I knew he was just trying to make my stupid birthday special. So I sighed and said, “Thanks, Hudson.”
“Okay! So how about I pick the three of you up at nine-fifteen?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Great! Now go home and impress your mother with how mature you are. Believe me, she won't know what hit her.”
“You're not even gonna offer me a piece of cake?” I cringed. “I really don't feel like going home.”
“You've got to, Sammy. You're just delaying the inevitable. Go home and resolve things with your mother. Focus on the fact that she did come home to see you. And that at least she told you now instead of later.” He shook his head a little. “Imagine how bad it would have been if she'd waited until you were ready for your driver's license.”
My eyes totally bugged out at the thought of how mad I would have been.
He laughed. “See? You've got to look at the positive. And really, Sammy, it's just a number. It doesn't change who you are.”
So off I went, dragging myself back to the Highrise. And the whole way I was sort of refereeing a battle in my head—one side of me was totally mad at my mom and Grams and didn't want to see them for, oh, maybe a year or two. But the other side was thinking about what Hudson had said about getting an extra year for free and shocking my mom by being, you know, mature.
And I was clear up at the intersection of Broadway and Main, still duking it out with myself, when I noticed a kind of strange-looking guy walking along Broadway. He was big—thick, with a heavy jaw. His shoulders were kind of hunched, and his arms swung a little ahead of him, his body sort of careening from left to right as he moved down the sidewalk.
At first he reminded me of a little albino gorilla. But when he reached Slammin' Dave's and opened the door, I thought, No, he looks more like an albino caveman.
The light changed, so I crossed over Main Street thinking that maybe that was even his wrestling name—The Albino Caveman. Or maybe just The Caveman. Or wait—The Arctic Caveman. Yeah! That'd be a cool name—The Arctic Caveman.
It wasn't until I was clear across Main Street that it hit me—he didn't look like a caveman.
No, he looked like …
A bulldog.
Holy smokes. A bulldog! Just like the Psycho Kitty had said! And there had been a dead cat in the Pup Parlor trash. Right next door to Slammin' Dave's!
But… why would the Bulldog be killing cats at Slammin' Dave's?
It didn't matter how much sense it didn't make, in a flash I was crossing Broadway, heading straight for Slammin' Dave's.
Now, instead of sneaking peeks through the curtains, I decide to get gutsy and go inside. The place is pumping with music and steaming with big men wearing small amounts of spandex and lots of sweat. And you'd think they'd notice a scrawny thirteen—scratch that—twelve-year-old girl, but no one seems to.
I scan the place looking for the Bulldog but don't see him anywhere. There's a class of guys doing hill climbers on the floor mats, and Slammin' Dave's got his back to me as he's pacing in front of them, yelling, “Get your knees up. Get your knees up. Benny! I'm talkin' to you! No slackin'! You can be a wrestling-school dropout, or you can sweat some bullets and get to the big ring. It's all on you, man, all on you!”
Benny kicks into gear a little bit, but it only lasts a few steps. No doubt about it, the guy's ready to drop.
“Where are we?” Slammin' Dave shouts over the music. “I can't hear you!”
“Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one …,” the guys on the mats bark as they move, but their voices fade fast.
Now, I know that any second, someone's going to spot me and throw me out. Trouble is, there's nothing to use for cover. No trash can, no plant, no wall—nothing. And I'm thinking I could hide behind the curtains, but not only would people outside be able to see me, something about it seems really, you know, stupid. Like it's what a six-year-old would do.
Being twelve was bad enough.
Then I notice something: The wrestling ring isn't solid to the ground—it has a red vinyl skirt around it. And the mat's off the ground, way higher than a bed.
A door to my right starts to open, so I don't waste another second thinking about it—I scurry under the ring. And after waiting a minute for my eyes to adjust, I start crawling through the jungle of junk that's stored there. I maneuver around two-by-fours, and pieces of drywall, and plywood, and spools of wire, and buckets, and paint, and extra mats, and just… garbage. And I start asking myself, Why? Why are you here? And now what? How are you planning to get out of here?
