Chapter 10

Sandra Kim, the owner of Kim's Martial Arts, turned out to be a tall mixed-raced woman with no patience for silliness. Her dojo - sorry, dojang - was in Greenwood, half an hour drive from Hawkins. Jamie had taken the bus, even if Steve offered to drive her, because she felt bad for him having to wait for her.

The dojang, which was just the Korean name for dojo, was next to a hair salon on Main Street, and around the same size as Jamie's living room. The curtains were drawn all the way down, leaving the room lit by only a couple of flickering fluorescent lights. Jamie had been instructed to take off her shoes and place them by the front door and now sat on her knees in front of Miss Kim.

"It's not Miss Sandra or just Sandra or just Kim, it's Miss Kim," she had said when first opening the door to Jamie.

After some time's scrutiny, Miss Kim asked: "Why do you want to learn taekwondo?"

"Uh..."

Jamie hesitated. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, when she had approached Chief Hopper to ask if he could give her 'fighting-lessons'. After their fight with Billy, it was kinda obvious that being strong wasn't enough. She needed to learn some techniques too. He had referred her to Miss Kim again. She scoured her brain for the right answer. Something selfless, maybe, like that she wanted to protect her friends? Or more in the direction that she was only going to use it to defend herself, never attack?

"The only right answer to that question is the truth," Miss Kim snapped as if she'd read Jamie's mind.

Jamie nodded and blurted out: "Because I got my ass handed to me by this guy and it made me angry. Sorry."

At that, Miss Kim raised a neat eyebrow. "Don't be sorry. Anger is as valid an emotion as any of the others. I, too, first wanted to train in this dojang because I got my ass handed to me by a guy."

"Did you beat him?"

"Not the first hundred times, no," Miss Kim admitted and looked down at perfectly manicured hands. "It helped when he turned seventy, he got out of breath faster then."

Jamie's jaw had dropped open and Miss Kim winked at her.

"My father, who founded this place," she explained and gestured to a photo on the wall of a serious Korean man in what Jamie only knew as a martial arts-suit, the same kind Miss Kim was wearing. "Tell me, have you seen 'Karate Kid'?"

She nodded eagerly.

"Okay, then I need you to do me a favor. Close your eyes. Good. Now, picture in your mind what you want most of all. That guy who beat you, picture him before you, at your feet, defeated by your own very hands. Do you have that fixed in your mind?"

Jamie nodded.

"Okay, good. If you focus on that image, if you really concentrate on believing that vision, if you think about it when you sleep, when you eat, when you shower-"

"Yeah?"

"-then you will still get your ass handed to you the next time you fight him."

The bubble burst and Jamie's eyes flew open. Miss Kim sat patiently before her. "The only way you can beat him, is if you get better. And to get better, you will have to train. I'm not talking 'wax on, wax off', kid, I'm talking push-ups and crunches and jumping jacks and jogging, endless repetitions of the same kicks, the same punches, the same stance. You need to realize right now that all you'll get from me depends on what you're willing to give."

"I thought you said it was 10 bucks a month."

"Yeah, that too, but you can pay me for a whole year in advance and it still won't make you any better." Miss Kim jumped up and went to the front door where Jamie's shoes stood. "I don't usually take on students. I agreed to meet with you as a favor to Jim. If you can't promise me right here and now that you're willing to dedicate yourself to get better, it's better you just leave."

She opened the door and the outside world poured into the small room.

Jamie was not an athletic person, never had been. Dancing was the extent of her physical activities, and she had double-digits' worth of missed P.E-classes from 5th grade and up.

And still, she nodded to Miss Kim. "I'm in."

Miss Kim regarded her for a second and then shut the door. She took off her white suit to reveal a regular aerobics-outfit and went to get something that looked like padded frisbees. Miss Kim gestured for Jamie to get up, holding the circular pads at shoulder height.

"Then let's see what you got, kid."

The next day, Jamie was physically unable to get out of bed. She must have broken her back in her sleep because however she tried, she could not convince her muscles to let her sit upright.

"Mooom!"

