Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Seven

"Harder."

Smack.

"Harder!"

Thwap.

"You've got three more hits to impress me, Virgo.  Otherwise it's going to be a long night."

The rest of the group had already started to clean up, all of them having made their marks for the day.  Each of them bragging about their latest stats to whoever would listen.  I was still at the punching bag, a long way from reaching my strength goals for the day.  What kind of Junior Captain was the last one on the mats?  Pathetic.

A pair of boys pulled their duffels over their shoulders, laughing as they sprayed water in their mouth and through their hair.  Charles and Eddie were their names.  I knew that it wasn't the sweat making me feel slimy as their eyes ran over me, sizing me up.  Checking me out.  Both.  It was always both.  

Bill came up behind them and knocked Eddie in the back of the head.  Hard.  Eddie didn't look my way again.

Hughes dropped his voice and craned his neck around the punching bag.  "Too tired?" he asked, his voice low and quiet.  It wasn't the same tone that the rest of my teachers used.  It was softer.  Genuine.  "Do you need a break?"

My arms burned.  My chest was too tight.  Several of my knuckles had long ago cracked oppen, offering up a new addition to the collection of scarlet splotches staining that canvas bag.  A break sounded like the best possible thing in the world.

But just moments ago, Charles and Eddie had been snickering to themselves in the corner.  They were good guys and all, but one thing was for sure: Charles and Eddie were always going to like the look of my butt in workout pants more than they were going to like the look of my punches.  I didn't need to give them and excuse to justify that sort of behavior—they'd have to come up with one of those without my help.

A break was the last thing I needed and so I did what we Gallagher Girls always have to do.  I kept going.  Kept Working.  Kept hitting.

"Good," Hughes said, taking his stance behind the bag again.  He raised his voice back to a level that everyone could hear.  "Then make you marks."

Right.  Make my marks.  Don’t think about the boys in the corner or the fact that Finn O’Reilly now held the record for hardest hit.  Just focus on the drills.

One hit.

“Unimpressive,” my teacher spat at me.  He was right, of course.  It had been bad.  Whenever I was around him, they were all bad.

Two hit.

“C’mon, Virgo,” he said, warning in his voice.  Only one more hit left.  “Surprise me.”

We had been told to hit the bag.  Hit it.  Now, of course, the automatic assumption is that one would use their hands to hit, but technically a hit can be completed with any part of the body.  Even a foot—which, yeah, alright, is really a kick, bit it’s also kind of not.

That’s probably why it caught Hughes off guard when I kicked the punching bag in that third hit.  That’s probably why Hughes stumbled backwards and why Charles and Eddie stopped staring at my ass.

Hughes stood in shock and, for a second, I wondered if I had gone too far this time.  If I had finally stepped over the line and now my rebellious personality was going to get me kicked out of the Gathering once and for all.  Except then he smiled at me, wiped his brow, and said, “Not bad, Virgo.”

I let out a satisfied huff, looking over to Will and Bill who were each giving me a discrete thumbs-up.  I winked at them, cocking a grin in their direction as I tried to crack the knuckles that felt like they needed to be popped, but didn’t.