Part 7 - Life Happens Anyway

Valerie was waiting just inside the main doors of Dolley Madison High School when Christie arrived. "Hey, girlfriend," the pretty blonde called. "Ready for another exciting Cavalier day at DMHS?"

Smiling, Christie came over to greet her friend. "Hopefully, anyway. Yourself?" She asked as they stopped at their lockers in the building's main hallway.

"Ah wuz born ready, pilgrim," Val answered in a horrible John Wayne imitation. "Hey, I meant to ask. I thought you were testing for your next belt next week. How come you weren't sparring last night at Young-Soo's? I expected you to be scurrying around challenging anybody who didn't run away fast enough."

"I'm NOT that bad," Christie retorted.

"Uh-huh, sure! Pull the other leg, and maybe someone will believe you. So what gives?"

"Eh, you weren't at class Saturday morning. I was sort of sparring with Greg, you know, Kim Eun Ae's new boyfriend? Anyway, he hurt his ankle in the middle of a combination move. I caught a spinning kick full force right under the wishbone. Knocked me down and left me breathless. My Mom got involved, and between her and Grandfather, I can't spar until at least Saturday. Probably just as well, I couldn't get really loose last night, but at least it's getting better than it was."

"Is that why Greg wasn't practicing last night? He just kept standing off the mat last night when he wasn't limping, that is."

"Well, partly, I think. Did you notice Eun Ae hovering around him like a mother with a sick child? I think he was enjoying being fussed over. Hope he gets better quick. Grandfather told me he's one of the people I have to spar against on Saturday."

"Now that you mention it, he did look awfully happy for someone who can't practice and is limping." Valerie closed her locker and headed off to their homeroom. "So, you know who you're going to be sparring with?

"Yup! And you're first, sunshine! Fear me, for I am coming for you!" Christie mock growled to her friend.

"Oh yeah, you of the mere 7th Geup? Just you bring it, McKellar! You may not be able to test next week when I get through with you!"

"You're on, Stevens, and . . ." Christie's voice trailed off as she caught sight of something happening ahead of them in the hallway. "Oh, hell! Wait here, Val. This won't take long."

"What?? Hey, where are you going?" Val called out to her friend's back.

Christie closed on her target rapidly. Trent Hopkins, prototypical skinny, academically brilliant school nerd, was being picked on - again. Martin Davis, Dolley Madison's star quarterback and most unrepentant bully, had Trent by the collar of his shirt and was playing at intimidating the much smaller boy. Just good, clean fun as far as Martin was concerned, especially since the usual teacher hall monitor was nowhere to be seen.

"Trent," Christie calmly addressed the frightened boy, "You will have to start looking out for yourself and protecting yourself, or this nonsense won't stop." Eying the smugly grinning Martin, Christie gently laid her hand on the bully's wrist. "Martin, this is beneath you, and you need to stop doing it." She told the bigger boy in a matter-of-fact tone. And then, she executed a wrist flexion compliance technique that Charlie had learned from Sa Bum Nim in their jiu-jitsu classes.

Still holding Martin's gaze, she dug her thumb down hard onto the nerve bundle at the base of the boy's wrist. "Martin, you really aren't cut out for this bullying stuff. You know what I mean?"

Martin's eyes went huge, and he let go of Trent, trying to free himself from this girl's painful hold. "Ow! Ow! Darn it, Christie! Let go." When she didn't immediately, the now dancing boy saw her cock an eyebrow that every young man learns to fear from Mothers everywhere. "Let me go, PLEASE, Christie?"

"Well, since you asked so nicely, Martin," Christie said, releasing the nerve pressure but not letting go of the hold. "You need to find another outlet for your aggression. Think chess or track and field or knitting. I mean, you need this arm to play your sports, don't you? Now, are you going to be a good boy?" She asked, bearing down again on the nerves.

"Ow, ow, ow! YES, yes. Please let go. I'll be good! I promise."

