Wednesday. Faltering trees whipped past the BMW as it shot down Elliot Road. They passed the entrance to the Daffodil Park where Freya had almost drowned. She couldn’t help but turn to look. Lassa caught her stare, then turned her eyes back to the road. For a terrible moment, Freya was afraid Lassa had found out somehow. Her hand slipped into her pocket and closed on the Starball for reassurance.
It was just a stupid thought. Of course, Lassa didn’t know. They hadn’t even spoken to each other today. Lassa had just held up the car keys when it was time to go. Her mother’s eyes were a little bleary and hung-over. Freya could tell she was ready for a fight, maybe even wanted one. Freya had simply gone to the car, got in the front seat, and buckled the seatbelt.
The time to do something about this had been last night when Lassa was out on her date. Freya had gotten her suitcase out of the closet and laid it open on the bed, with all her money and her passport. Her phone said it was nine hundred dollars to Paris, and she’d hovered over the BOOK button for a long time, willing herself to press it.
As Freya hesitated, she’d felt increasingly nauseous. Next had come the clawing feeling behind her left eye that heralded a migraine. She’d felt lousy before but just the normal amount of awful. This new sickness had to be psychosomatic.
Freya knew it was stupid to run. She had nowhere to go in France, nowhere to stay. She couldn’t work, her money would run out, and then what? She’d be right back here, and things would be worse than before. She put the suitcase away, slipped the passport back into her desk, and erased the history on her phone. Then she took the Lunesta.
Now, she was stuck. Lassa pulled into a strip mall on Thoreau Street, not far from Grayson. The gym was sandwiched between Blackwater books and Bella Reña Pizza.
RENANIN KRAV MAGA was written in on the door in golden faux-Hebrew letters. Above them was an image of a giant bird clutching the world in its talons. Three people stood outside the door. Two upperclassmen from Grayson listened to a man with long gray hair and broad shoulders talk. As he spoke, his hands were in constant, emphatic motion.
“That’s Vitko.” Lassa pointed to the man.
She climbed out of the BMW, and Freya had to follow. She recognized both boys. Dan Gregulus and Cameron Kowalski were seniors on the track team. Cameron had light hair and blue eyes, Dan’s were chestnut and green. They were best friends. Stupidly, Freya had hoped there would be no one she knew at class. It was impossible in such a little town.
Dan smiled at them as they walked up until Vitko clapped him in the back of the head.
“Open the door, stupid!” Vitko demanded, and Dan complied at once. He didn’t seem too upset about getting bopped.
Freya knew Dan because Jane Yang had a huge crush on him and was always pointing him out. Cameron’s mother was a policewoman. She was at Randall’s funeral and sent them a nice card and a tin of homemade cookies that got thrown away uneaten.
“Hello, Mrs. Jokela! Hello, Freya! Welcome! Welcome! Come inside, please!” Vitko was in flowing pants with elastic at the ankles. He was very tanned. He wore a Gracie Jujitsu T-shirt, and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. He reminded Freya of the Fremen from Dune.
Freya had a sinking certainty she would be the only girl in class. The gym had a profound funk that hit her like a jab in the nose. She tried to breathe through her mouth. How could Lassa do this to me? The same way Lassa did everything, unilaterally. She didn’t care what Freya wanted.
“Welcome to Renanin! Leave your shoes on!” Freya was bending to remove her sneakers. She thought that was what you were supposed to do when you went into a dojo or whatever.
“When you are using Krav Maga, you will most likely be wearing shoes. So, training is also in shoes. Do not worry about the floor, the mats are tough.”
Freya nodded. This was actually a good thing. People wouldn’t see her bandaged toes. Lassa looked around the gym. She seemed to find everything satisfactory.
“Does she need anything else?” Lassa asked.
“She has a mouthguard?” Vitko asked, and Lassa shook her head. Freya’s head drew back.
Mouthguard?
“Not a problem! They are ten dollars.” Freya hoped Lassa wouldn’t have cash, but Lassa produced a crisp bill from her wallet.
“OKAY! Have fun,” Lassa instructed Freya, ignoring her seething glare. “I’ll pick you up at nine.” She departed and left Freya behind. Dan and Cameron looked away, pretending they hadn’t listened to every word.
“You two, vanish. Privacy,” he ordered. “You, come with me,” Vitko said to Freya. She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it.
There was a little table on the right side of the gym next to the water cooler. On it were a coffee pot and an electric kettle. Vitko first flicked the switch on the kettle base, then he took the pot and filled it from the cooler and set it on the base. While the water was boiling, he took the mouthguard out of the packaging. Freya noticed how all the steps fit together so he was always doing something useful. He had done it many times.
When the water was ready, he poured it into the empty cup, and then dropped the mouth guard into it. He counted to thirty aloud as he filled another cup from the cooler. Then, with a fork, he took the mouthguard out and put it in the cold water and counted to three.
“Take that and bite on it! Bite down hard, then hold!”
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Freya worried it would still be too hot and burn her mouth, but Vitko seemed to know what he was doing. She took the warm plastic glob and bit down on it. It was weird but not unpleasant. The plastic had a strange, squeaky feel as it molded against her teeth.
Vitko was writing “FREYA” on the white plastic case that came with the mouthguard with a sharpie. He was left-handed.
“You can take out now,” he said, handing her the case. “After practice, always clean your mouthguard at home. Use toothbrush and toothpaste. Rinse well. If you forget your mouthguard, that’s ten dollars! Do not forget.”
“I won’t forget,” Freya agreed. “Am I going to get hit in the mouth a lot?”
“Ha! Not on purpose. But a mouthguard is cheap, a dentist is expensive! Training here is painful. We take many small pains so when the time comes you can avoid the big one.”
