepped outside the dojo
together. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way to my house!”

L
et me get this straight,” Marty said as they walked through Cole’s backyard twenty minutes later. “Ty used to take karate
at our dojo. He was a green belt when you and Monique first started. He saw a guy about to steal Monique’s mom’s purse. He
tried to stop him but got belted in the shoulder for his trouble. Monique was there and saw everything —”

“She tried to save the purse, too, remember,” Cole interrupted.

“Right. The guy yanked it right out of her hands.”

Marty headed down the stairs to Cole’s basement with Cole right behind him. “So Ty starts out looking like some kind of superhero,
stepping in to save the day. But he ends up looking — and worse,
feeling
— like a loser because he didn’t use karate. And that’s why he decided to quit?”

Cole nodded.

“But how does his quitting make Monique a green belt?” Marty wanted to know.

“It wasn’t his quitting,” Cole corrected. He sat down to remove his socks. “Here’s what I think: When she saw Ty freeze and
when the thief snatched the purse from her, she decided right then and there to learn as much karate as she could. That way,
if she was ever in that kind of situation again, she wouldn’t have to depend on someone else to help her.”

Marty looked thoughtful. “I bet she was scared, too. That might have made her want to take extra lessons.”

“You could be right,” Cole agreed. “The more karate she learned, the more confidence she’d have another time.”

The boys were silent for a moment. Then Marty looked at him sideways and asked, “Do you think you’d be able to use your karate
if you got into that situation?”

Cole thought about how he’d reacted when Ty had surprised him on the bike path. “You know what? I think I would. But I sure
hope I never have to find out.”

He stood up then. “Well, you ready to get to work?”

Marty stood up, too. “I sure am.”

“Then let’s go — we’ve got a kata contest to win!”

Cole and Marty worked together for an hour before Mrs. Bronson came to get her son. There was no karate class the next afternoon,
so they met at Cole’s house then, too. Marty looked dazed when he arrived.

“Monique cornered me after school,” he groaned as he helped Cole push the furniture to the sides of the basement. “I had to
come up with an excuse why I couldn’t go over her kata contest entry with her! Now she’s mad at both of us.”

Cole had purposefully avoided Monique since their last karate class. It hadn’t been difficult, since she had been steering
clear of him, too. Cole had been hoping to run into Ty, but so far, he hadn’t seen the teenager. He didn’t know his last name,
either, so he had no way of contacting him by phone.

So in the end, he did the only thing he could think of doing. During his free period of school on Friday, he wrote Ty a letter
inviting him to the kata contest on Sunday. After school, he put the letter in an envelope with
Ty
written on it, put the envelope in a plastic baggie, and taped the whole thing to the brick wall where they’d first met.

Then he hurried home to meet Marty for another practice session. He had hoped that Marty would be able to sleep at his house,
so they could begin practicing again early Saturday morning. But Mrs. Bronson shook her head when Marty asked.

“We have your cousin April’s birthday party to go to,” she reminded him.

“Can’t I stay here instead?” Marty begged. “April’s only a year old! She won’t even know I’m missing!”

“
I’ll
know you’re missing,” his mother said firmly.

“Sorry, Cole,” Marty said.

“It’s okay,” Cole assured him. “You go have fun watching your little cousin drool out her birthday candle. I have to work
on my green belt test anyway!”

Marty’s eyes grew big. “That’s right! We’ve been so busy with the other thing I forgot about that!” He turned back to his
mother to plead one last time. “He needs me, Mom, he really needs me!”

But she just shook her head. “He’ll have to do without you.”

“I’ll survive!” Cole said, laughing.

“All right,” Marty grumbled. Then he brightened. “I’ll see you right after you get it, anyway, since that’s when the contest
is! Sunday sure is going to be a big day!”

Cole nodded. “Sure is. The biggest.”
And the best, I hope,
he added silently.

S
aturday whizzed by in a blur for Cole. First, he attended karate class, his last as a blue belt if he advanced up a rank the
next day. He had no fear of running into Monique then because she always took Saturdays off. Still, he felt a flood of relief
when he didn’t see her.

After class and a quick lunch, he cornered his mother. “I need a partner to practice my moves on,” he said.

“What do I have to do?” she asked.

“You have to attack me,” he said.

“I can do that,” she said, putting her book aside and jumping to her feet with a grin.

She wasn’t grinning an hour later, however. “I had no idea those twisting thingies — What do you call them? Grappling locks?
— hurt so much!” she exclaimed as she rubbed her wrists and rotated her shoulders.

“I really appreciate your help, Mom,” Cole said gratefully. “And I’m sorry if I hurt you at all.”

“No, no, I’m fine!” she insisted. “In fact, I’d be happy to help you out again sometime.”

“Maybe you should sign up for lessons yourself!” Cole joked.

He thought she’d laugh it off. But to his surprise, she looked thoughtful.

“You know, maybe I will.” She winked. “How do you think I’d look in a gi?” Now she did laugh, seeing his horrified expression.
“Never mind!”

Cole worked on other karate material for another hour. Then he rode down the bike path to the brick wall. The letter he’d
left wasn’t there. But whether Ty had taken it or the wind, he couldn’t say. If it was Ty, he’d find out the next day.

Cole slept well that night and awoke in the morning feeling refreshed and ready for the challenges he’d face that day. Marty
called to wish him luck with his test.

“I’ll see you later, buddy!” he said. “I just hope I recognize you with that flashy new green belt of yours!”

“Let’s just hope I’m wearing a flashy new green belt!” Cole countered, suddenly nervous.

“You will,” Marty replied. “After all, you’ve been working with the best — me!”

As Cole laughed, he felt the tension trickle out of him. He thought then how lucky he was to have such a good friend. And
if all went well, by the end of the day he’d have earned back another good friend, too.

But first, he had a belt test to take!

The test was scheduled to start at nine o’clock sharp. Cole arrived ten minutes early. Spectators weren’t allowed to stay,
so his mother gave him a quick hug and left to do errands.

Cole wasn’t the only student testing that morning. There were a few orange belts hoping to move up to purple, a handful of
yellows looking to jump to orange, and even a few white belts ready to advance to yellow. Of them all, only the white belt
kids looked relaxed. In fact, they spent the final minutes before the test charging around after one another.

When Sensei Joe clapped his hands, however, those youngsters and the other students came to attention. Sensei Ann, Sensei
Dale, and Sensei Duane were there, too. Sensei Joe bowed them all in and instructed them to put on their belts. Then they
bowed again.

With that, it was time for the test to begin.

O
kay, everybody, line up for basics!” Sensei Joe called.

The students fanned out across the width of the main dojo floor to perform the technique drill.

“Right front stance,” Sensei Joe said.

Ten right feet moved in front of ten left feet. “Moving forward with downward blocks,” said their instructor. “Ready? Step!”

As one, the students swung their left fists up to their right ears and moved their right fists down in front of their bodies.
Then they stepped into a left front stance while whipping their left arms over and down, halting the swing just past their
left legs.

“Let’s hear some noise out there!” Sensei Joe called. “Step!”

This time, every student punctuated his or her downward block with a strong cry of
ki-ai
! Step by step, ki-ai by ki-ai, they made their way down the floor. When they could go no farther, they turned to face the
other direction.

“Next is a front kick,” Sensei Joe told them. He glanced at the little white belt students, some of whom were no older than
five. “Don’t forget that there are four parts to the kick. Watch.”

He demonstrated the move. “Up!” He lifted up his knee so his thigh was parallel with the floor. That was the chamber position.