Chapter 25: Start of the New Year
Ron had a date with Sue the Saturday before classes resumed. Her parents had told them to return to her house by 9:00 PM for an important discussion. The date had been strained since both teens were nervous about the discussion to follow. It was worse than walking to the Principal's Office after being called over the school intercom system. Neither Sue nor Ron knew of anything inappropriate that they had done.
When the two teens reached her house (at 8:45 to be safe) Sue's parent's sat them on the couch. Ron's parents then walked into the room and both teens had started to sweat bullets. Very seriously, the four adults pulled out the two teens' report cards from the previous semester. They gravely tracked the grades from mid term to the end of the semester, pointing out that both sets of grades had improved since the two had started dating. From this, the adults concluded that a great deal of the time the teens had spent together 'to study' had, in fact, been spent studying. The adults informed the teens that they had discussed the situation amongst themselves and had decided that action was required. Very seriously, the four adults informed the two teens that their Friday and Saturday curfews had just been extended by a half-hour. The adults had then laughed themselves silly at the scared teens.
The start of the new semester held two school-related opportunities, and challenges, for Ron. The first opportunity/challenge was academic. For the first time in his young life, Ron was starting a semester determined to do well. Last semester he had been holding a C average before his exchange trip to Japan. His final report card had a solid B average. This semester he would start with a good attitude, a solid work ethic and the determination to finish with a B average. He was also determined to have at least one A. (That wasn't Home Ec. related.)
The second opportunity/challenge dealt with wrestling. It was time for the final push of the season. Divisional Tournaments, of eight teams each, would be held throughout the state on the third Saturday in January. The top four wrestlers in each weight class would advance to the Regional Tournaments the following Saturday. Those wrestlers who placed in the top four at the Regional Tournaments would advance to the Sectional Tournaments, held the first Saturday in February. Finally, those wrestlers who placed in the top four at the Sectional Tournaments would compete in the State Tournament held on the third Friday and Saturday in February. Ron's goal was to place in the State Tournament.
Ron's life fell into a comfortable routine for the first two weeks of school: Tai Sheng Pek Kwar exercises every morning, walk to school with Kim, school until 3:30, wrestling practice in the afternoon, walk home with Kim, homework, dinner, then bed. Sue and he would get together, every other day or so, for joint homework sessions and occasional, minor necking. Fridays and/or Saturdays were date nights when Ron's tournament schedule allowed. Sundays were 'Kim and Ron' Sundays.
On Monday, the week of the Divisional Tournament, Team Possible had their first mission of the New Year. Kim and Ron were called out of school to deal with a problem at the historic, Middleton Heights Hotel. A noble couple from Europe had been staying at the hotel, while in town to tour the Space Center. While preparing for a formal reception, the lady had dropped her necklace, an expensive heirloom. The hotel, being historic, had the heating vents on the floors and the necklace had fallen into one and had tumbled down somewhere in the ductwork. Nobody knew exactly where it wound up. The maintenance staff and the couple's entourage had been arguing about the level of demolition appropriate to find and recover the item.
Enter Team Possible, one naked mole rat, a miniature safety harness, and a large spool of cord. Rufus located the necklace, put it in a padded bag, tied off the chord, and rode the bag back to the room. It had taken less than an hour. The grateful heiress insisted that Kim put the necklace on long enough for a picture. Team Possible headed back to school with good feelings all around.
The Divisional Tournament was held that Saturday. It was Middleton High's turn to host the event, so Ron was able to wrestle in front of his parents and friends. He was actually seated number one in his weight class. It was the first time anybody expected him to win anything and he didn't disappoint anybody. He pinned his first two opponents to advance to the championship round then defeated his third opponent by five points.