Her mom appeared in the doorway half a minute later, curling iron in hand and only one half of her head done. "What's wrong?"

"I can't move," Jamie said and flailed helplessly on the bed. "I think I'm paralyzed."

"Oh honey," her mom said and rolled her eyes. "Is this really the first time you exercise?"

Apparently, she was suffering from something called DOMS, which was just an abbreviation of delayed onset muscle soreness. It manifested after physical exertion. Of course she had experienced it after running for her life from the Demodogs and stuff, but after those times she'd been sore all over and usually slept for a couple of days.

Despite the incredible pain, her mom insisted it wasn't dangerous. A hot shower might help, she said. Easier said than done, as Jamie needed at least five minutes just to get up from the toilet seat. Of course Dustin found her weakened state hilarious and pinched her thigh muscles so she nearly blacked out.

She took the bus to school and limped awkwardly to her locker, grimacing at every book she had to retrieve. Nancy met up with her before first period.

"Is something wrong?" she asked and Jamie made a face.

"I exercised."

"Oh. Okay. And?"

"And now I'm in extreme physical pain," Jamie said and gingerly took her seat in class. Every time she moved, it seemed she discovered a new muscle that screamed at her. She hadn't even been aware she had this many muscles.

"Did you learn how to fight?" Nancy asked curiously. Jamie had confided her plans to learn fighting, but had yet to disclose the reason she wanted to do it now, because of newly developed superpowers. Jamie shook her head to answer Nancy's question. She had learned how to squat and do push-ups and crunches and to run around the dojang, but there had been a distinct lack of punching or kicking.

"I'm going back next week," she said and marveled at how last night that had sounded too far away in time. Why hadn't she just gone to the shooting range with Nancy instead? Shooting stuff seemed a lot more useful than squats right now.

Nancy had acquired two new hobbies after the whole ordeal last semester. Shooting was one of them, and journalism the other. She'd joined the school newspaper after kickstarting the story that eventually lead to the shutdown of Hawkins Lab. She and Jonathan were both uncredited authors, of course, only cited as anonymous sources, but Nancy had been determined to continue on that career path. Jonathan had joined too, as the photographer naturally.

Jamie had declined, keeping busy by returning as a full-time member of the PhysEng-club. Mostly because she liked to build stuff, not because she had fully forgiven the guys for not including her in their Halloween-plans. Which worked fine, because Frankie D hadn't forgiven her for being friends with Steve Harrington.

She was on her way to the PhysEng-workshop in the basement, still aching with each step, and saw Tommy H and his crew looming ahead. It was weird. Steve was still captain of the basketball team, a title he would hold onto until he graduated, but since he'd stopped hanging out with Tommy and the rest, there was a sort of power vacuum as to who actually was the most popular guy at school. As far as she knew, Tommy and Billy were friends, he was always hanging out with them. But where there hadn't been any doubt that Steve was the most popular, Tommy seemed less eager to just hand the title to Billy Hargrove, Keg King or not.

"Watch it, Co-" Tommy started, but Jamie ducked easily away from the oncoming hand meant to shove her into the lockers again. He moved so slow she had to practically be in a coma to be hit by him. She kept walking, just giving him a clean view of her middle finger over her shoulder.

"You better watch your back, Coma Girl!" Tommy called after her. Jamie put her other middle finger up as well. Tommy was, unlike Hargrove, all talk. Besides, he'd get what he had coming for him soon enough. "Don't think Harrington's gonna keep you safe!"

Tommy H stopped shouting and muttered to Carol, which Jamie of course heard clear as anything: "That stupid bitch thinks she's slick just 'cause she let Harrington dip his tip in. She's just like Wheeler."

Carol said: "Hey, Hargrove, didn't you have a thing with Coma Girl that lasted like five minutes?"

It was weird, but Jamie could hear Billy suck his bottom lip between his teeth. He sounded tired. "Yeah, what of it, Carol?"

"Nothing, just wanted to know, like, if she actually just laid there like in a coma the whole time or...?"

