"Nononono, hang on," Emeral said, pressing her hand up into the air, "that's totally wrong, you'll hurt your neck."
"I'm doing exactly what you said!" Ket grumbled, his head and knees on the ground, situated in front of the couch cushions laid in a row in the middle of the upstairs den.
"Get up, get up, get up," she urged, helping him right back to a normal position. "Move and I'll show you again."
With a huff, Ket shimmied on his knees to the side while Emeral knelt down before the line of couch cushions. "Ok, so, start off on your your left knee. Then, take your sword," she raised her right arm up into the air, imaginary blade pointed down-left, "And put it in the sheath," she lowered her arm, and then placed it on the floor, "Now, when you roll, your head doesn't thump, and you put all your weight on your shoulder," she performed it, springing off on her right foot and tumbling forward.
Ket tried to analyze the exact motion as she rolled, trying to see exactly where her arms went. It was kind of tricky, especially since the actual roll was so fast. When she rose up, her left knee was up and her right leg was on the ground.
"Got it this time?"
"Think so," he said. She urged him to try it. He positioned himself before the cushions, poised in the stance. He sucked in a breath and bellowed it out, going over the motions in his head. Slowly he raised his hand, made to sheathe the sword, leaned down and placed his head against—
"Back up, arm goes down first," she interrupted, "You'll hurt your neck that way. Weren't you paying attention?"
"Not all of us are Jiu-Jitsu masters," he fussed.
She closed her eyes and sighed. Being the teacher was definitely more stressful than she thought. It was hard when your student was frustrated and yelling at you. "Okay, we'll take it one step at a time. Grab your sword."
He righted up, took his sword, blade pointed down and to the left.
"Now put it away but don't put your head on the ground."
He did so, putting his arm against the ground. "Like this?"
"Perfect." She stated.
"Now what?"
"Now get used to that position."
"Do what?"
"Sit there until I tell you to move." She instructed. It was rough, but he had to get out of the bad habits, just like she had to do. If he wasn't going to do it right on his own she was going to have to force him to do it.
He breathed in and out audibly, feeling cramped against himself like a roly-poly while he was only supported by one arm and his left knee flat on the ground. This was the first time he'd really had any kind of trouble, except for the very first lesson she taught him when she put him into a headlock, but for the life of him he just couldn't get this rolling thing down right.
"My arm is getting pins and needles," he growled.
"Well, you think you got that position down?" She intoned.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, albeit bitterly.
"Okay, then keep going. Remember to tuck your chin in, don't let your neck touch the ground. 'Shoulders, knees 'n toes'," she sing-songed.
He barreled over, dizzily tucking his chin and feeling the pressure just barely on the back of his skull and definitely against his back. When he followed through, he wound up in a sit instead of the clean stance Emeral had righted herself into. He also wound up halfway off the cushions.
She clapped. "You got it! Now it's just a matter of practice."
"I don't think this rolling stuff is for me."
"'You can't expect to be good at everything'," Emeral quoted. "I had trouble with this, too, Ket, that's why I'm being so stubborn."
"What about...weapon training?" He asked.
She blinked, repeating the phrase.
"Yeah," he replied, "I mean, do you guys train with weapons?"
"Not real ones," she said, "A few times we did some stuff like that with chalk." Then, she narrowed her eyes. "Oh, I get it. You don't wanna do tumbles but you wanna know how to use a sword or something."
"Well...no that's not—"
"Tsch, boys," she crossed her arms.
"No, I mean like. What if someone comes at me with a knife? How do I defend myself."
She smiled. "Nice try, but that's more advanced stuff. If you wanna learn that, then you've at least gotta master this rolling."
"Fine," he huffed.
"Ke-et!"
"What mom!" He shouted with a bit of irritation.
"Don't talk to me like that! Your friend is here."
Both tigers exchanged glances. "Uh...Emmy came with me, mom," he said, running to the stairs.
Panda was already halfway up.
"No, I mean your other friend, I sent him up."
"Hey," Panda greeted, almost out of breath. Ket stood aside to allow him upstairs. It didn't take him long to notice the couch cushions were on the floor. "H...Hey Emeral," the bear greeted, sounding a little confused at the scene.
