Tokio Derby

“What’s wrong Lil’ Blue?” Marissa asked, putting a hand on my shoulder because she was sitting closest to me at the lunch table.

There was so much going on that I couldn’t tell her without wearing myself out. Moving in with Gustav and going to this amazing place, falling in love with what seemed like a totally different kind of derby, and sharing my first French kiss ever with someone. Apparently that someone had to be a girl. Besides, how would I start? “Nothing,” I answered, taking a bite of my food. “I just got kissed by another girl,” I whispered to myself, hoping nobody could hear.

Well, apparently they did. Mariah and Marissa stopped their fight of the day and looked at me with their wide eyes; Ash stopped scraping down her food the minute I said that and held her spoon in the air as it was coming to her mouth. But Claude was the worst; he spit out his drink and looked at me like I grew a third eye.

“What was her name?!” Ash screamed loud enough for the entire lunchroom to hear.

“Did she stick her tongue in?” Mariah asked.

“Eww Claude!” Marissa seemed to be the only one unfazed by this, looking down at her kinda-soaked shirt. “If you’re going to spit something out, do it away from me!”

“I-“Claude stuttered, looking at me and then the shirt. “What k-kind of girl kissed yo-you Clarissa?”

I sighed and explained the story to them, not leaving out of the details of anything.
“One question,” Mariah asked. “What the hell is derby?!”

The rest of the table nodded in agreement. God, they really didn’t know. If this is what a hipster felt like, then I don’t like it.

Just as I was about to tell them what derby was- which would probably take up the entire lunchtime- the bell rang and signaled the end of lunch. I sighed and picked up my things. Maybe making a derby team would be harder than I thought.

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“It’s time for a deeper discussion on the area that is Israel,” Mr. Schrieffer said in his monotone voice, making the class groan silently. World History was probably one of the most boring classes I had ever had, but it was mostly because of the old and boring teacher who never smiled. He always wore stiff suits and the only hair he had was coming out of his ears.

I was kind of paying attention to his lesson but also staring out the window because I had the window seat. It made learning about The Promised Land so much easier when you thought about it in squirrel form.

“I will now let you work in groups of three, and I will let you choose.” The class didn’t even wait for him to continue with the rest of the instructions. All the usual people paired together; jocks with jocks, the stoners who never did anything with others, and the popular kids with each other.

I saw Claude slowly walk over to my desk. “Do you want to work together?” he asked. I looked around; there was nobody else to work with but me.

“Unless you want to work with the squirrels outside I suggest you pop a squat in this seat next to me,” I patted the empty seat next to me.

Mr. Schrieffer walked over to us and handed us a sheet of paper with questions on it. “I expect these questions to be answered on a separate sheet of paper and you will have one person from your group stand up in front of the class and read your answers.”

After he left I shrugged and looked at the questions. They didn’t seem hard enough unless you were asleep or to bored to notice. Clef was looking over to the corner where there was a lone table that the teacher was sitting at. “Uh oh,” he whispered to me. “Davon’s alone again.”

“Who?” I asked, looking up from my sheet to where he pointed. It just looked like the old bat was talking- make that yelling- at himself. “Keep looking,” he replied. “She’s there.”

Sure enough, a person did appear after a few minutes of squinting. She had frizzy brown hair that was pulled back in a ponytail and black glasses that rung from her face. I couldn’t see her eyes from here but they were fixated in a book. She seemed to ignore his yelling until he said something about bringing her grade down. Then she abruptly got up and walked to our table. “Since your group only has two people I decided to put Davon in your group,” he pointed at the seat in front of mine and she reluctantly took it.

Davon was a really fast worker. All she said to me was “Hello, I’m Davon,” and waved a bit at Claude before picking up the paper and getting to work. I just a few minutes she was done and staring at the paper because she had nothing else to do.

“So Davon…….” I said, looking over at her and trying my hardest to make conversation. “How is it that you’re such a ninja?”

“Excuse me?” she looked up from the paper, and I could finally see her eyes. They were gray-blue and fiery. “How is it that I’m such a what?”

“Ninja,” I said again in a more polite voice. “You blend in so well with your surroundings.” I put my hand up defensively. “No offense. But you barely ever speak and if you got up to move something I would think there was a ghost in the room.”

Claude chuckled a little, but stopped when he looked at Davon’s serious expression. “Well not all us ninjas can just throw shurikens and wear black,” she answered with a serious tone. “I’m more of an…..urban ninja.”

“It’s nice to finally meet a ninja,” I smiled, putting out my hand for her to shake. “I’m Clarissa Schäfer and I’m a derby girl.”

Her eyes widened. “My sister does derby!” her mousy voice got a little louder as she shook my hand. “No way!” I exclaimed, turning out handshake into a fist bump of approval. “What’s her name?”

Davon opened her mouth to answer, but the sound of a bell stopped her. We all turned around to see Mr. Schrieffer waiting for us to present. He called the groups by the tables they were sitting at and didn’t even let them choose the representative.

