A Little Bit Ninja

1: Tidings of Great Sadness (Revised)

This story has officially won a Watty Award! Thank you so super much for all your support. *gives you all your choice of Reece's peanut butter cups, cadbury chocolate bar, or ice cream* Yum!

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And...this is the rewritten version of chapter one. Throughout the story I'll be changing stuff like a few character's background stories, and adding some stuff in, and polishing it in general. Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Chapter 1: Tidings of Great Sadness

If I had known that by the end of the night I would ruin a friendship, get thrown up on, discover a secret lair, and judo drop my arch nemesis, I would have done things differently. I would have felt totally rockstar about the judo drop and the secret lair, but I wouldn’t have been so harsh on my best friend. I didn’t know that this was to be the last weekend of life as I knew it before everything would change forever. My time with her was limited.

But nobody warned me, and that Saturday afternoon I was blissfully unaware of the machinations in motion that would lead to my kidnapping and submersion into a world of extremist do-gooding. I thought Millie was my biggest problem.

I sat across from one third of our best friend trio, watching her swirl the strawberry bits at the bottom of her lemonade with her straw.  Despite the hour I’d spent mentally scripting this moment, I was still at a loss for words. What was supposed to be our dual celebratory/ make-up lunch deteriorated into a moping marathon once I told her the tryout results.

“Okay, seriously. You can’t hold this one against me,” I tried again. “You totally thought it was a joke too, when he showed up. I mean, you saw him in choreography.”

I pumped my elbows in the air, twitching my neck and jerking my legs under the table. It was as close to the “Elaine Dance” as you could get while sitting in a booth at Red Robin. She didn’t even look at my antics and continued picking at her salad, but I pressed on.

“And don’t even get me started on his outfit.”

The salad alone was an indication of the severity of her depression. Actually, I was hoping it was depression. Otherwise it could only be labeled as fury, directed at moi.

Normally, we wouldn’t even look at any menu items that didn’t come with bottomless steak fries, ordered with copious amounts of tangy campfire sauce on the side. It was our Red Robin creed. But in her distress, she ordered a salad. Don’t get me wrong. We totally dig salads, but we never got them here.

Millie leaned across the table, still without looking at me, and picked up one of my fries and dipped it in the campfire Sauce.  I took her tenuous appetite as a sign of improvement. With that hint of encouragement, I went on.

“I mean, the most logical conclusion when a soccer player shows up at a dance team tryout is that it’s a joke. Nobody could have predicted that Paul Findley would actually make the team, and accept the spot.”

Nibbling the fry, she glanced at me and brushed her silky, dark-chocolate tresses behind her ear but still didn’t speak.

“Mills, you were, like, a total shoe-in, until he came in with that last group. It was like he flipped a switch and channeled his inner Usher or something. And short of breaking his legs, there was nothing I could do. Speak to me girl.”