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Fourteen years old/8th Grade/March
My brothers and I knelt on the mats of the Beverly Hills Shotokan Karate Studio while we ate our apple slices. I stared at Chase’s white belt and then at Morgan’s orange belt. Next weekend was the promotion ceremony. I wasn’t worried about advancing to the black belt, and I wasn’t worried about Morgan moving up to the green. I hoped Chase would be able to move to yellow. Morgan and I had been working extra with him, and I’d heard the instructors often telling him to focus more. Chase had a habit of staring at himself in the mirror and making faces when he should be focusing on the instructor.
“What are you doing?” I asked Chase as I took the lid off my bottle of water.
Chase had an apple slice in his mouth and was pretending it was his teeth. He was smiling and showing his apple teeth in the mirror.
“He’s being a dork,” Morgan answered.
“I guess he doesn’t want the yellow belt, Morg.” I shrugged. Chase popped the apple slice out of his mouth and ate it.
“No, Hollis. I do want it,” he whined.
“You have to earn it. They don’t just hand belts out, Chase.”
“I’ll be ready,” he promised.
I saw our car pull up outside the karate studio and tapped my brothers’ knees.
“Mom’s here.”
Chase made a dramatic gasp, shoved his last apple slice into his mouth, grabbed his water bottle, and started to take off toward our backpacks. I grabbed him by his arms.
“No running while you’re eating. Do you want to choke?”
Chase stared up at me and grinned while he quickly chewed.
“Better?” Chase asked and showed me he’d eaten all of his apple.
I nodded and walked with him under my arm to our backpacks. Morgan already had his shoes on and backpack on his shoulders. We waved at Mom when she came in. She and the instructor spoke while we finished getting our shoes on. As we walked to the car, I went through the motions of the attack and takedown moves we’d practiced today.
“Your dad had the afternoon off from class, and guess what he did?”
“What?” the three of us asked in unison.
“He took the pool cover off the pool. The water is nice and warm.”
As we yelled in excitement, I turned around and looked at Morgan and Chase.
“Wrestling?” I mouthed to them.
Both quickly nodded.
“I get to be Hulk Hogan,” Chase enthusiastically whispered.
“Maybe,” Morgan teased.
Chase always wanted to be Hulk Hogan when the three of us wrestled.
“Oh, good news, Hollis.” Mom paused when she stopped at the stop light. She quickly reached into the center compartment and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. “I was able to get you into the adult jiu-jitsu class. It starts in two weeks. Your current instructor had to pull some strings with the instructor to get you in, but he spoke very highly of you, and it all worked out. As it turns out, you’re one of the youngest to join the adult class.”
“Yes!” I looked over the paperwork and found my name was now listed on the class roster. “Thank you, Mom!”
Chase whined from the backseat.
“Mom, what about me?” he asked.
“Yes, sweetie. I didn’t forget about you.” My head snapped in the direction to look at our mom. Chase could barely handle karate and wasn’t interested in jiu-jitsu. “Remember, you said you wanted to play soccer?”
