Free Kung Fu High School by Ryan Gattis Page A

through Mrs. Johnson's rock garden. She had it done up in a Zen motif and Cue said she'd be sure to notice our footprints next morning so I had to go get her special rake leaning against the house and re-scrape everything in a big oval after we walked through. I made Jimmy hold the tamales that I had made for Remo's mom, then I had to take a running leap at Mrs. Johnson's unfinished six-foot-high fence. Of course I got a bunch of splinters when I clung onto the top. But it was that or rake again, and I didn't feel like it.
    Once I was over the fence we followed the rut in the field all the way to Tell Hill. You can actually see a huge chunk of the spreading suburbs from there because the whole thing got developed on an incline: all yellow dots of light with the occasional blinking red from the new power plant towers. A quick right and we were on the cul-de-sac, then another right. Almost lost Jimmy though and I had to grab him by the belt to make sure he didn't walk off into the dark in the wrong direction. It was Cue's belt and it was too big, so when I grabbed it, I got a lot of it in my hand. Like pulling back a slingshot but only getting slack.

    When we got to the front door, I stood in front but Cue knocked. He had our backs. Until we were in the house, we weren't safe. That was the general rule of thumb: no relaxing until inside, until you could lock a door. Once you were inside you could do whatever you wanted, you could be yourself again, but not outside. You never knew who could follow.
    When Remo opened the door I said, "Meals on Wheels," and pushed past him into the warm living room. Their heat hadn't gotten turned off. Lucky bastards.
    "Yeah, yeah, come on in. Hey, Jimmy, looking good out there but come into the light here so I can check you out." Remo was wearing his black Green Lantern T-shirt, with just the symbol on it that looks like a white circle around a green "O" but with a horizontal line at the top and bottom. He always looked skinnier without his white lab coat on. I think he was trying to grow a beard too.
    "Any concussion signs on this guy, Jenner?" Remo shut the door behind us and locked all three locks: both deadbolts and the chain. He pulled out his penlight and looked in Jimmy's eyes, then made Jimmy follow his finger left, right, before he was satisfied.
    "Nope," I said. Remo looked at the green bowl I was holding and the little flecks of blood on it. Then he looked at my hands.
    "Damn, Cue, why don't you rake for once? C'mere, Jenner." Remo set my covered bowl down on the hall table. "You know you can clear that jump better than she can."
    "You worry about your own business. My sister can take care of herself." Cue winked at me after he said it. When he talked like that, it was hard not to feel a little pride at being worse for the wear. That was just one of the qualities that made him our leader.
    "Ma, can you get me a bowl of hot water please?" Remo grabbed Jimmy and Cue's coats, tossed them onto a chair. Well, they were both Cue's coats, but it didn't matter to Remo.
    All the walls in the house were painted a dusty tan color, even the wooden trim on the doorways. Here and there, hung up on the walls, they had these great Aztec relics. Well, replica relics of masks and stuff but they were really cool. Better than our house. We just have movie posters and sports stuff up.
    "Huh?" Remo's mom was watching a dubbed version of
Matlock
on Telemundo and not really listening to us. She's the cutest old lady in the world.
    "
¡Mamá, tráigame un tazón de agua caliente!
"
    "
Sí, sí.
" Mrs. Rodriguez shuffled into the kitchen and came back with a yellow bowl but no water, warm or otherwise.
    "Sit," Remo said to me and went to fill the bowl himself By the time he came back with it, his mom had discovered the food.
    "
¡Ay los tamales! Gracias, señorita.
" She clapped her hands together when she said the words and then did a kind of dance where she dipped and swayed at the knees. Like