Professor Why's Academy for Extraordinary Youngsters

Heroics 108: Independent Contractors

               Starting the next day, I had to set my alarm two hours earlier than normal. According to Situ, "If you want to be better than everyone else, you have to try harder than everyone else." I did, in fact, want to be better than everyone else, and so I met Situ in the school gymnasium, already sweating from her pre-workout workout. The gym was initially locked up after class, but after exercising in the snow posed a health risk, they gave Situ a spare key.

Inside she was practicing kicking a boxing dummy in the neck over and over again. One after the other in quick succession, she wasn't taking the thing's head off, but she was definitely rocking the base that the human surrogate was based on. When I walked in, she immediately stopped. She didn't smile, I had literally never seen her smile, but her eyes did a thing I hadn't seen them do before, and she looked a bit happier.

"Can't believe you made it." She remarked. "I invited the whole class at one point or another, but you're the first person to show up."

"Well it's nothing, I was just around and"- I began.

"No seriously." She continued. "I can't believe you were the first. I was guessing one of the top ranking students, or maybe Dennis since he loses a matchup with literally anybody, but you weren't even kind of a guess for me. I thought you spent your free time playing video games or trying and failing to get Summer to notice you."

"Wow that's a bit harsh for"- I attempted to interject.

"I suppose it makes sense that you would want to train. Your arms are soft and you look all around like a pencil. I was under the impression that Americans looked like Dwayne Johnson but you have corrected my stereotype." She assessed.

"I'm Hispanic so"- I tried my best to reply.

"But I am glad you're here. It has been boring kicking that boxing dummy. I named him Biff, after the bully in Back to the Future and also the sound he makes when you kick his face. Do you want to kick Biff next? I'm willing to share."

There was a lot to unpack in that whole dialogue, but I could tell that what she was trying to say was "I'm glad you made it", so I chose to focus on the last bit.

"I would love to kick Biff. How did you position your feet?" I replied.

Situ stifled a smile and explained to me the rudimentary rules of kicking. She was not, as I expected, a practitioner of traditional martial arts, though she said her elementary school taught Tai Chi for recreation. She was all about Muay Thai, which, as she described it, was "more practical".

By the end of the morning practice, I had worn off the skin on the part of my feet above my toes. Everything was red, and walking hurt, but not in the way you expected. Muay Thai kicks use the top of the foot, so every time my foot lifted, I felt the pain in the top of the sandal, and by the end of the day I had abandoned shoes altogether. Detention or no, it was not worth the pain. I could deal with the dress code violations, and I'm sure my class could deal with my weirdly hairy hobbit feet. I didn't want to be "that guy" but Summer wasn't any better dressed than me, so I didn't expect the punishment to be particularly harsh.

There's an emotion that comes from exercising, by the way. It's not like I felt good, necessarily, considering how painful everything was. I just felt macho. I had messed up my perfect hair thirteen ways from Friday and I was coated in a layer of sweat, but I hadn't felt quite so confident before. I walked up to Summer that morning when class started, performed some finger guns as one of my heroes, Toby McGuire, did in Spiderman 3. It... worked about as well for me as it did for ol' Toby. She kind of smiled with her mouth but not her eyes, did a half laugh, then went about her day as usual.