Straight Punch (4 page)

I'd been wondering what misadventures had brought the other students to New Directions, but now I wondered about Big Ron too. He must've dreamed of bigger, better things than coaching boxing at a school for troubled teens.

“I see you're admiring my wall of fame,” Big Ron said.

“That's you, isn't it?”

“Yup,” Big Ron said, without looking at the photo. “In my glory days. Now let's work on your fighting stance. You gotta angle your body so you're facing your opponent sideways. Your
left foot's in front of you at one o'clock. Right foot's back at two
o'clock. Like this.” When Big Ron demonstrated the move,
I could picture him for a moment as a fit young boxer. But
then the moment passed and Big Ron was back in front of me,
his giant belly bulging like a truck tire over his sweatpants.

Big Ron studied my feet. “Move your left foot a little to the inside. Now you got it. Okay, clasp your hands behind your back and rotate your hips from side to side.”

I did that for a while. Big Ron went back to his chair. “You're building muscle memory,” he told me. “Your body's learning what proper fighting stance feels like.”

Every couple of minutes, he'd bark instructions to the others. “Move your hands more quickly,” he told Pretty Boy. “Not so Schwarzenegger-ish,” he said to Di. “Not so fast,” he told Jasmine. When Whisky had a coughing fit, Big Ron called out, “If you cough like that during a fight, you'll go down. You're gonna knock yourself out with your own bad habits, son.”

Big Ron sighed and looked back at me. Then he got up from his chair again. I got the feeling he wished he didn't have to. “All right, Tessa Something-or-Other, what do you say I teach you how to throw a straight punch?”

Something in my stomach clenched. I had never thrown a punch in all my life. I took a deep breath. This wasn't going to be easy. But if I wanted to graduate from high school, I'd have to do it. “I say okay.”

“You gotta remember to breathe from your belly and keep your chin down. You're gonna release your arm straight out like this.” Big Ron demonstrated. “Okay, try it.”

I could feel my heart rate quicken and the little hairs on my arms stand up. It was as if every ounce of me was opposed to what I was about to do. I'd seen how quickly people lost control, how ugly things could get and how violence could affect innocent bystanders. Mom and I had been innocent bystanders.

But I did want to graduate from high school.

So I took another deep breath and released my arm the way Big Ron had shown me.

“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. Then he stepped right in front of me, so close I could smell his mouthwash. I fought the urge to step away.

“Show me again,” he said.

I extended my jabbing arm.

That was when Big Ron's giant paw came straight at me, whistling through the air. I was so scared, I shut my eyes.

“Eyes open!” Big Ron bellowed. At just that moment, his punch grazed the middle of my jaw. He hadn't struck me hard, but still, it had stung, and my whole body was shaking. I wanted to step back, but I couldn't move. There it was again—that frozen feeling. Trapped, the way I'd been underneath that drunk the night of the riot.

I rubbed the spot on my chin where Big Ron had hit me. “Hey,” I managed to say. “That hurt.”

I thought Big Ron might apologize, but all he did was laugh. “That didn't hurt you,” he said. “It took you by surprise.”

I wondered if he could be right. Maybe I was more surprised than hurt. Still, it wasn't nice of him. Not on my first day of boxing lessons. “Why'd you do that?” I asked him.

Big Ron grinned. “I figured it'd help you learn to keep your chin down the way I told you to. And you didn't rotate your hips either. Let's try it again, paying attention to my instructions this time, Tessa Something-or-Other.”

I didn't like being called Tessa Something-or-Other, but I decided this wasn't the right time to complain. I had bigger things to worry about—like Big Ron's paw. So I took another deep breath and got back into fighting stance. This time, I kept my chin down.

“That's my girl!” Big Ron said when I finally got the move right.

I couldn't help liking how he'd called me
his girl
. But when I thought about how Big Ron had nearly whacked me in the face, I decided I'd never feel comfortable in this boxing gym or at this school. The sounds of the other kids groaning and whacking the punching bags would always make me jump. Sending someone like me to a school that had a boxing program was like forcing someone who got airsick to become a pilot.

That's what I was thinking when my eyes scanned the floor next to Big Ron's chair.

My ring. It was gone.

Chapter Four

I wish now I hadn't freaked out. But I did. Big time.

