Phoenix (2 page)

Crunch!

My bike stopped, but my body kept moving forward. I instinctively twisted my heels outward, my shoes ripping free of the pedals as I sailed over the handlebars. With my arms outstretched like Superman, I face-planted into the dirt. My worn chinstrap snapped, and my masked helmet bounced down the trail.

I sat up and spat. Wiping my sweaty brow, I quickly checked myself over. My chin was a little sore, but otherwise I was fine.

I looked back at my bike and frowned. The front wheel had tacoed, the rim folded almost completely in half. It took a special kind of problem for that to occur. I crawled over to my bike and checked the front spokes. Several were loose. I wiped a section of the rim clean and saw that a few of the spokes had come loose from the wheel when it folded in half, but others had fresh tool marks on the spoke nuts.

Someone had loosened them.

I heard the familiar hum of bike tires on dirt, and I glanced back up the trail to see the huge kid coming on like a locomotive. He shouted, “Get that rusted piece of junk off the trail!”

I hurried to my feet. Leaving a broken bike on the
trail was dangerous for everyone, including me. That mountain of flesh might hit it and crash into me. I bent over, grabbing my bike with both hands, when the maniac roared like a lion, unclipped his foot, and unleashed a powerful kick at my face.

The reinforced toe of his mountain biking shoe caught me square on the jaw, and I blacked out.

I woke to a thick
haze obscuring my vision. I was groggy, and everything I saw and heard came distorted and slow, as if my brain were floating in molasses. I felt fingers dance over my skull and across the back of my neck, and I realized I was lying flat on my back, my head cradled in my grandfather’s bony hands.

“Do not move,” Grandfather said. “Do not speak. Blink your eyes if you can understand me.”

I blinked.

“Very good, Phoenix,” Grandfather said. “Lie still while I examine you.”

I did as I was told. Grandfather wasn’t a doctor, but he knew more about healing than anyone I’d ever met, including my uncle Tí, who really was a doctor.

I tried to look around, but the only thing I could see was the vague outline of tree limbs dangling above me over the bike trail. It was early June, the first Saturday
of summer vacation, and the foliage was thick. I doubted anyone had seen the cheap shot I took, which was fine with me.

Grandfather’s face came into view, and I watched him toss his long gray ponytail braid over his shoulder as he moved his black eyes to within an inch of my own. I could smell sweat on his cheeks. He must have run all the way here from the starting line. His sweat had a peculiar odor, which I attributed to the vast quantity of dried Chinese herbs he consumed. It wasn’t a bad smell, just sort of old and musty.

His gaze locked on mine, and I could tell he was checking my pupils for dilation and signs of concussion. He soon nodded, seemingly satisfied, then ran a yellowed fingernail over my bruised jaw. I flinched in pain, and he shook his head. I was not looking forward to explaining what had happened.

Punches and kicks, and the skills required to heal damage from them, were a big part of Grandfather’s life, which meant they were a big part of my life. He’d raised me ever since my parents died in a car wreck when I was a baby. He was some kind of kung fu master, though he wouldn’t admit it. I knew very little about him, in fact. To call him secretive would be an understatement, but he was very good to me.

I heard a bike approaching but couldn’t see who it was.

“Close your eyes,” Grandfather said.

I did so, grateful. The last thing I wanted now was a group conversation. It would be better to wait until I
was alone with Grandfather before I shared the story of the race. He was going to be upset, and I didn’t want anyone else to hear the tongue-lashing I was bound to receive. They wouldn’t understand. None of them practiced kung fu.

When most people thought of kung fu, they envisioned bald Chinese guys in orange robes fighting with one another. While this is one element, there is so much more.

Kung fu
actually means “accomplishment through effort,” and a person can apply its philosophies to anything, not just martial arts. They don’t even have to be Chinese to do it. I’m a good example. I’m only half-Chinese, but I try to live and breathe kung fu like the most hard-core monks living atop China’s tallest mountains do. I try to put one hundred percent of my effort into everything every day, whether it is martial arts, mountain biking, or homework. That’s what it means to be a kung fu practitioner.

I’ve been practicing kung fu ever since I could walk. Thanks to all that hard work, nobody could touch me on a mountain bike. Core strength exercises are the foundation of many martial arts, and they also happen to be the foundation for elite professional cyclists. Riding a bicycle involves far more than just your legs. If your torso and hips are powerful, it makes your legs exponentially stronger. Kung fu made me unstoppable on a bike.

Until now, that is.

Today I’d been beaten. It didn’t matter that I’d gotten kicked in the face or that someone had tampered with
my bike. Cheaters were everywhere. As a student of kung fu, I needed to overcome any obstacle,
especially
if cheating was involved.

Grandfather exuded strength, which is why I felt like such a weakling for lying here now. As he rested my head on the ground and continued the injury probe, I couldn’t help but think about our similarities and differences. He was tall and thin, and he always stood ramrod straight. His hair was long, gray, and very thick, and he usually wore it pulled back in a heavy braid. He stood out in a crowd.

I stood out, too, but for different reasons. My mother had been from China, like Grandfather, while my straight-out-of-the-cornfields-of-Indiana father had been a redhead. The end result was that I have Asian facial features topped off with ratty brown hair that has a distinctly reddish tinge. I also have freckles and bright green eyes. I am of average height, and to see me walking down the street, you probably wouldn’t guess that I’m an athlete, unlike the heavily muscled kid who kicked me. While muscular people can dominate in certain sports, that physique generally doesn’t translate into a podium finish in cycling, because riding a bike most often comes down to power-to-weight ratio. When people think of cyclists, they don’t think Arnold Schwarzenegger. They think Lance Armstrong.

