Chapter 6: Lesson Learned

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Whitney laid on the recliner until the eventual tap from Tommy came to her forehead. The moment that her family started getting up and around she had known it, but she was enjoying the morning, enjoying the world she was creating inside of her own head, a world where swords did matter, a world where she was the glove that others had to slide their fingers into, and enjoying the sun so much that she felt no compunction to get up and around, nor did she feel any immediate or urgent need to piggyback with Tommy. She knew they would be spending the day in the arena because that was the plan.

Good morning, sleepy head, she said to Tommy as soon as the piggyback was completed. She noted through Tommy’s eyes that the sun had made its way more than a quarter of the way up in the sky and that meant that it was about ten in the morning.

“Good morning,” he answered back, but there was something about the way he said it that Whitney didn’t like. The tone of his voice reminded her of when he told her he was planning to spend a day with Jacob. Guilt oozed from him.

What? She asked him.

“Nothing,” he answered her aloud. “I just wanted to see if you were up to fighting today. I know I’m sore as a rhino in a dance off, and I figure that means that you’re probably miserable.”

I’m fine! I’m ready to go!

“Huh? You are?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she answered back aloud—giving up on just thinking to him. “Whenever you’re ready!”

Tommy stood straight up and slowly put his arms onto his waist. “You’re full of crap!” he said. “No way! You’re completely out of shape! I can barely move!”

Whitney could feel that he was telling the truth. She could sense that same creaking muscle feeling in his arms and legs, but his wasn’t nearly as bad as hers had been. That didn’t mean that she was going to let him off the hook, however. She got her body up from the chair and did ten jumping jacks in front of him as Tommy stood in front of her with a slack jaw.

“Let’s do this, bro!” she said after she finished, mocking a boxer in training, punching the air in front of her. “I think you’re just trying to make up an excuse so that I don’t kick your butt again!”

“No, I’m not! That doesn’t even really bother me,” he said. “That much.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” she mocked. “Sissy.”

“We don’t have any choice anyway. Blake wants to see what happens when we ‘jog in the helm’ himself. I think mom freaked out last night about how hard you breathe and pant and now he wants to see what she’s so worked up about. They want us to try it while he’s here.”

“Let’s go then!” Whitney said. She started walking toward the patio door. She paused when she got there, opened it, and walked inside. Tommy followed behind her.

“Are you really not feeling any pain?” he asked her.

“Look for yourself,” she said. “If I’m lying, I’ll let you beat me today.”

“I’m so jealous of you right now,” he said as he followed stiffly behind her. “My legs aren’t too bad, but my arms feel like there are a thousand people throwing darts at them.”

“Sit down,” Blake said when the two of them got into the living room. He had a serious look on his face, hands stuffed into his pockets, as he fiddled with the change inside. He meant business. Blake was never serious.

Whitney and Tommy both sat on the couch, but only Blake had Tommy’s gaze.

“Your mother...”

“Aunt Carol,” Whitney interjected.

Blake’s gaze shifted to Whitney’s body, but quickly turned back to Tommy. “Your Aunt Carol is concerned about what you two are doing. We both love the overall effect that it seems to be having on your temperament, Whitney, but we have to make sure it’s not having any bad side effects.”

“What side effects?” Whitney asked in a defensive tone. “It’s exercise. Of course, I’m breathing heavy! I’m out of shape!”

“It’s not just that, Whitney,” Carol Anne said. “Both of your temperatures go way up! I monitored both of you and they both got up to a hundred and two degrees before you guys came back out of it. That brings up another point. What if you guys can’t come back out of it for some reason. Neither of you seem to know anything about what’s happening in the ‘real world’ when you’re in there. I tried getting you two to come out of it because I was worried and nothing I did was able to get through to either of you. I even slapped you both in the face and I mean hard, but nothing happened. You just kept going!”

“You’re not going to make us stop, are you?” Whitney asked.

“That’s not what we’re saying,” Blake said. “At least not yet. I want to see it for myself. I don’t want you two turkeys to take it easy just to get the go ahead either. I want you to run as fast this time as you did yesterday.”

“That might be a problem,” Tommy said. “I’m really sore from yesterday.”

“That doesn’t’ make any sense, Tommy! You weren’t running for real. You were both running in your heads,” Blake countered.

“Somehow it must still work the same I guess. I can’t explain it, but you know how they say that if you die in your sleep that it’s possible to die for real. I think this kind of works the same.”

Blake and Carol gave each other questioning looks and then shrugged. “Well, just do the best you can then,” Carol said. “All we’re saying is that Blake can’t make an accurate judgment call if you two go in there and take it easy.”

Blake and Carol made both Whitney and Tommy agree to do the best they could not to minimize their little ‘experiment’. They both promised they would and then positioned themselves on the couch. Whitney withdrew from Tommy while he set up the arena. When she came back, she entered the arena.

The crowd seemed excited, as usual, when they appeared, all of them coming to their feet, rousing a ruckus of applause, hooting and hollering as if they were at a super-bowl instead of a small arena with two unknown fighters. Both Tommy and Whitney were dressed in their usual attire and they both had two practice swords in the scabbards on their backs. They faced each other.

“What do you think this means,” Whitney asked Tommy.

“I think Blake and Carol are just being their normal over-protective selves.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Tommy. Why do you think I’m so good at this? I mean, I am ... right? I’ve been thinking about it all day and I can’t come up with an answer.”

“You are good at it. No question, but I don’t think it necessarily means anything.”

“But it kind of has to, doesn’t it? Tommy, this feels natural to me. When I’m fighting you, I barely even have to think about what I’m doing. I was born to do it. In the real world, I wouldn’t be able to do it at all because I can’t see or hear. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Well ... you can talk too. That doesn’t make any sense either, because you can’t hear, but you can do it.”

“Yeah, I suppose. So why can I do that?”

Her ears work differently, Thomas. They sense movement and sound waves.

You again? Who are you? You sound like Whitney, but you’re not. Are you?

Silence.

Tommy shrugged. He thought about it for a second. He crossed his arms in front of him and really sunk his mind into the question. “Maybe you could,” he said. “if we worked together on it. You know like left hand and right, but only for real.”

“I’m not getting you,” she said.

“Do you think you could fight while you were looking through my eyes? You know ... the same way that you can walk while you look through them?” he asked her.

“Fight who though! That’s the other part I can’t answer.”

“I don’t know. Bad guys,” Tommy said as he tried not to let on that he knew exactly who ... or what.

“You’re not really making any sense right now. We don’t know any bad guys. At least I don’t and unless you are living some kind of double life, you don’t either. How in the world would we ever find a ‘bad guy’ to fight,” she said raising her fingers and giving him the quote sign as she said bad guy.

Tommy knew the answer to that, but he couldn’t tell her without showing her his dreams. He shrugged and said, “I don’t know right now, but they sent us in here for a reason so we should get started before we run out of time.”

“We’ve got all day. We won’t run out of time,” Whitney said.

“Well...” Tommy began. His shoulders drooped and guilt poured over his face like warm syrup.

“What do you mean?” Whitney asked suspiciously. She instinctively drew both of her swords and took a step toward him. He took a tentative step back.

“The Festival starts today. Jacob begged me into going,” he said as his words blended together, his hands in front of him defensively, cowering away from her as if he expected her to start using her practice swords on him.

“You’re not going,” she commanded through gritted teeth. She raised her swords at him as if they had the final say.

“I’m going,” he returned.

“Draw your swords, Tommy,” she said angrily. “If you beat me, you can go.”