“My ring!” I shouted—so loudly that everyone in the gym froze. Randy's arms fell limp by his sides. Jasmine dropped her punch in midair. Di just stared at me. Big Ron stood in front of me like some gigantic statue. Even Ruger lifted his head and looked up at me with sad, worried eyes.

“It was right there,” I said, rushing over to Big Ron's lawn chair and pointing to the spot on the cement floor where I'd left Cyrus's ring. I dropped to my knees and ran my fingers along the floor, feeling for the ring. “I know I left it here!” I wailed. “And now it's gone!”

Big Ron walked over to his chair. The others still didn't move. Maybe they hadn't expected me to be a shrieker. I suppose I looked like the sort of person who could control herself—and usually, I was. But now that I'd started shrieking, I couldn't stop. “My boyfriend gave it to me. And now it's gone! It was right here!”

Big Ron laid his paw on my shoulder. “Get a grip, Tessa,” he said sternly. “Freaking out isn't going to help you find your ring.”

I shook his hand loose. “Don't tell me to get a grip,” I hissed. “I want my ring back!”

Jasmine came over now too. “Let me help you look,” she offered, squatting down to help me check the floor around Ron's chair.

“It's not there,” I told her. “I looked already. It's gone. And I want it back!”

Jasmine backed away. I suppose I should have been grateful she wanted to help, but I couldn't help wondering if maybe
she
had taken my ring. Hadn't she warned me that some of the students here had
sticky fingers
?

“Did you take it?” I asked her, my voice louder than I wanted it to be.

Jasmine looked at me as if I'd punched her. “Why would I take your dumbass ring?”

“I don't know why. And it's not a dumbass ring.” That's when I started to sob—big sorry-for-myself sobs that made my shoulders shake. I don't think I was sobbing just about the ring. Maybe I was sobbing about other stuff too—like getting myself expelled from Tyndale, being forced to go to New Directions, messing up, disappointing my mom.

Jasmine got up and shook her head. Then she stomped back to the punching bag and gave it a huge whack. The bag absorbed her punch and then swung in the air like a giant leather pendulum.

Pretty Boy was stretching by the windows. He didn't come over—maybe I'd scared him with my shrieking—but he called out from where he was, “Your ring was shaped like a paintbrush, right?”

The way he used the word
was
—as if I'd never see Cyrus's ring again—got me even more upset. And now the angry feelings came back like a giant wave, the kind you can't escape when it's rolling in your direction.

I stood up and said, “One of you stole my ring.” My voice was lower now, but colder than ice. “You'd better give it back to me. Or I'll…I'll…”

“What're you going to do exactly?” Di asked.

Our eyes met. I knew that inside she was laughing at me, enjoying how upset I was.

“I'll call the police,” I said. It was all I could think of.

Now someone in the gym did laugh. I wasn't sure who.

Big Ron came to stand next to me. This time, he didn't try putting his hand on my shoulder. “I hate to tell you this, but the police don't take complaints from this school—or its students—too seriously,” he said.

Then Big Ron put his hands on his hips and cleared his throat. “I don't care who took Tessa's ring. But I'll tell you one thing and one thing only—by tomorrow morning at eight
AM
and not a second later, I expect to see that ring back on the floor by this here chair. Now quit your lollygagging and get back to work!”

Big Ron pointed one fat finger at Jasmine. “I'm going to watch what's going on in the boxing ring. I want you to work with Tessa on her rotations, and when you're done with that, you can watch her throw a few straight punches.”

I knew Big Ron had paired us up because of the way we'd talked to each other before. He didn't notice Jasmine sneer as she walked over, swishing her hips like some exotic dancer.

I pretended not to notice either. I was thinking about my ring and wondering if it would be back on my finger by tomorrow morning at eight
AM
.
I could almost feel it there. I was thinking, too, how Big Ron had stopped calling me Tessa Something-or-Other. To be honest, I kind of missed it.

I got into my fighting stance. Left foot at one o'clock, right foot at two o'clock. There, I thought, not bad. Then I clasped my hands behind my back and started rotating my hips the way Big Ron had shown me.

Jasmine watched without saying a word. If she'd taken my ring, where had she put it? Her workout shorts had no pockets. Maybe she'd tucked it inside her gym bra.

I knew I had to concentrate on my moves. For now, there was nothing I could do about my ring. Big Ron knew these kids better than I did. Maybe his plan would work. He'd certainly defused the tension in the room. And now, as I felt my weight shift from one side of my body to the other, I was sorry I'd lost it the way I had. The other kids had seen a side of me I'd rather not have shared with them, especially not on my first day at New Directions.

