I ended up skipping the next beginner class. Normally, I wouldn’t have wanted to do that after just starting to learn martial arts, but I had a good reason. It was Dad’s 30th birthday. His side of the family came over to celebrate—Grandpa Milton and Grandma Rose, Aunt Kat and my cousins, and even Uncle Ben with yet another different girlfriend. Uncle Dave couldn’t make it but otherwise the family was all together.

  While Dad and Uncle Ben were outside working the grill, I showed my grandparents around. Out of everyone near to me, I still hadn’t told them about my circumstances. I felt like it was too late this time around, but I would give it a chance next time. They were good people and—though I didn’t want word to get around—it would be easier for me to accumulate experience if they were aware of it. For now, though, I gave them a tour of what I’d been working on.

  “You made this?” Grandma Rose asked of my blanket.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I made that three or four years ago.”

  She looked at it with a keen eye.

  “By hand, too,” she said. “That’s really something.”

  “I joined a local group and had a good teacher.”

  “I can see that! Did you just learn how to sew or also how to weave or knit?”

  “Just sewing,” I said. “Do you know the others?”

  “Yes!” she beamed. “I could take you to a workshop sometime.”

  “She’s very good,” Grandpa Milton interjected.

  “Thank-you, Dear,” she smiled.

  She said it in such a way as to thank him for the compliment and also to remind him that he’d interrupted her. He didn’t say anything more and instead smiled as well—the nonverbal communication between the two having been polished to perfection over nearly forty years of marriage.

  After looking at the other rooms of the trailer, we went outside. Grandpa Milton grew very interested in the raised bed garden Dad and I had built several years earlier. It was late spring and the early plants were nearing harvest while the sprouts of longer-growing fruits and vegetables were just getting started.

  “Your father told me about this,” he said. “Have you been the one tending this?”

  I shifted my head side to side.

  “Yes and no,” I said. “Dad’s been keeping up with it while I’ve been in school. During the summer, though, I’ve been the one taking care of the plants and weeding and stuff. Now that school’s over, I want to learn more and do more with the garden.”

  “Why not come over and help me?” Grandpa Milton suggested. “I have a large space and could use the extra help. Plus there are plenty of delicious things to grow and eat.”

  “He does grow some pretty good corn,” Grandma Rose added.

  “Definitely!” he agreed, giving the same ‘thanks-but-be-quiet’ look back to his wife as she’d given him.

  I did my best to stifle a laugh. Their looks at me confirmed that I hadn’t been very successful. Thankfully, they didn’t say anything and we moved on to the next part of the tour—and my personal favorite—trying all of the food.

  I spent time with everyone that afternoon. My two cousins were now four cousins. There was a four year gap between the oldest pair—now nine and seven—and the youngest pair who were three and one. Uncle Ben swore that this girlfriend was the one for him and that it was going to last. I had my doubts. Dad was happy that everyone had come to celebrate with him in spite of his claims that he would have been fine if no one had made it a big deal.

  The next day, Dad dropped me off at Grandpa Milton and Grandma Rose’s house for the day. He needed to work and I needed to get experience and learn from both of them. The plan—after talking it over with Dad and Mom—was to spend my free days with them for the summer to learn what I could. This would obviously need to extend into the fall harvest and again into the spring for all of the plantings, but while there was still work to do, I would be welcomed as an extra hand.

  “Dad—your grandfather—had all of us working in his garden after school,” Dad had told me. “I learned a good amount from that, but I think you’ll get more from the hands-on experience than me trying to tell you second hand.”

  So it was that I found myself inside the garden with Grandpa Milton, hoe in hand.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “I’ve already broken the ground and amended the soil with compost,” he explained. “Today, I need your help to get the rows built for the corn. Take the hoe and pull the soil up into a long mound. Normally, I’d do this with a machine, but you’re young and have lots of energy. You’ll learn better doing it by hand than you will watching me do it with the machine!”

  He laughed when I groaned.

  “Buck up,” he said. “It’ll build character—and muscle. The ladies like that kind of thing!”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes.

  “Boys then?” he laughed. “Well, whichever it is, they’ll enjoy a strapping young lad like yourself when you get a bit older. You know, when I was your age…”

  He let the potential story wither on the vine. I knew he was trying to tease me thinking I was nine and not forty. It didn’t bother me. I’d been around the bush more than once.

  I took the hoe and pulled the earth backwards. Soon the pile began to look more like a long raised section than just a pile. When I reached the end of the row, I turned around and pulled dirt from the other side to complete the row. Back and forth I went. After the third row, I was tired. By the fifth, I was exhausted. Even with the stats backing me up—and all of the exercise I did daily—farming was hard work.