Then I hear the music cut off, and all of a sudden there are heavy footsteps above me and Slammin' Dave's voice is calling, “All right. Today I'm gonna teach you how to take a back bump.”
I crawl forward until I get to a split in the skirting, and when I peek through it, I can see a bunch of students standing on the floor mats. Their bodies are shiny with sweat, and some of them have rivers of it running down their temples. Their eyes are all totally fixed on Dave, who's giving them instructions from inside the ring. “What's key is, don't hit the back of your head. If you do that, you'll see colors. Or stars. Or, if you do it hard enough, the night sky.”
So while Dave's talking, I'm checking out all the students.
No Bulldog.
I check to the left. And to the right.
No Bulldog.
“First thing you do,” I can hear Dave saying, “is squat like this.”
All the wrestlers squat, still looking at Dave.
“Then cross your arms like this.”
They all cross their arms.
“Bring in your chin and rock your hips.” All the wrestlers try it, and then Slammin' Dave calls out to one of them, “What'cha got down in your shorts, Benny, cement? You gotta move. Roll up on the balls of your feet.”
Benny rocks up on the balls of his feet, but he still looks really stiff.
“All right!” Dave says. “Now don't try this down there, just watch. What you do next is imagine someone's pulling a rug from under you. Then throw your shoulders back and—” BAM! The mat slams above me.
A second later Dave's voice is back. “And when you get up, remember, no open hands! You want to get your fingers pulverized, do like this. You want to keep ‘em intact, make a fist, lean on your forearm, and spin up like we drilled on last time.” After a few seconds of silence Dave says, “All right. One more time. Squat down, cross your arms, tuck your chin, rock your hips, and—” BAM! The mat slams again. Then Dave calls, “Rick, get in here!”
A guy with frizzy blond hair steps forward and climbs into the ring. Ten seconds later the mat goes BAM!
“Again!” Dave shouts. “Keep your head tucked!”
BAM!
“Again!”
BAM!
“All right, Hector! Your turn!”
So a guy who looks like a marine climbs into the ring as the other guy comes out. And I was trying to keep an eye out for the Bulldog, but it was hard to concentrate because every time the mat slammed, I jumped. It was loud, and the mat wasn't like a mat on the ground. Whenever I watched through the window or back door, it always looked like the wrestlers were hitting hard, but now I could see that the floor of the ring was springy. Not like a trampoline or anything, but springy enough to absorb a lot of the impact.
Anyway, I didn't see the Bulldog anywhere. Maybe he'd gone out the front door again. Maybe he was in the locker room changing. Maybe he was in the office making phone calls. Who knew? All I knew is I was stuck and feeling very stupid. What was I doing there? What did I think? That the Bulldog had a stash of cats at Slammin' Dave's? That he was going to wrestle them to death?
Please.
And why did I even care? The Psycho Kitty Queen was mean. Why should I be trying to help her?
But it wasn't for her, exactly. It was the cats that bothered me. And besides, it wasn't just her cats. Mr. T and Prince were somebody else's cats. They could even have belonged to some kid.
Like Dorito belonged to me.
So there I am, trapped under the ring with the floor going BAM… BAM… BAM every few seconds, and wacky thoughts about cats and kitty killers running through my head, when all of a sudden I hear a deep, loud, rumbly growl in my ear.
Before I can think, my body shoots out from under the ring. And as I'm scrambling to my feet, the place goes quiet. Big sweaty bodies everywhere are staring at me. And I start backpedaling for the door, but two of the wrestlers grab me by the arms and yank me back.
Then the flaps of the ring's skirt push apart, and out comes the guy with the crazy cat mask. His creepy yellow cat eyes are fixed on me as he rasps, “I saw her dive under. She wasn't doin' nothin'. Just watchin'.”
Now Dave's looking down at me from the ring like, Well, well, well, while the rest of the wrestlers are checking me over, not really knowing what to think. “Good work, El Gato,” Dave says to the cat dude.
“Thanks,” he says, then jerks his head toward me.