Randy was getting a sip of water from the fountain at the front of the gym. His shoulders glistened with sweat. I could hear Ruger panting. Randy walked over and reached down for the dog's water bowl. “You thirsty? Is that what you're trying to say, Ruger?”

Ruger thumped his tail. Randy filled the bowl. When he walked back to where Ruger was, water splashed onto the floor. I looked down at the little puddle and wondered if some of Randy's sweat was in there too.

Which was when my eyes landed on something shiny just underneath the radiator.

Something gold. “My ring!” I yelped. Somebody must've kicked it under there.

The other kids turned to look at me as I ran to the radiator and retrieved my ring from under it.

I slid the ring back on my finger. Then I cleared my throat. “Hey, look,” I said, “I'm sorry for freaking out. But this ring really means a lot to me.”

This time, no one froze. No one spoke. No one was even looking at me anymore.

They'd all gone back to boxing.

Chapter Five

I fell for Cyrus's photography before I fell for him.

I still enjoy remembering how it happened. One afternoon last January, my mom asked me to return some books to the library. The drop-off box outside was frozen shut, so I had to go inside. Otherwise I'd never have seen the exhibit—prize-winning photographs by Montreal high school students. I was in a rush, but one photo—mounted between two sheets of glass and suspended from the ceiling—made me stop. Four brightly colored balloons trapped between two telephone wires, a perfectly blue summer sky in the background.

I paused to admire the photo's colors and composition—the intersection of ovals and horizontal lines. But what I liked even more was that whoever had taken this photo had noticed those balloons caught between the wires in the first place. I knew that person had to be special.

“Love.” I didn't realize I'd said the word out loud.

Not until a lanky guy with a camera hanging around his neck touched my elbow. “Did you just say
love
?” he asked. His hair was short and curly.

“Uh, yeah.” I knew I was blushing. “I really love this photo.”

The guy grinned.

“Did you ta—?” I started to ask.

“I took it,” he said at the same time.

Which made us both laugh.

He reached out to shake my hand. “I'm Cyrus Hollis. I can see you like bold colors.” He was looking at my hair. “Very cool,” he said.

“I'm Tessa McPhail.”

“I've seen you around Tyndale,” he said.

“You go to Tyndale? How come I never saw you?”

“I guess I'm easy to miss—unlike you. I mostly hang out on the second floor—with other kids in the camera club.”

We went for hot chocolate that afternoon. I tried not to let on how much I liked him. But the library books gave me away. They were still in a pile by my feet when we got up to leave the café. Cyrus noticed them. “Hey, I think you forgot all about returning your library books.”

“They're not mine. They're my mom's.”

The next weekend, we went skating at Murray Hill Park. I waited until we were taking off our skates to tell Cyrus about my tagging and how I'd had some trouble with the police.

At first, he didn't say anything, which made me worry that he might not want to keep seeing me. But then he leaned in close and whispered, “I never thought I'd want to kiss a juvenile delinquent.”

And then Cyrus had kissed me. It was only when he was walking me home that afternoon that he said, “Just so we're clear about this, tagging isn't art.”

I admired—sometimes even envied—Cyrus's passion for photography. But I have to admit, there were times I wished he didn't lug his camera—a Canon DSLR—and his tripod every single place we went. Like Friday night at Girouard Park, after we'd had dinner with his parents.

Girouard Park is halfway between Cyrus's house in Westmount and the apartment in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce where Mom and I live. We were sitting on “our” bench when Cyrus took his hand off my shoulder and rested it on his camera case. “You shouldn't have told them that story about how the dog got its name,” he said.

Though I didn't feel like admitting it to Cyrus, I knew I'd gone too far by telling his parents about Ruger. Mrs. Hollis had nearly choked on her green beans.

Usually, I liked how predictable the Hollises were—how they called each other
darling
and how I knew, even before I rang the doorbell, what we'd be having for dinner, since Mrs. Hollis made the same thing every Friday—roast chicken, potatoes and green beans, apple pie with ice cream for dessert.

But that night, everything about the Hollises had gotten on my nerves. It started when they asked how things were going for me at
that school
. Neither of them called it New Directions. I recognized the irony. I wanted to be able to complain about New Directions, but it bothered me if anyone else spoke about the school in a disrespectful way.

