Poisoned Pin: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 2) by Laney Monday Read Free Book Online

refuse my offer and, in fact, pretend I didn’t exist, Sammi stood there stock-still. Instead of catching the pants and saying, “Hey Brenna,” as I’d hoped, or at least grumbling a thank you, Sammi ended up shrieking in outrage as the pants hit her right in the face and hung there like a thick cotton veil.
    There was an explosion of flying judo gi parts.
    “Sorry!” I said.
    She gave me a look that could kill.
    “Why don’t you go in the bathroom and change,” Blythe said, “and we can get started.”
    A lo-o-ong time later, Sammi emerged from the bathroom, with her top on inside out, her pants on backwards, and her belt tied wrong. Sammi wasn’t an idiot. Judo gis can be kind of counter-intuitive. They usually have a tag on the outside, front of each piece instead of on the inside, in the back like most clothes. And everyone ties the belt wrong. Blythe and I exchanged looks. I didn’t say a word.
    Blythe said, “Great. Come over here and I’ll show you how to tie your belt.”
    We could deal with the backwards and inside-out-ness later. No need to work Sammi up into even more of a frenzy.
    Blythe showed Sammi how to bow at the edge of the mat, then step on, leaving her shoes by the matside.
    Sammi stood on the mat and looked around, as though she expected something new to materialize any moment. “This is so lame. I’m the only one here?”
    Blythe plunged into a valiant effort to make Sammi feel honored. “You’re the first one. The very first student at our dojo.”
    Too bad Sammi was nearly twelve, and so over adults trying to spin unhappy situations into “special” ones. And also on a mission to find anything and everything she could to hate about us, and about being here.
    “Ooh. Wow,” Sammi oozed with sarcasm.
    I opted for the no biggie approach and shrugged. “Well, we’re working on building things up. It would be great if you could invite a friend to come and practice with you.”
    “Leo was my friend. Stacey was my friend. Now they’re both gone, thanks to you.” She flipped back her green-streaked hair. “Now I don’t have any friends.”
    I wondered if that was really true. If so, did Sammi push other kids away, or had she been unfairly singled out for exclusion?
    I let Blythe take the lead with teaching Sammi how to fall. For some reason, she blamed her less than me. I don’t know, maybe because I was the one her “friend” had actually assaulted and left for dead?
    I stayed on the mat, but busied myself doing uchikomi —repetitions of entering for throws—on the wall. I’d had Miss Ruth leave the barre on that wall, and it made a decent anchor that I could drape a piece of inner-tubing around, kind of like an exercise band. I held one end of the rubbery strip in each hand as I practiced my footwork and pulled. It wasn’t as good as uchikomi with a live partner, but the inner-tube provided good pulling practice and strength training. I planned to visit a local bike repair shop soon and ask for their old inner tubes so I could have one for each student.
    I threw out a compliment to Sammi now and then as Blythe had her do a somersault, roll backward, do a cartwheel. Each compliment was greeted with a sour, skeptical look.
    Blythe taught Sammi to do a front fall and a back fall, and then she moved on to the forward rolling fall. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and it’s usually taught in stages. Most kids take weeks or months of practice to get it right.
    Blythe had Sammi watch her do a forward rolling breakfall. It’s helpful to show a beginner the end result we’re looking for, then teach them the technique in more manageable steps. If we don’t show them why they’re doing those steps, the whole process makes no sense. I knew Blythe expected Sammi to just watch, and then she’d teach her to roll from a kneeling or crouching position. But Sammi immediately copied Blythe’s standing fall—perfectly.
    Blythe had her back turned and was getting up from her fall.