Teenagers Scare the Living Sh*t out of Me (1)

Chapter 8

~ 5,845 Words

************

Leia's POV

Robby wasn't there when I woke up, I guess he had stuff he needed to do. I hope he was feeling better now that bruise looked gnarly, and his chest looked... STOP IT. I shook the thought away, I needed to get ready for training today. Sensei told us to meet at the junkyard, and I'm not sure what he had in mind, but I could tell it wasn't gonna be good.

But Robby, oh Robby why did he leave without saying anything? How did he get out? Did the crazy man go through the window with his side all fucked up like that?

I put on some jeans and a hoodie because it's getting cold outside, that reminds me I gotta give Miguel his hoodie back. I keep forgetting it's just been living on my bathroom floor for God knows how long since the spaghetti incident, and he's gonna need it in the cold weather.

"Do you have any idea why Sensei wants us there of all places?" I asked Miguel the second I pulled up to pick him up.

"Not a clue, but he has tied up my hands and thrown me in a pool before, so this is gonna be fun," he said throwing his bag in the back. Sensei said our training was going to get more intense lately because our dojo was entering into the All-Valley karate tournament. I was kind of excited to fight officially and not just the cafeteria fights we've been getting in. I wanted to see where I was at compared to before. I just needed to figure out how I was gonna get my permission slip signed by one of my parents without them knowing what it is.

"Oh right, here's your hoodie. I forgot I had it this whole time," I pulled it out from the back seat and handed it to him. "Oh, thanks I forgot you had it. I was looking all over for it today," he throws it in his bag.

We got to the junkyard and grouped together with the rest of the kids there when Sensei came and stood on top of a car in front of us.

He takes a sip of his Coors Light "You've trained hard. You've gotten stronger, tougher, faster. You've done your best. You're ready for this tournament, am I right?"

We spoke with our chests confident "Yes, Sensei!"

"Wrong!" He throws his empty Coor's Light down to us. "Your best ain't shit! If you wanna win the All-Valley Under-18 karate Tournament, you gotta give me better than you best. Which is why from now on, you're gonna get my worst. Do you understand?" Well, here goes nothing.

"Yes, Sensei!"

"Are you losers?!"

"No, Sensei!"

"Are you nerds?!"

"No, Sensei!"

"Are you sure?!"

"No, Sensei!" He puts his hands on his face stressed with our last response. He has been doing his best to drill confidence in us, so that we don't feel like losers or nerds, but it can be hard to relearn how your brain works when we are so used to being so self-deprecating. For our stupid response he first had us warm up by running through the holes of tires.

We were doing fine until one of the kids fell in the tires and that caused a dog pile from all of us, me included. Sandwiched between sweaty teenage boys... I don't know if that's exactly how I wanted to spend my weekend. Sensei made us run the drill again and again until none of us fell but encouraged and picked up everyone that did and had them try it again.

Next, we were walking across a beam over a giant trashcan full of broken glass and big scraps of metal. If there was one thing, I was good at it was balance. The only thing that made it sketchier was there were some small pieces of broken glass on the beam itself, and you could slip on them if you were stupid about it. I walked over gracefully getting a "Great job, Beast!" from Sensei, Miguel was right he was never gonna let that name go. Hawk had almost slipped on his turn making me jump a little seeing his foot kind of come out from under him.