  “Great job,” he told me. “You did more than I expected. I’ll fire up the machine and finish off the other half. Your rows aren’t the straightest but they’ll work.”

  I looked over the five rows and they curved this way and that. I’d tried to keep them straight but didn’t succeed very well. Calling them not the straightest was putting it mildly. Well, if Grandpa Milton thought they were good enough, I supposed they were. There was a raised area to plant in and troughs between for the water to run and drain without swamping the corn.

  After cleaning off inside, I went back out to watch him finish preparing the rows. The machine was a small tractor that he walked behind. It plowed one row at a time. He followed the contours of the rows I’d made. In the time it had taken me to finish half of one row, he completed the other five.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll plant the corn,” he said.

  “Why not today?” I asked.

  “I have to get the corn kernels soaked overnight first. I’ll do that tonight so they’ll be ready to plant in the morning. I didn’t know how much time we’d have today and I figure you’re probably exhausted. I know I am after watching you!”

  He laughed and I smiled. We walked inside after putting the machine away.

  Dad picked me up after work and took me to Master Chang’s Tiger Academy. The beginner class ran three nights a week and covered the first three belt levels—white, yellow, and orange. That there were nine belt levels made splitting everything pretty easy. The intermediate class was for the green, blue, and purple belts while the advance class had the rest—red, brown, and black. Master Chang ran special black-belt-only classes as well, but I wouldn’t be attending those anytime soon.

  The class started off like the mixed class had by warming up with a jog and some punching. Next we worked on our forms. Each belt level had a specific sequence they had to memorize and perform at a sufficient proficiency before they would be allowed to test into the next belt level. The white belt form came first—which was done by all three belts. Just because a student graduated to the next level did not mean they had to stop doing the old forms. Rather, they had to do the old ones and the new ones.

  I followed along with the form. It was alien to me but rather simple. It was a choreographed sequence of punches, blocks, and kicks that traced out a T shape across the mat. I was thankful to have others in front of me that I could watch and copy from. The orange belts were at the front, the yellows in the middle, and the white belts—like myself—in the back. After the white belt form was done, I was instructed to sit down while the rest completed the yellow forms. This continued until the oranges had finished their more complicated forms.

  “We’re going to do sparring next,” Master Chang informed us. “Seniors grab the gear and help your juniors get set up. If you’re in either of the outside columns, turn towards the center. If you’re in either of the inner columns, turn towards the outside. The person in front of you is your partner for today.”

  I turned as he said. I was face-to-face with a man in his forties. He was a large man—both tall and chunky—with a long beard. I sized him up while a couple of the orange belts helped us get into the padded gear. We were given gloves, a head protector, and a check protector that covered the groin.

  “First to ten points wins,” Master Chang said. “For those who are new here, you get two points for a clean hit to the chest, one point for a partially-blocked strike, and no points for anything else. You automatically lose if you strike the head or the groin, so please be careful.”

  I glanced around and saw that he was watching the room carefully. Most of the other students began their bouts immediately. I turned back to the man in front of me.

  “Hey, I’m Mark,” the man—Mark—said. “You’re new?”

  “Yeah, I started this week,” I said. “I’m Eddy.”

  “Welcome,” he said. “I started about a month ago. Are you ready?”

  “Mhm.”

  I put my hands up and got ready. The man threw a punch towards my exposed side. Although I didn’t have any fighting experience—beyond getting tossed and nearly dying to a head wound—my stats were doing some heavy lifting. Without the panic of fear clouding my mind, the punch looked slow. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was taking it easy on me due to the size difference or because it was just slow. Regardless, I used my left arm to deflect the punch while countering the one of my own.

  The man’s face lit up in surprise. He flailed trying to block my attack and ended up overextending. I got two clean hits off after the partially blocked one. He scored two partial hits on me before the end of the match.

  “Wow,” he said. “Have you fought before?”

  “No?” I said. “This was my first time.”

  “You’re pretty good!”

  “Thanks. What do we do now?”

  “Well, usually—“ he began.

  “You’ll change partners once everyone is done,” Master Chang said, making me jump a little.

  I hadn’t heard him approaching.

  “You fought well,” he said and walked away.

  The rest of the class was spent sparring with other white belts. I did pretty well—almost entirely off the back of my stats. I never lost a fight even if there was one that came close. What was important to me was that I learned from my mistakes and those of the people I fought against. By the end of the class, I was able to notice some of the most obvious openings and take advantage of them. Instead of just running on adrenaline, I was able to focus on the hows and whys of fighting—which is exactly what I wanted.

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