Tessa’s father looked at us. “I don’t understand.”
Before my folks could say anything, I looked at the Harpers and explained. “Well, two parents have shown up with their teenage daughter in tow.” I pointed at Mom first, and then Dad. “My mother thinks I’ve done something to get myself in trouble. My father thinks I’ve gotten Tessa in trouble. Like I said, a rousing vote of confidence.”
The Harpers stared at my parents, and my mother protested their innocence. I also noticed my father not arguing. Tessa simply smiled and shook her head in a silent laugh.
It was her father that said, “Good heavens! It’s nothing like that! My God, they’re only children! We came by to thank your son for saving Tessa.”
“Saving Tessa!?” Both my parents started squawking at that. It got equally loud with the Harpers.
I just rolled my eyes and grimaced over at Tessa. I mouthed a silent, ‘Thanks!’ to her, and she silently laughed back at me.
“I think you’d better start explaining, Carl,” said my father.
“It really wasn’t anything. Why don’t we all just sit down…”
It had been a totally normal day so far. Trouble didn’t start until after lunch. I headed back to my locker and was getting my English textbook, when Tessa Harper showed up. Her locker is two down from mine. I nodded at her and she smiled back, and she worked the combination on her locker.
I’ve known Tessa for years. She lives about a block from us, rides the bus with me, and her family is in St. Paul’s with us. All that being said, I can’t honestly state that we were friends, but were more like acquaintances. We didn’t have the same set of friends, and despite both of us being in the college prep group, didn’t actually have too many classes together. She was a quiet girl, very shy, and her family raised her fairly strictly. Her skirts were always knee length, her white blouses were always buttoned to the collar, she always wore flats — that sort of thing. She never wore makeup and her strawberry blonde hair was always kept back with a headband or barrette. Despite that, she still managed to get a fair bit of attention from the guys. She was very pretty, in a peaches-and-cream, wholesome, girl-next-door sort of way.
It worked against her that day. Three of the upperclassmen came up to her in the hallway, and one of them leaned up against the row of lockers and started talking to her. I could tell by their letter jackets that all three of the guys were on the varsity lacrosse team.
You have to understand, at Towson High, lacrosse is the big sport. Screw football or basketball, lacrosse is the big deal. We had been top ranked in the state for years, and lacrosse players routinely got scholarships to NCAA Division 1 schools.
Lacrosse is a crazy sport the white man inherited from the Indians, and is probably the means the Indians were planning to use to kill off all the white men. It’s sort of like soccer, but everybody gets to run around with big wooden sticks with nets on the ends. The ball is small and round and as hard as a rock, and you throw it with the stick, catch it with the stick, and run it around with the stick. For real fun, you get to hit the other team with your stick and run them over, just like in hockey, but without all the ice. It is incredibly brutal, and there are always one or two guys in casts and stitches.
Lacrosse players thought they were the gods of the school, and usually had no problem finding girls who thought so too. They were generally big and strong and in shape, and pretty much had their pick of the female half of the school. Why Jerry Jones wanted Tessa Harper when he could have had any number of volunteers was beyond me.
But he did. He leaned up against the lockers and tried to engage her in small talk. This consisted of the statement, “Hi there, I’m Jerry Jones. When do you want me to pick you up Friday night?” Very suave and sophisticated. I had seen him around school already, and read his stats in the school paper as well as the sports section of the Baltimore Sun. He was a shoo-in for a scholarship when he graduated this year.
Tessa was a nice girl, and very shy. I knew her parents wouldn’t allow her to date, probably not until after the Second Coming of Christ. Unless that happened Friday afternoon, Jerry was shit out of luck. Tessa simply smiled and said, “I don’t think so,” and put her books in her locker.
Jerry was not to be dissuaded. “What’s your name?”
“Tessa,” she said quietly. She tried to push her locker door shut, but Jerry had a hand on the door, holding it open. “Excuse me, but I need to close my locker.”
“There’s no hurry, Tessa. We’re just starting to get to know each other. Besides, you’ll get to class in time. Tessa, how old are you?”
Tessa had definitely figured out Jerry’s plan, and pushed hard against the locker door. It almost caught his fingers, but he just smiled and kept her door open. “Let me close my locker,” she asked.
“As soon as you tell me when we’re going out, baby. You’re awfully pretty. Too bad you don’t have anything nicer to wear. Maybe you can wear something nicer on Friday.” At that point Jerry moved so that he was trapping her against the lockers, and he traced a finger along her arm, and across her blouse. He actually had the gall to slip a finger into the breast pocket of her blouse, though he didn’t go so far as to grope her.
Tessa was starting to panic. She’s not a very big girl, and Jerry was probably twice her size. Just as bad, she could see his two friends behind him, and they were as big as he was. “Please, let me go.”
“But Tessa you haven’t told me what you’re going to wear on Friday.” He was leering at her like a shark eyeing fresh chum. Nobody turned down Jerry Jones!
I had pretty much had my fill of Jerry. Somebody needed to get Tessa out of there, and it looked like it was going to have to be me. I pushed my book back into my locker and stepped closer. I pushed in between them with a smile. “Sorry about that. Tessa, you should be getting to class.”
She gave me a terrified look and tried to sidle away behind me. Jerry slammed an arm forward, blocking the path, while saying, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” I wasn’t sure which one of us he was talking to.
I leaned forward, and Jerry leaned backwards slightly. “Jerry, Tessa needs to get to class.” I looked him straight in the eyes (well, upwards anyway, he was at least three inches taller than me) and kept my gaze there. “Tessa, you should go to class now.”
“Tessa is staying here talking to me, asshole.” At that point he reached out to grab her. Tessa moved back against the wall, but Jerry’s fingers grabbed the pocket of her blouse and tore it. Tessa shrieked and tried to back away.
I grabbed Jerry’s arm and twisted it up and away from her, and used his momentum to push him backwards, where he fell on his ass. “Tessa, get out of here!” I said.
Tessa scampered out of the way and ran down the hall, while Jerry’s two teammates helped him to his feet. “You’re dead, asshole!” He ran at me and swung wildly. I received the attack using the technique of munetsuki koshinage, whereby I grabbed his wrist and swung him around from outside of the body, and ultimately used his momentum to flip him up and over, dropping him on his side and shoulder. Jerry was out for the moment, but one of his stooges decided to help out. He tried grabbing me, so I used katatetori kokyunage, another gripping move, to twist him up and over and slammed him into one of the lockers. He slid to the ground.
The second stooge had now gotten Jerry up and both decided to attack. I’d never really done any two-on-one training at the dojo, but while these guys were big, they were untrained and there was enough time differential that I could still defend myself. Jerry punched at me again, so I used munetsuki kotegaishi to put him down a second time. This did open my rear to an attack by his friend, so I had to break this with an ushirotori kokyunage defense, which put him into the lockers upside down as well.