Vitko held up a finger, and then started under his right jaw and traced the line of a scar that ran diagonally down his neck to beneath the collar of his shirt, and then he tapped his eye, mirroring her own black eye.
Oh, God. Everything seemed like it rushed away from her, and she was about to pass out. Her ears pounded, her heart beat so hard, and it felt like everything in her was going to break loose. That scar.
Vitko mistook her grimace for squeamishness.
“You are sixteen, no? I was sixteen when I got this. In Łódź, over a game of football. I lost so much blood they said an angel must have saved me. That was when I began to study fighting. In case the angel was busy next time.” Vitko grinned.
Freya realized Vitko must not know about Randall. She swallowed and tried to get through this.
“Now, tell me, how you get this?”
He tapped his eye, and Freya told him the story.
“Lay on ground, not so good. Could have gone very bad for you. What weapon could have saved you there?”
“Um. We’re not allowed to have weapons at school,” Freya explained.
“Ah, this is not true. I will show you how to defend in situation next time. Are you ready?”
Freya put the mouthguard in and nodded, bracing herself to get slammed on the mat.
“HELP! HELP! HELP!” Vitko yelled so loud she was stunned. Then he ran from her, circling the gym, screaming his lungs out.
“HELP!”
Dan and Cameron ran into the gym to see what was happening.
“Very slow help! I could be dead by now!” Vitko yelled. “All of you, time to run! You, too, new student! Everyone runs!”
Freya had no choice but to join them running laps around the gym. They ran in circles until she felt like she might throw up, but she kept pushing. She didn’t want to be the first to complain. Vitko came to a stop and held up a hand. Dan and Cameron halted at once. They barely seemed winded, but Freya had to put her hands on her knees and wait for the room to stop spinning. She felt completely out of her league.
“You see? She’s good, I can tell. Already trying hard. Finnish people are very tough. The Winter War! Read about it! I talked with her mother. That woman is a lion! A woman slapped her while she was handcuffed, POW!”
Vitko lunged forward, mimicking the headbutt and clapping his hands to make the sound of the impact. “The slapper will never do that again.” Freya’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. Vitko was too caught up in his story to notice.
“This is a lesson in Krav Maga, use whatever is at hand, even when you have no hands! Another lesson! Your most important weapon is your voice! Call for help! Scream and shout! Do not go quietly into that good night, sir! Weapon number two, run away! You cannot hurt what you cannot catch! If you get hurt while you’re running, you stub your toe. If you get hurt while fighting, you go to the hospital.”
Freya, Dan, and Cameron nodded their heads.
“Orientation is finished. Now, you are ready for class. Whenever we do something, if we are doing push-ups, pull ups, whatever, you do as much as you can do! Then do a little more. Do a little more every time and soon, you can do much more. This is the way to always getting stronger. As long as you are trying hard, you are one of us. Hands!”
Vitko thrust out his left hand with his palm down, and the boys stacked theirs over his. Freya put her hand on top of all the others. Other students arrived. She was indeed the only girl.
The class began with a lot of push-ups and stretching, then they began a lesson about dealing with being choked from behind. The technique was breaking their grip, trying to get the chin under their arm, and getting out of it.
Freya thought she might not have to do the drills since it was her first class, but Vitko shot her a disapproving look. She scrambled to find a partner and picked the only person close to her size, a boy named Tate, who was only a freshman. She had been worried the boys in the class would be careless and hurt her, but it was the opposite. Tate seemed afraid to do anything. She easily slipped out from under his hold.
“No!” Vitko called from across the room, and he came over to join them. “Do not be bashful, she will not break. Chokehold is like this, here.” Vitko put her in the hold, not actually choking her, but the difference was enormous. His arm was like a steel band. There was no way she was getting out of it. She felt like she was going to panic.
“Now! Try to escape the way I showed!” he demanded, and she turned her chin and grabbed the arm. Her head slid free.
“But you let me go,” Freya protested. “If you were really grabbing me, there’s no way I could get out.”
“Yes! You are right. But this is training only. Not everyone who attacks you will be Vitko! You can feel leverage in the technique, yes?”
She nodded.
“Now, try with Tate! Tate! Use your strength!”
This time, Tate actually tried but, again, she was able to get free. The technique worked, at least on someone around her size. They reversed positions, and she couldn’t hold onto Tate either. Despite his small frame, he was quite strong.
After choking practice came more exercises and more running around the gym. Freya was always a few steps behind everyone else, but no one seemed to care. She had dreaded this all week, and it was totally fine. She almost enjoyed herself. All the focus on physicality made it impossible to dwell on her thoughts.
“OKAY! Last drill! Knife time!” Vitko said with a grin. He passed out orange rubber knives. She took one, and it was heavier than she expected. The handle was weighted.
“Attacker, do this!” Vitko made a quick stabbing motion, and then gave the knife to Dan Gregulus. “Do it to me!”
Dan grimaced, but he dutifully tried to stab Vitko with the rubber knife, then too fast to see, he was on the floor sideways.
“This is to defense! okay, I will show you again! This time slow!” Dan seemed a little dazed by his sudden re-orientation. Vitko showed the maneuver, which was grabbing the wrist with the knife turning the feet to throw the attacker off balance. It was more complicated than the other drills, and Freya concentrated hard, trying to get it straight.
“Now try! Go slow first!” Vitko said, and she turned with the rubber knife, ready to fake-stab Tate. But, instead of the defense, he took a step back, and everything went blurry.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and when she went to rub her eyes, she almost jabbed herself with the fake knife. She didn’t understand what was happening. It took her a few seconds to realize she was crying. The harder she tried to stop, the worse it got. Soon, she wept on the gym mat in front of the whole class.