She had to stop listening in on those conversations. Jamie felt like she was losing braincells by the minute. Braincells she would need if she wanted to get her grade-average back up and running this semester. She winced going down the stairs, thighs screaming in protest with each step. Physics was a bitch.

The next session with Miss Kim was more of the same, but she was less sore the day after. Less sore meant that every particle of her body still hated her for trying to move, but she wasn't tempted to have her mom call the ambulance for her. Her appetite was through the roof though and her mom had to make a second portion of scrambled eggs so Dustin would have breakfast.

"Honey, I was thinking here the other day," her mom said carefully and Jamie stopped chewing to listen. Claudia Henderson was not a woman that beat around the bush and it usually spelled trouble when she sugarcoated things like this. "You know it's tax-season now for business owners and I'm gonna work late a few weeks, right?"

"Right," said Jamie with a mouthful of eggs. She couldn't figure out the angle here. Her mom was an accountant and during tax-seasons she worked a lot of overtime, nothing new.

"And with the snow and ice and all, it's not always safe to have Dusty bike everywhere." The boy in question perked up at his name and smiled sweetly at their mom before he returned to his meal. Claudia smiled. "And now that you are off that medication and all...wouldn't it have been nice if you could drive both yourself and your brother around? Karen told me that Nancy got her permit in November."

"Yeah." Jamie swallowed to free her mouth up for talking. "But school doesn't start driver's ed before May and like you said, it's tax-season, so you won't have time to practice with me."

"That," Claudia said with a huge smile that worried Jamie, "is why I was thinking we could put in an ad in the newspaper to get you a private driving instructor."

"Wait, can we afford a private driving instructor for Jamie?" Dustin piped up with a worried frown. His grin seeped through though when he continued: "I don't want you tapping into my college fund just 'cus she's gonna need like a hundred lessons, she's so terrible at- OW!"

Claudia sighed. "Jamie, don't pinch your brother." She started clearing the table and sighed again. "Dusty, don't make those gestures at your sister." From the counter, she looked at Jamie. "I'll put the ad in tomorrow."

It weighed on Jamie's mind when she stepped on the school-bus that morning, watching Dustin skid his way through the slush and gray snow on his bike. Driving a car. The responsibility that entailed. God, she would have to drive Dustin around to his little shithead friends all the time then. But she could stop taking the bus to school, which was a big plus. They couldn't afford another car though, so she would be driving around in her mom's station wagon. But if she ever needed to, she could steal a car and escape from whatever life-threatening situation she was in. That was a huge plus, even if you considered how unlikely it was that she should find herself in that kind of jam again.

Maybe she could convince Chief Hopper to give her lessons. He was a good driver, well, he didn't go easy on the gas, but he never got into accidents. As far as she knew anyway.

She really hated February in Indiana. January was their big winter month, but February had equal number of days where the temperature just couldn't decide where to stay. It was all wet and gray during the day and then it froze overnight, creating the dangerous black ice on the roads in town. And, on top of that, Hawkins had this thing for Valentine's day. Maybe it was a small town thing, but they loved to go all out during all small holidays in the winter months. Halloween, Christmas, New Years, Valentine's and Easter. It was probably a ploy from the shops on Main Street now that she thought of it, but it didn't matter, because all Hawkins residents loved to decorate their houses for all these occasions, and it had spread to the schools too.

From February 1st, red and pink heart banners started to appear at Hawkins High and it never failed to make Jamie sick to her stomach. Cherubs and doves and kittens — they were everywhere. To top it of, it was used as an excuse to promote what many in the year over her viewed as the most important event of their high school career. No, not the SATs, but prom. The school's obsession with both Valentine's and prom had sparked a trend referred to as 'promposals', which was just as ridiculous as it sounded. Basically, it was asking someone to prom with the same fanfare as one would ask someone to marry them.

To Jamie, there was a big difference between "Will you be my date for one night?" and "Will you spend the rest of your life with me?", but maybe that was just her.

She paused on the steps to the school. There was this...sound. It was a crackling electrical sound, almost like the SuperComms the guys used to communicate. Slowly, she turned, scanning the crowd and the parking lot separating Hawkins Middle and Hawkins High. She couldn't see her brother or his friends, but that didn't mean they weren't there, those little sneaks. It was useless to try and listen after them, another school-bus had just pulled in and all the voices blurred into each other.

