NOT THE MARTIAL-ARTS TYPE

Heads up: I’m switching channels. I do that sometimes. On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the community center with Dad and Sam, my older dork brother. Mom had to work an extra shift at the hospital. (Big surprise.)

When I said I wanted to stay home alone, Mom told me to look in the mirror and introduce myself to the girl there, ha-ha. At least she didn’t point to the water spot on the kitchen ceiling or the strawberry-syrup stain on the carpet or the picture of me with uneven bangs like she sometimes did. For the record, I did those things before I was diagnosed. And when I was much younger.

“I’m eleven,” I reminded Mom.

“Yeah. I know,” she said, taking her nurse’s scrubs out of the dryer. “I was there when you were born.”

I didn’t think her joke was funny. And I still had to ride along to the community center and sit bored out of my mind at a table in the hallway while Sam took a taekwondo class and Dad cut out leaves from construction paper. By the way, my dad’s not a weirdo who likes to cut paper leaves for fun. He’s just a guy who got laid off from his desk job and went back to college to become a teacher. Which, if you think about it, is also kind of a desk job. The leaves were for one of his classes. They were doing a unit on making bulletin boards.

When taekwondo class was over, Sam had a scowl on his face. That wasn’t unusual. Mom liked to joke that all fifteen-year-old boys take a secret oath to scowl a minimum of five hours a day.

“I’m done,” he said.

“Okay,” Dad said, standing up. “Just let me and Eliza pack up our stuff.”

“No,” Sam said. “I mean, I don’t want to go back.”

Dad narrowed his eyes.

“I’m not the martial-arts type,” Sam said.

“You can’t decide that after one class,” Dad told him.

“Sure I can,” Sam insisted.

“So you’re going to waste all your hard-earned money?” Dad asked.

That seemed strange to me, too. Sam had used his lawn-mowing money to pay for half of the class fee. He’d been all gung ho ever since he found out one of the other drummers in the marching band took jujitsu or something like that.

“It’s my money to blow,” Sam said. “Besides, you don’t want me to break a finger, do you? I can’t hold sticks if I’m wearing a cast.”

“I’m sure it’s perfectly safe,” Dad said.

“It’s just a bunch of babies,” Sam said, sweeping his hand in the direction of the kids in white uniforms. “I’m the oldest one.”

Just then a pretty teenage girl walked by. Sam blushed.

“What about her?” Dad said, pointing. “She looks around sixteen.”

The girl noticed we were talking about her and gave us a shy smile.

Sam waited until she was out of earshot. “Dad. She’s a black belt.”

“So?”

“So I’m not,” Sam said.

Dad considered this a moment. “You’re really gonna let your pride get in the way?”

“I don’t want to come back next week,” Sam said, tilting his chin. That was Sam’s way of saying he’d made up his mind.

“Fine.” That was Dad’s way of saying, “Do whatever you want.”

Great, I thought. I’m dying to take a class but can’t. And Sam gets to take a class and then quits?

In the history of all unfair things in the world, this had to be in the top ten.