"Hi, Pan," she replied back, just as confusedly.
There was a bit of an awkward silence before Ket asked, "So...what's up?"
"Oh...well, um...I know you said you were gonna be busy with your extra schoolwork but..." He stalled, and then started again as if from scratch, "Well, I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see if you wanted to work on the last book report together."
Ket lifted an eyebrow, "Why? We split the work pretty evenly. Are you not gonna make it?"
"No, I'll be there it's just...it's over the last set of chapters and a summary of the whole book, so..."
"The whole book?" Ket questioned, "Why are we doing a summary if we just did a report on...?"
Panda shrugged, "Ms. Hupp said so yesterday, you didn't hear?"
Ket crossed his arms, "I don't remember her saying that, are you sure?"
"I heard it," Emeral chimed in, "She said it while you had your head down, sleeping."
"I wasn't sleeping," he retorted, turning his chin to her.
"Well it doesn't matter,” she shrugged, standing up, “you obviously weren't paying attention."
"I was too, I probably just didn't hear that part."
"Guys...um..."
"Well if you'd keep your head up, maybe you'd hear better."
"My ears aren't blocked or anything, I can hear just fine."
"Obviously not!"
"Hey!" Panda shouted, holding his hands up like he was about to brace for a huge explosion, "Look, I just wanted to see if he was free, but he isn't so—"
"Oh no," Emeral spoke, matter-of-factly, "He's free. He'll go over the book report."
"What?" Ket's shoulders slouched, "Whaddaya mean? Today's my day off..."
"I thought yesterday was your day off." Her finger jabbed his forearm, "You even punked on Lyza's solo."
"You didn't go either."
"Yeah cuz dad needed us for dinner and we couldn't cancel, I had a reason."
"I did too!"
"Oh yeah, like what?"
"I was busy working!"
"Hey!" Came a shout from downstairs, "What's going on up there? I hear lots of yelling."
And suddenly everything was quiet. Panda bit his lip, electric tension in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife, if the knife didn't break in two first.
"Do I need to come up there?" Miss Rachaun threatened.
"No ma'am," Panda finally said, "We'll settle down, promise," but even as he said that he was looking at the two tigers before him, about ready to jump in between them if they started fighting tooth and claw.
"All right Pan, but if there's anymore yelling I'll have to treat you like how you're acting and give you all a time out, got it?"
"Yes ma'am," they all said, to varying degrees of hissing, growling and terseness.
"Where're you going?" Ket asked as Emeral began stomping away, her feet thumping on the carpet.
"'Busy working', huh?" She spoke rhetorically, retrieving a stack of three papers off his work desk. "What do you call this?"
Upon each page, consisting of separate homework assignments, was the big red stamp of INCOMPLETE.
"Um," Panda adjusted his backpack, "Maybe now's a bad time—"
"I already said it was a prefect time," Emeral interrupted the bear, shoving the papers into Ket's stomach, eliciting a huff from him. "From now on, I'm not gonna give you another kis—...-rate lesson until you make all As and do your extra homework." Their eyes locked. Even though she had wavered in her resolve for a second to correct a word she almost let slip, she knew the message still got through. The look on his face told her so.
"Fine," he spoke curtly, straightening the papers. "I'll be right back." He went into his room.
Panda stood dumbly, until at last Emeral glanced over at him. Her eyes weren't scathing, but even still his shoulders drooped enough that his backpack slipped off and slammed on the ground. "Uh...so...karate lessons?"
"Sorta," Emeral replied, picking up a cushion, "it's really Jiu-Jitsu, but everyone calls that Judo and it drives me nuts."
"My dad takes Tai-Chi Chuan," the bear commented, picking up the middle cushion.
"Tai-Chi Chuan? I've never heard that one."
"Most people think it's just dancing, but there's more to it than that." He placed the cushion in with an oof as Emeral slid the last one into place. As she was doing so, Ket emerged from his room, carrying the red-backed book.