There were no reason for her to worry, but the Party of Shitheads had a knack for getting themselves into real trouble, so she did worry nevertheless. Their moms had collectively hoped that Max would be a calming element in the party, because she was a girl, but it had become apparent that Max had three times the balls as the guys and it had only escalated after she joined. It was a good thing Eleven was still in house-arrest, who knew what kind of trouble they would have gotten themselves into otherwise.

Third session with Miss Kim and they finally did something other than general fitness training. Jamie had officially graduated to learning how to stand. Sounded easy enough, right?

"No, no, feet more together, not that close, bring your leading foot in front of your hip. Think wide and deep and face your hips forward. Bend your front leg, no, not both legs, keep back leg straight." Miss Kim physically moved Jamie's legs to where she wanted them to be. If she noticed the violent flinch from Jamie when she positioned her left foot, she did not comment. "This is a-" she nearly pulled Jamie off her feet "-firm and steady stance."

Jamie had to learn how to center her weight. This was done by her getting into the so-called firm and steady stance and Miss Kim trying to knock her over. She succeeded, several times, before Jamie figured out that she had to evenly distribute her weight over both feet and keep her back in a neutral position. Since this took all session, Miss Kim gave her homework: a 3 mile run and a circuit of bodyweight exercises. Miss Kim could not care less about Jamie's weirdly high base-level strength, being strong was no excuse for not getting stronger.

A 3 mile run! Jamie had never ran 3 miles in her life. Her current record for the Cooper test was 8 minutes. She was still fuming over that when she got back home and found that someone had been in her room.

"Mom!" she yelled and began tidying up. Drawings and notebooks and old candy wrappers that had been on her desk were strewn onto the floor, some had drifted under her bed. Her mom didn't answer. "MOOOOM!"

"Yes, Jamie?" her mom answered from the living room after muting the TV.

"The cat got into my room again!" Jamie yelled and snatched all the mess up into a big pile, placing it back on her desk. She had a filing system of one-pile-fits-all, so she always knew where she could find stuff. The desk sat jammed under her bedroom window and some of the mess flowed over onto the windowsill. She and Dustin had gotten their mom a new cat for Christmas, this Siamese little monster that was named Tews.

Her mom appeared in the doorway, carrying the cat in question. "I can't see how he gets in, you're sure you closed your door?"

Jamie glared at the tiny cat with venom."I always close my door, mom, I'm a seventeen years old girl, my bedroom door will always have a default state of being closed."

"Well, then, I don't know what to tell you. He can't teleport, maybe it's just the wind?" her mom said, already moving back to the TV. Tews meowed at Jamie over her mom's back and Jamie hissed in response. "Jamie! It's a cat for crying out loud."

"Sorry," she said, but didn't mean it. Maybe she ought to enlist Dustin and make the room cat-proof. He obviously didn't have a problem with Tews getting in and making a mess. Of course, it was hard to tell in his room, it was always a mess. He had been her main suspect the first time, but after she'd tickled him until he cried without extracting a confession, he'd been off the hook. The cat probably could teleport, they had no way of knowing for sure.

Or it had learned to open doors. When she was in 2nd grade, Jessica Daniels had told them their cat could open doors by jumping up and hanging on the door knob until it turned.

Maybe if she set some sort of trap...? No, her mom would be devastated if something went wrong and they lost another cat so soon. She and Dustin avoided talking about Mews, because her mother got teary-eyed right away and had to go find Tews to hug him close to her chest. So no trap.

Jamie looked around her room for inspiration. Half of it served as a regular bedroom, with a bed and a dresser with a huge mirror hanging over it, and the other half was her workshop with the desk and some tools she always forgot to return to the garage. In the end, she found what she was looking for on the dresser by the door.

Next time the cat got in, she would have proof.

Sorry for the lack of action, but they still need a little breathing room. Laying foundations for what's to come.

Thanks for reading and please leave a review if you can :)