I’m built like a bird, strong and light as a feather. It is Chinese tradition that a woman’s father names her son, and Grandfather couldn’t have picked a better name for me—Phoenix. Grandfather was amazing in so many
ways. He’d given up his life in China to move to Indiana and take care of me. I couldn’t even take care of my bike.

What had gone wrong?

I went through a mental checklist. I’d given my bike a complete physical two nights ago and hadn’t ridden it since. I hadn’t left my bike unattended here at the trail park. No one else besides Grandfather had even touched my bike in the last forty-eight hours.

Unless …

It was a stretch, but there had been two guys in our backyard when I’d come home from school yesterday. Two men in white disposable jumpsuits were taking soil samples from the septic field in our yard, the area where the wastewater tank for our house was buried. A van in the driveway had
EPA—ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
stenciled on the sides.

The men were such an odd pair that I watched them as they packed up and hurried off. One guy seemed average in every way except for the way he moved. He had the precise movements of a martial artist. Grandfather moved like that.

As for the other guy, he would have put the kid who kicked me to shame in the muscle department. He was a freak. I remembered thinking that he should have been inspected
by
the EPA, not working for them. It looked as if he’d been pumped with so many chemicals, he probably glowed in the dark. I even made up nicknames for these guys: Slim and Meathead.

There was something else, too. Slim was Chinese. He looked Asian, and I overheard him as he talked on a cell
phone. My Chinese is rudimentary at best, and I only caught a few words, but it was definitely Mandarin Chinese.

I’d planned to ask Grandfather about these guys, but he had been napping when I’d gone into the house. He probably didn’t even know they were there. When Grandfather was awake, his senses were keener than those of anyone I’ve ever met. When he was sleeping, however, he was dead to the world.

I’d meant to mention the guys to Grandfather after he woke up, but I forgot. It had been the last day of school, and there were more important things on my mind—like today’s race.

“Open your eyes,” Grandfather said, bringing me back to the present.

I opened my eyes and found the molasses around my brain beginning to thin. I saw that Grandfather was now standing, and beside him was my best friend, Jake.

Jake was the same age as I was, and we went to the same school. He had shaggy blond hair and a pug nose, and he was a great rider. He was the one who had gotten me interested in racing bikes. If it weren’t for me, he’d have a roomful of first-place trophies instead of second-place ones, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was cool like that.

Jake was straddling his bike, his usual baggy riding clothes flopping in the warm breeze. I was glad he was here. Grandfather might hold back on some of the verbal abuse I was bound to receive.

Grandfather leaned over and stretched a hand out
toward me. I took it, and he jerked me to my feet. I must have received a clean bill of health. Otherwise, he would have been more gentle.

Grandfather let go of my hand and walked over to my broken bicycle. He hoisted the twenty-eight-pound machine onto his shoulder as though it weighed no more than a woman’s purse, and nodded at the tacoed wheel. “Is this the result of mechanical failure?”

I nodded. “You could say that.”

“You should be more careful. Take care of your bicycle, and it will take care of you.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

He pointed to my aching jaw. “Would you like to tell me about that?”

“Not really. I let my guard down. I’ve suffered the consequences. I’ve learned a valuable lesson.”

“I hope so,” Grandfather snapped. “Meet me in the parking lot.” He turned and began to walk back up the trail, carrying the bike.

When Grandfather was out of earshot, Jake whistled softly. “Whoa, your grandfather sure is harsh, bro.”

I shrugged.

Jake glanced down at his handlebars, and I noticed a battered helmet hanging there—my helmet. He tossed it to me.

“I showed your skid lid to your grandfather while you were unconscious,” Jake said. “I told him it was trashed and that you probably cracked your skull after it flew off. I wondered if he should keep his hands off your melon
in case you had, like, brain damage or something, but he must have guessed my thoughts because he pointed to your chin. What’s up with that?”

I saw the concern on Jake’s face and decided to tell him what had happened.

“My grandfather was right,” I said. “My head is fine. I fell off my bike and another rider kicked me in the jaw. I went out like a light.”

“No way! You mean that huge kid who was decked out in like ten grand worth of gear?”

“That’s the one.”

“He passed me early,” Jake said, “elbowed me on a turn and put me in third place behind the two of you.”

“He elbowed me, too. I was beating him, though, until my front wheel tacoed and I endoed over the bars. He rode up behind me, and as I bent down to move my bike, he blasted me with the kick.”

“Ouch.” Jake shook his head. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. It’s my own fault. Even my grandfather agrees. That’s why he’s being so cold.”

“You must have knocked a few screws loose, bro. You’re not to blame.”

“You don’t get it,” I said. “The bike broke because of a mechanical failure. My spokes were loose. It was my fault for not checking them before the race. That was my first mistake. After that kid elbowed me, I kicked him clean off his bike. I should’ve been ready for repercussions. My bad.”

“Ahhhh, soooo,” Jake joked in a cheesy Chinese accent, “kung fu master must never let guard down. Right, Grasshopper?”

I rolled my eyes. “Something like that.”

“If you’re all right, we’d better get going. Everyone is worried about you. Your grandfather asked all the parents to stay back at the starting line until he had a chance to look you over, but I have a feeling some of them are coming down here, anyway. A few of the moms were pretty freaked out when I rode up there to get him.”

“You went to get help?”

Jake nodded. “I was ahead of the pack and found you here, out cold. I turned around and stopped the other riders, then rode back to the starting line. I found your grandfather and he ran down here almost as fast as I could ride. He may look older than dirt, but he runs like a gazelle. No offense.”

“None taken,” I said. “Have you seen the kid who knocked me out? Did he finish the race?”

“He probably will soon. It looks like the jerk kept riding. There are fresh tracks continuing up the trail. I assumed he was ahead of you when you wrecked, and that he didn’t know you’d gone down. He’s too far away to call back now. I hope they don’t count the results of this race in our season total.”