"Uh-oh, Eustace is back," Emeral jeered playfully, referring to the grumpy cousin from the book. In the exactly perfect manner the tiger gave a bow-browed eye-flick and sat down on the couch. Emeral sat beside him, while Panda fished for his book and the papers from in his backpack.
"Okay, so, pretty much," Panda began, slumping onto the couch a space away from Ket and Emeral, "I actually did everything but the last chapter. I mean I would have, but I just didn't have enough time, so if we get that out of the way we're good to go, right?"
"Uh...yeah," Ket said, twitching his book.
"Okay, cool," he handed Ket the papers, "Look those over really quick, let me know if I missed anything."
Emeral took his book while he dumbly took the papers. He read the first question and the bear's answer to it, but his act was interrupted when Emeral noticed the bookmark was still on chapter fourteen; the very chapter Ket was reviewing on Panda's report.
"Wait a minute," Emeral muttered, breaking the silence, "How can you review that if you haven't read it yet?"
Ket closed his eyes and grimaced.
"Oh, you haven't read that yet?" Panda commented.
"N...not yet, I was gonna do it tonight I swear," the tiger replied, "It's just a few pages so..."
"So you put it off till last minute?" Emeral chimed.
"I've been reading during class time," Ket said defensively.
"Hey," Panda said before there was another fight with feline fts, "S'okay, I understand. You've got that extra work you're doing, it's why I did your chapter, too."
"You guys should be doing an even amount of work," Emeral stated, "It's a group grade."
"Ket's been pulling his share, Emmy," Panda replied to his defense. "Besides, I think doing the chapter reports is kinda fun. I mean the book started off really boring but then when Eustace turned into a dragon it started getting really interesting. It kinda makes me wanna read all the books."
"Aww, that's cool," Emeral said with a smile, leaning against Ket. "But that still doesn't excuse him," she slapped his leg, "from putting it off."
"I'll read it tonight," he said.
"Yeah," Panda concurred, "I think you'd do a better job on the book as a whole anyway. You have a better memory and you actually know what the morals of the book are; I'm just good at the chapter reports cuz I do them as I read them. So..." He looked at his papers, "Tell ya what, I'll do the last chapter report and—I'll help you out of course—you can do the general summary. Is that fair?"
Ket shrugged his shoulders. "Sounds fine to me," he replied.
"Can you start reading now?" Emeral asked, leaning against him a little more.
"I'm gonna read it later," he said, his voice quieting a little.
"But I wanna hear you read it now," Emeral pleaded, also sort of quiet, her hand moving to his shoulder.
Panda watched as Emeral, her head on Ket's shoulder, looked up at him pleadingly to read the book. He bit his lip and got his papers together. "Well, I guess since we've got it figured out I should get home and start working..."
"No, you don't need to leave," Emeral said, "Ket was just about to read to us."
"That's okay," Panda replied, "Grandpa's probably done at the store anyway. Sorry for interrupting your quality time, I'll make sure to call next time."
"Quality time?" Emeral giggled.
"Well, you two like each other, don't you?"
There came a crash from downstairs. A zillion plates and porcelain and glass—all the windows in the house, of every house on the entire street; no, of the entire neighborhood. Everything, all of it, shattered all at once by a gigantic comet that caused an earthquake that caused a thunderstorm which caused a bolt of lightning that zapped Emeral right where she sat and froze her in a block of carbonite.
That would have been really convenient.
"What? Nononononononono," Emeral said emphatically, "We do not...like each other. We...uh...we just, see," She pushed away from Ket, punching him in the arm. "Ket and I are...we're related."
Panda twitched an eyebrow. "You... are?"
"Yeah, right Ket?"
Ket swallowed, "Uh...sure," he managed.
"Oh. That's really cool. How so?"
"We're...uh..." Ket started, glancing at Emeral.
You got us into this!
"We're cousins," Emeral finished.
Panda zipped up his pack and slung it over his shoulders. He gazed at the two for a few seconds. "You guys don't really look like cousins..."
"We're really distant," Emeral explained. "LIke, my great-grandmother and his great-grandmother were related somehow so..."