"Good boy! Very good boy. Now, leave Trent alone from now on, all right? You don't want to make me have to break a fingernail NEXT time. Do you?"

"No, Christie. I . . .I have to go. Homeroom, you know. Bye, Trent. Have a . . .err, umm good day. See you in the gym." And he was off as fast as he could go without appearing to run.

Reaching into her purse, Christie withdrew a card that she handed to Trent.

"Trent, go to the address on that card. It's Kim Young Soo's Karate School. Talk with Grandfather Kim. He'll help you figure out how you can learn to help yourself."

Christie turned to head off for class as if nothing had occurred. "What was THAT, Christie? Marty Davis has a foot of height and 100 pounds of mass on you."

"He's a jerk, but he's a fairly nice jerk. He's just too into this whole male survival of the fittest nonsense. I knew he wouldn't try to hurt me, so I wasn't in any danger of having to do something . . .more offensive to him. I'm just sick and tired of that crap and decided to do something since there wasn't any teacher around to help."
"Think Trent will go to the dojang?"

"Of course, he will," Christie said with complete confidence. At her friend's disbelieving stare, she giggled. "He'll either go on his own, or you and I will help him get there. He's a smart guy. He'll figure it out."

"You do realize that this isn't how most girls would deal with something like this? Right?"

"Why, Valerie. After all this time, you're just figuring out that I'm not most girls? How unobservant of you."

"Smartass!" Val growled as they slipped into homeroom just ahead of the bell. "We'll talk more about this later, McKellar." Christie only smiled and took her seat for attendance.

~-~

The insistent knocking on her bedroom door pulled Amanda McKellar out of a lovely dream involving warm tropical breezes, fruity rum drinks with umbrellas, and her current favorite male celebrity wearing Speedos just for her. She groaned, took a quick look at her bedside clock, groaned even louder, and buried her head under her pillow. It was Saturday, for God's sake. Her day to sleep in! Why was there someone beating on her door at . . .she peaked at the clock again. At five-thirty in the bloody morning! "MOM!" Her daughter's voice penetrated through the last lovely vestige of sleep. "You have to do your magic stuff so you can tell Grandfather whether or not I can be allowed to spar today."

So that was it, Amanda sighed to herself. She should have known. Her daughter was on a mission to take that next belt test next Saturday. That meant she had to be able to spar today to prove she was good enough for the test. Grandfather Kim was not going to permit that without Amanda's okay beforehand. Why hadn't she done this last night? Oh yeah, lovely hot bath with that beautiful bath oil and an even more delightful glass of ice-cold white wine. By the time she'd emerged from her little bout of hedonism, Christie had gone to bed and was sound asleep, so she hadn't reminded her Mom to check.

Crawling out of her bed, Amanda trudged over to the door, flung it open and glowered at her smiling - she was actually SMILING! At five-thirty in the bloody morning - daughter. Eyes narrow, she fixed her daughter with what she hoped was a blood-chilling stare. "This could have waited until later - like - oh, I don't know - maybe seven-thirty? Or even eight o'clock. Yes, eight would have been much better. Your class doesn't start until nine o'clock! Why did you have to interrupt Leonardo di Caprio cleaning wine off me with his tongue on the beach in Aruba?"

"WHOA! WHOA! MOM, TMI!" Christie took a careful step back and then frowned. "Umm, isn't he just a little past it these days?"

"In my dreams," Amanda retorted primly, "We are both young, beautiful and in the full bloom of our sexual prime. Now, WHY ARE YOU WAKING ME UP NOW?"

Looking abashed, Christie peaked up at her Mom. "Um, because I don't know how long it takes to do your sorcery thing? And I figured if you were awake, and I was still a little bit off? You could do the healing trick again so I could still spar. Oh, and of course, you have to call Grandfather and tell him."