Well, I jump, ‘cause the guy's a freak, you know? Stupid cat mask, yellow eyes, striped potbelly…
He laughs and rasps, “Skittery ain't'cha?” then whispers, “I told you to stay away!”
Slammin' Dave laughs and says to me, “I've heard about wantin' a ringside seat before, but underneath it?”
“You want I should throw her out?” El Gato asks him.
Dave shakes his beefy tan neck. “Uh-uh. Throw her up here.”
“Up there?”
“Uh-huh.”
And with that, El Gato lifts me by the back of my jeans and my shirt and passes me through the ropes.
“You must want to wrestle bad, huh?” Slammin' Dave says with a grin.
I look from side to side. “Uh—”
“Well, come on. Let's see you take a bump.”
“But—”
“What do you say, guys?” he calls to the class. “Think this girl can be the next Chyna?”
All of them snort and snicker, and one of the plumper guys even laughs and says, “Not in this lifetime!”
“Shut up, Tubby,” I grumble at him.
“Oh,” Dave says. “She's got attitude!” I start to say something back, but he cuts me off with, “That's a good thing.” He puts an anvil arm around me. “You learn anything, being under there?”
Now what my brain wants my mouth to say is, No sir. I'm sorry, sir. And I promise I won't do it again, sir. But instead I pop off with, “Yeah. That you need a new janitor. It's a dump under there.”
He laughs, then calls, “Hey, Tony! Yo! Tony, you still back there?”
The guy who'd tossed Holly's trash when we'd been spying through the back door appears from around some lockers. “Yeah?” he says, and when he recognizes me, he says, “Hey, chiquita.” Then he turns to Dave. “What's up?”
“Tony,” Dave says, “this young lady's calling your professional services into question.”
“That so?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow at me.
Now, this is all making me pretty nervous. So I say, “Look, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean anything. And I'm sorry I snuck in. I just wanted to, you know, experience it.”
“You want to experience it?” Dave says, spreading his arms. “Go ahead—take a bump.”
Me and my big mouth. And from the grin on his face I can tell—the idea is definitely growing on him. He says, “You saw what I was teaching, right? Let's see what you learned.”
Well, the whole thing seemed pretty stupid to me, but I just wanted out of there. So I said, “Fine.”
“Uh…,” El Gato says, stepping forward. “You think that's such a hot idea?”
Well, forget him! Stupid creepy cat. I toss him a look, then squat, cross my arms, and tuck my chin. And before I can even think about what I'm doing, I rock on my toes, imagine someone's yanking a rug from underneath me, throw back my shoulders, and BAM! I hit the mat.
I just lay there for a second. It hadn't hurt at all. Well, not like you'd expect, anyway. Then I rolled up and bounced on my toes. “Wow. That really works!”
Dave's eyes were wide. His jaw was dangling. And after all of two seconds of gaping at me, he turns and says, “See that, Benny? That's how it's done.”
“Beginner's luck!” Benny calls back.
Slammin' Dave snickers. “You could use some of that, my man.” Then he turns to me and says, “Again.”
Again? Uh-oh. It probably had just been beginner's luck. But I wanted to try it again—something about doing it right felt really good. So I squat, cross my arms, tuck my chin, rock up, and… BAM! I hit the mat again. And man, I gotta tell you, it felt great. I felt, I don't know, tough.
I rolled up, and before Dave could stop me, I tried it again.
BAM!
I rolled up again and said, “That is so cool!”
“Bet she can't take a front bump,” Benny yelled.
“Oh yeah?” I called back. Then I turned to Dave. “What's a front bump?”
Dave shakes his head and says, “We don't have time for that,” but Benny calls out, “Sure we do! Huh, guys?”
Now you can tell that the other guys aren't big on the idea, but Benny says, “Twenty-five bucks says she can't do it.”
“On what?” the guy who looks like a marine asks. “Her first try?”
“Fifty bucks says she can't do it on her first try.”
There's a minute of silence where everyone seems to be staring at me. But then Tony says, “Fifty says she can.”