All the other groups did shit. They had no idea what he was talking about and mostly made things up that they heard their parents say or something out of the blue. The stoners were the best, talking about Jewish people riding unicorns and conquering the Palestinians to take their land back. I tried my hardest not to laugh but when they started talking about flying Stars of David shooting lasers I had to step outside to laugh.

When I came back though, was a completely different thing. Davon was standing in front of the class and she looked like she was about to freak out. Her palms were sweaty and she stuttered on every other word. The class was snickering with every word she messed up on and some of the popular kids were passing notes around and doing their nails like it was nothing.

“A-And so in 1-1947 th-the United Nations decided to-“she paused for what seemed like an eternity. “They decided to-“

“Loser!” somebody from the back shouted. The rest of the class then started shouting insults at her that involved her eating a hotdog donut or something. I didn’t get it. But apparently Davon got it; she was running out of the room as soon as she heard the word hotdog.

And then the bell rang; signaling the end of class. Did I mention Germany is slowly losing its place in my head as one of the best countries ever?

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A familiar tanned hand tapped me on the shoulder and I looked around to see Mariah, Marissa, and Ash standing behind me on the steps.

“So I see you weren’t lying about this whole derby thing,” Ash said, looking questioningly at my skates. “We did some research on this during free period and we found out that there’s going to be something called a “Derby Demolition” going on later tonight. Are you going?”
I looked at her questioningly. Ariel didn’t tell me about it. “Of course I’ll go. Are you guys planning on going?”

They all nodded. “My mom’s going to drive us,” Ash replied, waving over to a minivan that probably held her mom. “Do you need a ride?” I shook my head quickly, reminding myself that they can’t figure out where I live. “It’s not that far away. I can probably skate.”

After a few minutes of talking I noticed a shadow whizz by. I said my goodbye to my friends and followed it. It was a pretty good skater, moving at incredible speeds and not even stopping for turns. “Wait!” I finally screamed, out of breath and confused of where the hell I was.

“What do you want?!” Davon’s voice echoed from the distance between us.

I really had no idea why I followed her and absolutely no idea of what to say to her. So I just said the first thing that popped into my head. “Do you want to go to the Derby Demolition with me?!” I screamed.

“I was already going to go with my sister,” she replied coldly, but then smiled. “But I’ll see you there.” And then she skated away.

But I’ll see you there. It was good start to our friendship.

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I was late to the demolition. It took forever because I had to change my clothes- I was going for a biker look today, epic leather cap included- and talked to Gustav about the tour. I was actually kind of excited because he was going to come home in less than 2 days! But I kept my cool and told him that I would be waiting.

“Finally,” Ash said impatiently as she and the rest of the group were waiting for us. Well, minus Claude. He was with MD- short for My Dominic. Ash was wearing all black and a hoodie over her head that had black kitten ears. Marissa was standing next to her, her long black hair in dreadlocks and a Rasta hat on that was so decorated it made my head hurt. Mariah was the only one that looked kind of normal, wearing purple overalls that came up to her mid-thigh with her hair in two braids. But still I was looking for someone, someone with frizzy hair and glasses.

“You ready to go in?” Marissa asked, patting her hat.

“Why are you patting your hat?” I asked.

“She thinks the stupid hat is good luck,” Mariah answered, shaking her head.

“You’ve made fun of my epic Rasta hat. You have now brought dishonor to my family so I will have to kill you,” pregnant pause from Marissa. “Mon.”

After a long laugh we walked inside and watched the bout. It was completely different than what I expected them to do; they cheered at all the right moments and were amazed at all the feats a person can accomplish while wearing a pair of roller skates. Marissa was especially loud, screaming and pointing whenever a girl knocked another one of the circuit track. “How can they do that?!” she asked, pulling at my jacket. But before I could answer her eyes went back to the game.

“Nice to see you made it here,” a sexy voice said behind us as I walked with them towards the center of the crowd, where the music was louder than anything else. “Ariel!” I screamed, turning around and running into her arms.

“Hey baby,” she kissed the top of my head and looked over at my friends.”And who might these lovely ladies be?”

I introduced Ariel to the group, Marissa practically begging her for all Ariel’s information. “So you’re the girl who Frenched Clarissa, huh?” was all Mariah could say.

“Don’t worry,” Ariel replied coolly. “We’re not going out. Besides, I kinda jumped her for the kiss. She’s just so damn cute.”

*nyan nyan fast forward nyan* :3

“When the next time we can do something like this?” Ash screamed when Ariel was far away. “I friggin love it here!”

Now’s a good time to tell them your plan, I thought to myself. “I was thinking that maybe we could start a derby team at school,” I blurted. “But we would need members-“

“Already done,” Mariah snapped, pointing to every single one of us.

“And we would also need a supervisor and a place to practice,” I finished.

“We could just use the gym when nobody else is there and get Ms. Doldrums to supervise.” And before I could ask who she was, the girls were already in full swing about derby. They talked about what kind of uniform we could have and Marissa was wondering if she would still keep her dreadlocks in for school tomorrow.

But I kept my secret about wanting to invite Davon into our team. We did need five members after all.