Well, crap, Amanda thought. She'd been too busy at work this week and hadn't started Christie's healer training, so she didn't know. "The check will take maybe five minutes, and if you still need treatment, anything I can do today will be done in no more than thirty minutes. So, I am going back to bed and, hopefully, catching Leo before he slips off into some other woman's dreams. Wake me - GENTLY - at seven-thirty. Got that? Little hand on the seven, big hand on the six."

The bedroom door slammed shut before Christie could get a word in. Just off-hand, though, she did wonder where in the house they had a clock that wasn't digital.

~-~

Christie lay on the dojang mat, getting her wind back after three challenging matches. She had gotten her still irritated Mom up at 7:31, just to be on the safe side, with a fresh cup of morning coffee scenting the air. Mom muttered something about having gone two out of three with Camila Marrone. Still, she'd gotten Leo back, so Christie could relax.

As promised, Amanda's scan took about five minutes, and Christie passed without further treatment. The process itself had been fascinating as she'd done her best to follow what her Mom was doing throughout her scan. It was like when Christie had set her hand on fire. She felt she could have done the same thing herself. However, she'd promised her Mom she wouldn't attempt any healing until she'd gotten through her Mother's introductory training course.

Christie had practically skipped into the dojang, dressed in her sparring gear and was out on the mat warming up a half hour before class. The actual bouts had been held after the regular class finished. The instructors had scheduled sparring bouts for several other students who would also be testing next week. So Christie hadn't needed to "run the gauntlet" of having to fight all three matches, one after another.

Even so? She was just plain fried now that they were over. All of them had been tough, but for different reasons. She figured she won the first one, had a 'no contest' on the second, and suffered a life-altering ass-kicking loss in the third.

From a form and learning perspective, her best match of the day had been the first one against Valerie Stevens. Val was a skilled, technically adept 6th Geup Green Belt who would likely be testing for her 5th Blue at some future testing day. She was probably a better instinctive fighter than Christie, who was still teaching her body to do what her mind wanted. For all that, however, Christie had beaten her handily on points. Valerie did not quite have the whole 'killer instinct' thing down yet, and still fought to 'look pretty' when performing. Christie might not be able to do everything Charlie had been able to do, but she fought with the same intensity and drive as he had.

Her second bout had been against Greg, just as Grandfather had promised. And it had been awful! Maybe Greg was still being a little careful with his injured ankle. Still, halfway through the bout, Christie concluded that he was 'taking it easy on the girl.' He kept the score close, but he was a Blue belt! She shouldn't have been able to tag him as easily as she had during the match. Okay, so she'd gotten a little hot under the dobok and started using a little more force than was required for each technique. Nothing illegal, mind you - just enough to try and make the damn guy retaliate and give her a real fight, damn it! All she got out of that match was a good sweat.

The third bout. Wow. How to describe that abomination? An excellent example of why the WTF needed to institute a mercy rule to end completely lopsided matches? Send in the tape to headquarters. Reference A for the defense.

Eunice (and Christie now knew she was never to call her Eun Ae again) wore a 5th Geup Blue Belt, the same as Greg did. The only reason for that must be that Young-Soo was bending over backward to show the exact opposite of favoritism for his daughter. She was as tough as any Red Belt Charlie had ever fought and more challenging than a couple of the black belts he'd faced getting ready for his black belt test. That wasn't all, either. She was easily as quick a Rickey; she hit like a Mini-me version of Donnie, and because she was more than a little peeved at Christie beating on her boyfriend? She'd been almost as mean as Tad.

Christie had gotten her clock cleaned - period. She hurt all over. Nothing severe, but if there was a target area on her body that wasn't bruised, it was because Eunice had wanted it that way. Charlie had been good - damn good, but Eunice was even better. Time to mend a few bridges, Christie m'girl, before you ever have to spar with her again, she thought to herself.

Finally, she got herself up off the mat and looked for Grandfather to find out if she would be allowed to test next week.