The Marine calls, “I'm in!” and before you know it, lockers are slamming and Tony's collecting money, jotting down notes on a scrap of paper.
“They're betting on me?” I whisper to Dave.
He grins. “The pressure's on, kid.”
“Why? Someone's gonna lose either way. And it's not like I get anything out of it.”
“Hmm,” he says, then calls down to Tony, “Hold back ten percent.”
“You takin' a cut?” Tony asks.
Dave shakes his head. “She is.”
Everyone seems to freeze for a split second, and then Tony says, “She can't do that.”
“Hey, who's runnin' the show here, huh?” Dave asks, like there's no way he's going to let his janitor call the shots. “Front bump or fail, she gets ten percent for trying.”
Tony shrugs and says, “Whatever you say,” and gets back to collecting bets.
Now in my head I'm thinking, Wow! If all these guys bet fifty bucks each and I get ten percent… that'll be a boat load of money for me.
So when they've got the money all squared away and Slammin' Dave says to me, “Ready?” I say, “You bet!”
It was too late to back out when he showed me what I had to do.
A front bump is nothing like a back bump. Well, except that you land flat on your back on the mat. A front bump is basically an airborne somersault. No hands, no shoulders, you just launch yourself forward through the air, tuck your head in, and land BAM! on your back.
The whole ring shook when Slammin' Dave demonstrated. Then he broke it down for me and demonstrated again. And my face must've been looking pretty chalky, because he took me aside and said, “Don't freak. There's really nothing to it.”
“Oh right,” I choked out.
“Listen. As far as I can tell, you've got no fear of the mat.”
“Well… no. It's not soft, but it's got springs—”
“Shhh,” he said, grinning. “So it's not cement, right?”
“Right.”
“So in your mind, make it a trampoline. See yourself flippin' over—” He noticed me eyeing the guys lined up ringside and El Gato, pacing around behind them. “Hey,” he said, blocking my view, “concentrate.” He moved me so my back was to the wrestlers and said, “Close your eyes.”
I closed them.
“Think of the mat as a trampoline. You ever been on a trampoline?”
I nodded.
“You ever been hurt by a trampoline?”
I shook my head.
&
nbsp; “Good. Now picture yourself… you're taking a step, your arms are swinging back as you tuck your chin and flip over. And then, slam, you land loud, but not hard. Your arms are out, your head is up.”
I stood there with my eyes closed, going through the steps, seeing him do it, seeing me do it. Visualizing just like Coach Rothhammer taught us to do about hitting home runs in softball.
He talked me through the steps about five times. Finally he said, “You got it?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on you.” Then under his breath he added, “Just don't land on your head.”
Tony got a nod from Slammin' Dave and called, “Time to rock ‘n' roll!”
“Don't I get even one practice try?” I asked.
“No!” Benny said. “The bet is first try.”
Slammin' Dave nodded. “Give it your best shot, kid.”
It always irritates me when someone calls me kid like that. It's like they don't give me credit for knowing anything, or how to do anything. And maybe Slammin' Dave didn't mean it that way, and maybe I did look totally scrawny standing next to him. But him calling me kid reminded me how I was back to being twelve again, and I don't know—it made me more than irritated. It made me mad.
But instead of snapping, I am not a kid! like I normally would've, I just glared at him. And before I had time to doubt myself or get scared, I took a step, hurled my body forward, and BAM! I hit the mat on my back.
At first I was stunned. The backside of my arms had hit hard, and even though I wasn't seeing stars, there was a little, you know, visual static.
I also thought I'd gone deaf. But then it hit me that it was just dead quiet from everyone else being stunned, too.
I rolled onto my forearm and stood up.
I'd done it!
The first thing I saw was El Gato. Even with his hood I could tell that his scary cat eyes were bugged way out. Then the Marine punched a fist into the air and whooped, “Yes!” But Benny shouted, “Hey! Is this some kind of a con? There's no way that girl's never taken a bump before!”
“No one's conning you,” Tony said as he began passing out money to the winners. “You called the bet, remember?”