“It sure beat your mother telling the story of how she inherited the gravy bowl from her great aunt—or supervising while you ate all your beans.”

I was relieved when Cyrus laughed. “You make a good point.”

Except for some homeless guy arguing with himself under a lamppost, we had the park to ourselves. The cedar bushes made the air smell sweet and clean. I rested my head on Cyrus's shoulder and looked up at the stars. There weren't many in the sky that night, but the ones that were there were unusually bright.

When Cyrus leaned forward and took the camera off his neck, I knew he was about to kiss me. Even so, I felt him keeping one eye on his equipment. Did he really think the homeless guy was going to grab it?

My mood improved when I felt Cyrus's lips brush against mine. Kissing Cyrus was like having an amazing conversation.
He asked me questions with his kisses. I answered with mine.

Eventually, though, we had to go back to the other kind of conversation.

“Tessa,” Cyrus whispered into my hair, “I don't know about that school you're going to…”

I pulled away from him. “You're right. You don't know anything about my school. And you know who you sound like? Your parents. The school I go to”—I guess I wasn't ready yet to call it
my school
—“has a name. New Directions. Sure, I'd rather be at Tyndale hanging out with you, but that's not the way it is. I'm doing my best to get used to it, and you know what else? I could use a little support.”

“Okay, okay,” Cyrus said, pulling me back toward him. “Calm down, will you? I'm just wondering—how many other kids at New Directions have brothers who got shot?”

“I don't know. I haven't asked.”

“Well, what are the other kids like?”

I thought maybe if I answered Cyrus's question, he'd understand why I didn't want him calling New Directions
that school
. “Well, there's another tagger. The one I told you about—the guy who draws these cool butterfly people. Pretty Boy. His real name's Percy. There're two other girls besides me: Jasmine—she's Asian—and Di. She's the one with the pit bull. Then there's Whisky and Randy. The boxing teacher, Big Ron, has a thing for nicknames. Jabbin' Jasmine, Lady Di, Randy Randy…”

I could feel Cyrus's shoulders tense up. “Randy Randy? As in horndog Randy? As in this guy's a player?”

“It's just a nickname.”

“I don't like it.”

“You don't have to.”

“How do I know I can trust this Randy Randy?”

“Cut it out, Cyrus.”

After that, neither of us said anything for a bit. We just sat looking at the stars. It was better than arguing.

Cyrus removed his camera from the case. Then he took off the lens cap and inspected the lens. “Want to see the photos I shot at Mount Royal?” he asked.

“Sure.” Cyrus knew I couldn't resist his photos.

He hit the Display button, and I leaned in to look.

“Love,” I said, and we both laughed. It was a photo of a tall bare tree perched on the edge of a narrow rocky cliff. “Most people would've walked by that tree without noticing it. But not you.”

“Thanks,” Cyrus said. “Wait till you see the next one.”

The next one looked a lot like the last one. “How does this one make you feel?” Cyrus asked.

“Lonely.” It was a beautiful photograph, but it did make me feel lonely.

“That's it.” Cyrus sounded pleased, as if I'd given the correct answer. “Me too. That was the feeling I was aiming for…What about this one?”

We must have spent an hour looking at Cyrus's photos, talking about how they made us feel. Sometimes I thought photography was Cyrus's way of telling me things he couldn't say in words.

“Tessa…” Cyrus began.

I bristled. I could tell from the way he'd started his sentence by saying my name that he was about to make another annoying remark.

“I know you're trying to get used to New Directions, and I want to be supportive”—Cyrus paused, and I could feel the
but
coming—“but I still don't get a good feeling about that place. I think the boxing is making you more…well…aggressive. And Randy Randy…”

If this was Cyrus's idea of being supportive, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. It wasn't like I had any other options. And what gave him the right to judge me like that? I nudged his elbow. I didn't mean to knock his camera out of his hands, but I did. I was relieved when it landed on the bench and didn't go crashing to the ground.

Cyrus grabbed the camera and inspected it for scratches or dents. Then he looked up at me. “See what I mean?”

I got up from the bench. I looked down at my feet and realized that I'd gone into fighting stance. Left foot at one o'clock, right foot at two. “I'm glad your camera's okay,” I told Cyrus, “but I've gotta go. Big Ron's offered me an extra boxing session tomorrow. I need to be up early.”