~-~

Sunday evening, Christie broke down and asked her Mother for some of her healing help. She still hurt, and some of her aches and pains were in places she wasn't sure that Charlie'd had places. That had turned into her first official healing lesson. With her Mother's guidance, Christie began to learn how to 'look' for injuries or disease. Mom called this 'Healer Sight' as opposed to 'Healer Talent.' Evidently, sensing something wrong was not quite the same as the ability to push energy in and help fix something wrong. Mom explained it as being like sonar. The sight was passive in that it looked for the signs that indicated something was damaged. The talent was active - like active sonar - and pushed energy into the injury or disease.

Christie was very excited about moving on to the talent phase so that she could heal herself, at least for little things - like bruises. Only it turns out a sorcerer can't do that to him or herself. She couldn't even SCAN herself, for gosh sake. Well, that was disappointing, but as Mom said, "I don't know why it works that way. It's magic, and it works the way it works." Scientific? Not so much.

~-~

The testing day finally came, and Christie entered the dojang feeling quietly confident. Her forms, at least those required for this belt, were solid. She'd spent much of her class time the past week working with the other students whose tests would require the same forms. They had their timing and the moves down, so all of them should do well on the Poomsae portion of the test. That left individual skills demonstrations and sparring as Greens didn't test with weapons. All of Christie's students should pass and advance to their next rank unless someone got hurt. They just had to do what they'd been doing all week and put on a good show during the sparring bouts.

Christie changed into her dobok, tied her belt and then went out into the main studio. Her Mom and her Grandmother were both already there and seated. Mom may have had her issues with Taekwondo, but she knew that it was a big part of Christie's life. That made it a big deal to Amanda McKellar, too. Just her Mom's presence, even if she did close her eyes during the sparring, lifted Christie's mood and attitude. Checking the clock, she saw it was time to do her stretches and warm-ups so she'd be ready when the formal testing began. Young-Soo always ran a very tight ship on test day, and there were quite a few whites and yellows testing today.

The actual testing seemed to fly by for Christie. Her group was spot on doing their assigned Poomsae, with even their dobok pops and snaps in sync. After that, the various black belts who'd come to assist with the testing oversaw the individual skills demonstrations. She thought she'd aced those as well, which meant it came down to the sparring. Her first bout was against the other 7th Geup student testing for 6th Green. They put on a pretty good show, with several strikes and counters by both fighters. Christie knew she'd have won a scored bout, but that wasn't the point of these matches. Her second match was with a student testing for the 5th Geup Blue. He was more powerful than she was, but she was quicker. She managed to land enough strikes and counter enough of his that, once again, both of them showed their ability to the assembled black belts.

Her third bout would stick in her memory for a long time. After she had been called to the mat, Grandfather Kim announced, "Christie McKellar will spar with Rickey Summers." She didn't quite groan out loud, but she sure wanted to. Rickey still had difficulty delivering solid stinging strikes. It was one reason the junior black belt had not moved up into the adult classifications at the dojang. Which was good. Christie didn't have to worry about getting hurt. On the other hand, she would have to work very hard to show well against his incredible speed. She hated chasing the quick little fart around the darn mat.

Wait a minute. Charlie was the one who hated chasing Rickey. Christie had never fought him, but her quickness was her one advantage over her male version. Now there's an interesting question, she thought. Was she quick enough to run Rickey down and make him stand and fight? Charlie had never had any success trying to tag the little mosquito. And there, another thought struck her. Could she? Heck, it was worth trying, and it might even help Rickey. Eventually, she hoped.

"Well, lucky me," Christy said softly as she and Rickey assumed their starting positions on the mat. "I get the Dojang Mosquito." Rickey grinned at her use of his nickname. As Grandfather approached to take on the duty of the Joo Sim, Christie said, just loud enough for Rickey. "Hey, Rickey. Know what the problem is with boy mosquitoes? They ain't got no sting! Better get on your horse, fella, 'cause I'm coming for ya!"