"Ohhh, okay..." Panda replied, his chin bobbing up into the air, "That explains it. I think mom said I had a family member like that too. Well that's really cool, I guess you guys are more like brother and sister, then."
"Egg-zactly," Emeral replied.
"Well, that's neat to know."
"But don't tell anyone, kay?" Emeral insisted ."We uh...no one needs to know about...our family. Plus the kids might not believe us anyway and the whole school'll start talking..."
"Right, right," Panda nodded, "I understand. Secret's safe with me."
"Cool," Emeral got up and helped Ket up as well. They walked downstairs, Emeral and Panda briefly discussing their martial arts and offering to exchange a few techniques, before Panda departed on his bike.
"I would think he'd be a bit skinnier riding that bike all around," Emeral commented.
"You're kinda rude, you know that." Ket stated bluntly.
"No I'm not," she retorted, "I didn't say anything mean."
Ket pointed at her backpack. "You should call your mom."
She looked in the direction of his finger, suddenly a little hurt. "You...want me to leave?"
"It's getting late. Plus, I've got a report to do tomorrow and I have to read."
She whimpered, getting her phone. She called her mom, said she was ready to go home.
"Really? You've only been over there a couple hours. Usually you're there till almost dinner time."
"I know, but he's got work to do..."
"Something wrong? You sound mopey."
"I'm a little tired. We were...doing PE exercises. There's a test."
"Well, okay. I'll be there in fifteen."
The phone shut with a clack. Emeral looked over at Ket. "You're mad at me, aren't you?" She said with a pout. "I'm sorry. It's just...I'm worried cuz you're starting to fail..."
"I'm not going to fail," Ket stated.
Emeral stepped up to him, brushing his cheek gently, twitching her lips as she drew near, wary that his mom could walk in on them at any moment. She was only a few whiskers away when he pushed against her shoulder, and turned his head.
"No 'karate' lessons until I make As." He stated, his voice bitter as fresh chocolate.
Emeral closed her eyes and stood upright, falling back until she rested her shoulders against the counter-top.
This was going to be a long fifteen minutes.
* * *
Panda parked his bike at the stand outside the library. He'd been here once or twice with his brother and grandpa to look at books, but this was the first time he had gone alone. He hooked the bike-lock cord through the pedals and on the handle bars, snapped the lock into place and twisted the four combination dials randomly.
He stepped into the library. The cool March evening was blasted with temperate air from within the maw of the library's automatic door. The inside was usually a little dim at first, but it was getting to be evening so his eyes did not have that much difficulty adjusting to the light.
The bear made his way into the depths of the library, into the copse of book cases on the first floor. It was a fairly big building, and within the maze and catacombs of paper-back, hardcover, fiction, nonfiction and even newspaper articles and microfilms, were sparse tables placed like glades in a dense forest.
He made his way to a particular glade, which was already occupied by another person.
"Ha'd it go?"
"They were both there," Panda said, taking a seat.
"An'?"
Panda shifted his eyes, taking a deep sigh. "They...looked like they were fighting a bit."
"Aww, mair'idge prob'm's."
"They said they were cousins," the bear explained, "see, their great-grandmothers—"
The laugh was very loud for it being a library. "You believ'n that shit? C'mon, man."
"When I brought up them liking each other that's what they said."
"They's desprit. Ya did good, Robby-boy. Nice job."
"Yeah, well, I'm not doing that again. And you better keep your promise."
"'Ey man, cross m'heart'n'all that."
"You and your 'gang'," the bear emphasized. He received a hurt look.
"Dude, you's too uptight man. That bunn ain't never been worth poken' at anyway. Sh dumb'n dead-in-the-water."
"She's a good friend," Panda protested. "I just don't want to see anyone getting hurt."
"Sayin' the snitch."
"I'm outta here," Panda said, making for his backpack and getting up.
"We could use someone like you, y'know."
Panda froze for a second.
"You got lotsa 'big'. Yuggan take that 'big' an' put some shove b'ind it, 'n all the little'll run screamin' like mice."
"Your head is big enough for that," Panda replied, turned, and walked back into the bookshelf jungle.
