FenceStriking Distance - Sarah Rees Brennan Page 0,16
great and Nicholas was such garbage. Nicholas couldn’t help it, his attention slid away like—what was the phrase Coach Joe used?—water off a duck’s back. Nicholas had heard that kind of stuff plenty of times before.
Nicholas gave Aiden a blank look. Aiden was shaking back his fancy hair, wearing an angry expression. Nicholas wondered what Aiden had to be mad about. Aiden didn’t usually seem ruffled by anything. And he’d just been training with the captain, which must have been really fun. Aiden always had someone to train with.
Harvard and Aiden were best friends, people said, who’d known each other since they were little. Imagine having someone you got along with that well, who stuck around that long. Especially someone as great as Harvard. Aiden had no idea how lucky he was.
It must be awesome to have a best friend. Nicholas had never had one, but maybe Seiji would be his best friend someday? Yeah, Seiji probably would.
He carefully put Seiji’s broken watch to the side as he grabbed his mask and épée.
He chose his piste and moved into an étude, going over the footwork Coach had insisted he practice. Nicholas was left-handed, and Coach said that could be a huge advantage, but he had to know how right-handed fencers moved, too. He tried out right-handed advances and retreats; advanced, retreated, advanced six times and remembered to retreat once, reached the end of the piste and spun, advanced, retreated, and went into an advance lunge.
Nicholas allowed himself the luxury of moving fast and forward, the way he wanted. He fenced with imaginary partners to work off his restlessness, trying to make himself tired enough to settle into training.
Coach Joe had always said it was important to keep in shape, so Nicholas used to run laps around the block until it was dark, even though the neighborhood was lousy. If you moved quickly, that wasn’t a problem. Safe within the unblemished walls of Kings Row, Nicholas fenced with shadows and heard the thunder of his own heart echoing through his body, just like his feet falling hard as he raced down the cracked sidewalks of his city.
Keep moving, Nicholas. If you’re fast enough, none of it can catch you.
5: AIDEN
The team was bonding. Or at least attempting to do so in the most ridiculous way possible.
Aiden, personally, was leaning against the farthest wall in order to further disassociate himself from these people.
The whole tableau was awful and unsightly.
The freshmen were being atrocious, as usual. Seiji had his arms primly crossed over his meticulously ironed shirtfront and was refusing to participate in trust falls. It was obvious Seiji would have to be clobbered into unconsciousness before he would permit himself to fall into anyone’s arms. Nicholas had his arms crossed (not primly) over a hoodie that looked like he’d been using it to mop up dirt. He also seemed twitchy about trust falls. Aiden was prepared to bet the end result would be Nicholas crashing down in the wrong direction and breaking his nose. That would be at least mildly entertaining.
Eugene was running in circles saying, “Fall at me, bro! I’m open!” It was possible Eugene was Aiden’s least favorite teammate.
Harvard had taken off his uniform jacket and was rolling up his shirtsleeves, ready to catch any of his teammates in his strong arms.
Well. Maybe the whole tableau wasn’t unsightly.
Aiden looked away, across the floorboards on which the high window was casting a triangle of light, toward the wicked woman who had perpetrated this horror upon them.
Coach Williams wore a dispirited expression—who could blame her?—but she didn’t call a halt to these lunatic proceedings. Whatever happened, it was on her.
“Are you ready to do trust falls, team?”
“Absolutely not,” drawled Aiden. “As per our agreement, I am Trust Fall Switzerland.”
“Wasn’t talking to you, Aiden, but looking forward to your essay!” said Coach.
Aiden winced.
“Coach Williams,” Seiji appealed, “I also wish to be Trust Fall Switzerland. If one of us got injured doing this, it would impede our ability to fence, and that would be a disaster.”
“You will not get hurt falling onto practice mats. If by some freak chance you did get injured doing this, Eugene or Nicholas would substitute for you on the fencing team,” said Coach. “Hence, why we have reserves.”
“As I said,” Seiji told her, “that would be a disaster.”
Nicholas made a rude noise. Seiji shot him an annoyed look. Aiden judged that Nicholas’s chances of being caught during trust falls had just taken a nosedive.