"Si Jak," Master Kim shouted from the judges' table, but Rickey didn't move. He was just staring at Christie in disbelief. Christie didn't hesitate; she struck immediately, leading with a ridge hand and following it up with a spinning back fist to Rickey's chest. Both strikes landed cleanly and had Rickey backpedaling to get out of Christie's wheelhouse.

"Better stand and fight, Rickey! I'm almost as quick as you are, so you can run, but you can't hide." She landed a front kick and was moving into a second kick when Rickey went airborne over her leg sweep attempt and caught her squarely on the shoulder with a stiff kick of his own.

After that, the fight was on in earnest. Both fighters struck and countered, moved and kicked, but mostly, they stood and fought. At first, Christie tried to keep up a running dialog of 'almost-trash-talk' because it seemed to have motivated Rickey. The little fart was sparring the best match of his life! Lucky her, indeed. As the bout wore on, the pace of their fight began to wear on both of them, and Christie decided she had better things to do with her air supply than talk. Like trying to keep the Mosquito from mopping up the mat with her! She could not remember when the shouted command of "GOMAN! (stop)" had sounded sweeter.

Rickey just looked at her for several moments as if he couldn't decide what to say. Christie decided that what the hell! "DARN, Rickey!" She shouted as she swept him up into a fierce bear hug, "You were great! That flying kick? That really smarted! Great fight! Thank you!"
"Jeja Christie!" Grandfather Kim yelled. "Center Mat. These proceedings have not concluded."

"Yes, Grandfather," she replied respectfully. She hurried over to bow to her opponent, the Joo Sim and the judges before being dismissed from the mat.

Christie made sure to escort Rickey off the mat. "Now THAT'S how you should fight, Rickey. You helped me look good for the Masters."

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Rickey said accusingly. "You were trying to piss me off to turn that bout into a brawl."

"Oh, heck no. I just wanted you to do what you do best. Move and take your shots, but with a purpose. Like I said, I'm almost quick enough to chase you down, and I'm meaner than you. You're technically a much better fighter than I am. Once you figured that out, we were ready to rumble, guy! Bet you that will be the best fight of the day!"

Rickey thought about that for a few minutes. "I've never fought like that before. Well, not against older students. Didn't think I could. Darn it, Christie, that was really sneaky and underhanded of you!"

"Hey, I'm a girl. Sneaky is my job! Now, you know that against certain opponents, you can fight toe to toe. I'm so proud of you. That was really a great fight!" She hugged him again and then went to get her water bottle. That fight, along with all that talking, had been thirsty work.

When the black belts and the Kims came back into the studio from their deliberations, Christie saw Grandfather gesture to her to meet him after the announcements. Those didn't take long as everyone passed, and they went straight into the awarding of the belts to the newly advanced students.

After that was over, the refreshments came out, and the party began. Christie sought out Grandfather, who led her off to an isolated corner of the dojang. "Well, that was quite a fight you put on with Rickey, Jeja."

"Wasn't he just great?" Christie gushed. "That flying kick to my shoulder almost put me on my butt! I don't think he's ever hit me that hard before."

"Ah, but Christie, I thought this was the first time YOU had fought him."

Christie felt herself blush. "Oops. Kind of forgot, Grandfather. Still, he was able to make me look pretty good out there."

Grandfather nodded. "It was mutual, Jeja, but please tell me something."

"Yes, sir," Christie asked, suddenly wary.

"Is it true what you told him? That boy mosquitoes cannot sting?"

Giggling, Christie nodded. "Well, real male mosquitoes don't even have a stinger - the girls make you itch. But I guess our boy mosquito is finding his stinger."

"Christie, the look on his face when you said that? And then the shock when you went right at him with your opening combination? That may have helped that boy more than all the special instruction he's received in the last year. That was well-coached, Jeja. Now, let's see about some cookies and punch." Offering her his arm, Grandfather led her back to the main studio and the makeshift serving line.
~-~