Wrestling tradition dictates that a cheerleader presents the "placing" wrestler with his award, along with a quick peck on the cheek. The first place wrestler also gets the chart used to record the wins and loses for his weight class. Ron's proudest moment in school was when he stepped to the top of a small stairway, just above the second-through fourth finishers, to receive his first place ribbon and chart. Cindy had presented him with his awards. Ron and the other three 'placers' stood for a few pictures (Ron's mom had taken at least a dozen shots) then stepped down to watch the rest of the matches. Ron had immediately been mugged by Felix, Kim, Monique, Sue, and his 'rents. He worked hard to avoid being arrogant about his win.
Middleton won the Divisional Tournament, a first in the history of the school. Three years ago Coach Winters had arrived and had injected his skill, energy, and enthusiasm into one of Middleton's historically weaker teams. This had resulted in four individual Divisional Champions this year: Dave, Ron, Oscar, and Bruce. All of the other Middleton wrestlers had placed in the top four. It was a dominating performance.
A week later the team traveled to Block City for the Regional Tournament where Ron was seated second in his weight class. He pinned his first opponent, defeated his second opponent by two points, and then lost the championship match by four points. The competition was getting rougher. Half of the Middleton wrestlers had failed to place and were now eliminated from the statewide competition. Dave and Oscar had placed first, Ron and Bruce had placed second. In addition Terry at 98 and Herman at 145 had taken fourth place. Middleton had won the tournament, another first in team history, but by a very slim margin.
Team Possible was called to action again late the following Tuesday night. Heavy winter rains and mudslides had required the evacuation of a portion of Lowerton. A two-year old child was missing when the evacuation was completed. Team Possible reported to the County Search and Rescue organization and was assigned the task of searching drainage culverts (taking advantage of the naked mole rat.) Kim, Ron, and Rufus spent three hours crawling through the culverts, sometimes neck deep in frigid, filthy water. Eventually another team found the child hiding in the back of a truck.
That weekend the wrestling team returned to Block City, this time for the Sectional Tournament. Ron was seated third in his weight class. He won his first match by five points and his second match by two. He then upset the second seated wrestler by two points to advance to the championship round. In the championship round he faced the same opponent (from Block City) who had beaten him at Regionals. This time the other boy pinned Ron. The team placed third, with Dave and Oscar again placing first and Ron and Bruce taking second. Terry and Herman had been eliminated.
Monday morning found Ron looking forward to the two-week break before the State Tournament. The free weekend would give him the first chance, in four weeks, to go on a real date with Sue. She understood his tournaments and they still had their study dates but Ron could detect some cooling between the two. He didn't know if this was normal or not since he had never dated before. In any case he could address it this weekend. However, The Mathter interrupted that train of thought on Friday night.
The number obsessed villain had resurrected Drakken's idea of a magnetic field manipulator. He was threatening to use the manipulator to wipe out the computers in Go City, unless the Go City Public School System immediately began to teach a number system which he had invented. Whenever he performed calculations, he couldn't decide how many decimal points to use for the value of pi, so he had developed a number system in which pi was a finite decimal. Now he wanted everyone to use this system.
Unfortunately for the villain, his lair wasn't equipped with a fusion reactor and the several hours required to charge the device from the public power grid gave Team Go enough time to come up with a pretty good plan. Team Go knew that the villain would have planned to deal with them so they asked Team Possible to infiltrate the lair while they were mounting the expected assault.
The plan had worked brilliantly. Kim and Ron had caught The Mathter, alone, while his henchmen were manning the devices holding Team Go at bay. Kim beat the villain without even breaking a sweat. With his defeat, his henchmen gave up and Team Go joined Team Possible in the Control Room.
They had a scary moment when The Mathter 'Summed up' the security precautions he had incorporated into the magnetic field manipulator. According to him, any attempt to tamper with it would release what charge it had already built up, which could do a great deal of damage to nearby electronics. Rather than trying to disarm the device, Ron simply unplugged it. The Mathter had chosen to charge the device off of a simple wall outlet.
Ron was still feeling very smug Saturday night when he went to pick up Sue for their date. That smugness quickly vanished when Sue informed him that she wanted to break up.