Straight Punch Read Free

before,” she said.
    â€œWhat type is that?”
    I figured her answer would have something to do with my hair color, but it didn’t.
    â€œYou’re a good girl,” she said, “trying to be bad.”
    I didn’t want to give Jasmine the satisfaction of knowing that was a pretty fair assessment.
    I followed her to a narrow staircase by the kitchen. “The boxing gym’s downstairs. The locker room’s down there too. Do you have a lock?”
    I shook my head. “I didn’t think I’d need one. I thought…with only twelve students…” I was the sixth student in the grade-eleven class and there were six grade tens.
    â€œThere might only be twelve, but some of us have sticky fingers.” Jasmine giggled, which made me wonder if it was her fingers she was talking about.
    From halfway down the stairs, I heard a steady pounding. Ba dum, ba dum , then twice as fast. Someone was hitting a punching bag.
    â€œSomething wrong?” Jasmine asked when I paused on the landing. I hoped she hadn’t noticed me wince.
    No one’s getting beaten up, I told myself. Just relax—and whatever you do, don’t start twitching.
    â€œI’m fine. Totally fine. Are the bathrooms down there too?”
    â€œYeah, his and hers. We’re lucky there’re so few girls in this dump. Just you, me and Lady Di. You’ll meet her later. She’s absent a lot.”
    The locker room had probably been a closet before New Directions moved in. The gray metal lockers looked as out of place here as the desks in the rooms upstairs. It was like seeing toilets in a kitchen.
    A multicolored caterpillar was painted on the bottom of one of the lockers. Why did it seem familiar? I’d have liked to check it out, but Jasmine was tugging on my elbow. “C’mon, let’s go see the gym. You’ll like what’s in there.”
    Gym smells— BO , rubber mats and musty workout gear—seeped out from under the door.
    The first thing I noticed was the boxing ring—and the guy in it. He was shadowboxing—taking little steps backward and forward, throwing punches in front of him and up into the air. He was concentrating so hard, he didn’t notice us. Or else he was just pretending not to notice us.
    â€œEye candy. And he knows it.” Jasmine said it loud enough that the guy could hear her.
    He smiled, but only for a second. He had a chiseled face, high forehead, straight nose, full lips. Because he wasn’t wearing a shirt, I could see he was ripped. His chest muscles rippled with every punch. Eye candy was right.
    â€œHey, Jabbin’ Jasmine,” a voice called out.
    â€œHey, Coach.” Jasmine’s face looked different when she smiled. Softer.
    The coach was sitting in a green plastic lawn chair by the back of the ring. “Gonna introduce me to your pal?”
    â€œShe’s not my pal. She’s the new student. Tessa something or other.”
    The coach laughed. He obviously appreciated Jasmine’s sense of humor more than I did. “Good to meet you, Tessa Something-or-Other. I’m Big Ron. You ready to start your boxing career?” he asked without getting up from his chair.
    â€œUh-huh.” Did I sound as nervous as I felt?
    I followed Jasmine over to where Big Ron was sitting. He wasn’t called Big Ron for nothing. The guy was the size of two regular Rons. I tried not to stare when he stood up to shake my hand. He waddled over, his face red from the exertion. This was our boxing coach?
    â€œI’m lookin’ forward to working with you,” Big Ron said, and I managed to mutter something about looking forward to working with him too.
    Big Ron turned to the guy in the ring. “Nice work on your combinations this morning, Randy Randy.” Randy Randy? It wasn’t hard to figure out how this guy earned his nickname. “Just make sure you keep your chin down. And don’t forget to say