Sakamoto’s question was met with a chorus of moans and groans.
“Well, we never said it would be easy,” he responded to his lacklustre audience. “So that’s why when we came to the sports’ curriculum, we thought we might spice things up a little.”
The groaning died as everybody became intrigued by the reference to spicing things up.
“As you’ll see, you are all sitting in separate sections, A thru J. You are sitting in the section that corresponds to your class that is 3C and 7C and all years class C’s are in section C. These are your teams.” Mr Sakamoto stopped talking as the students all confirmed what he had just said.
“It’s a competitive world out there and to succeed you need to be competitive and that is exactly what we are going to be Sports at The Academy is going to be a competition. Everything you do will gain points for your team. At the end of the year, one team will emerge the winner and one the loser. It is up to you to do all you can to make sure your team does as well as it can. I’m sure no one here wants to finish tenth or do they?” he shouted.
“NO!” the stadium lifted as the students got into the spirit of the event.
“Excellent! Your Class Principals will select a captain for each class and explain how the events will work. Good luck and let the games begin!”
A huge cheer echoed around the stadium before manic conversations erupted as the impact of the sports competition sank in.
“OK, OK, quiet down everybody,” shouted Miss Sullivan over the noise around the stadium. She then explained, along with the other the class principals, how it would work. A captain would be selected for the class and would represent 1H at the Team H Captains’ Committee. Each week would see a different sport. One hour’s practice would precede selection for the competition against classes in their year. On that day, Judo was the Year 1 sport. The following week would be a yacht race and the week after, tennis. Everybody in the class must take part, the practice allowing the captain to select their strongest contenders and use them strategically to maximise their points.
After she had finished explaining, she asked for volunteers for team captain. Tom and Tristan’s hands both shot up along with Chen. Nobody else had even had a chance to think before the three hands had gone up. With no other takers, it seemed a popularity vote would decide the winner.
“Hmm, we have a slight problem I’m afraid,” said Miss Sullivan awkwardly. Everybody turned to look at her.
“The captains’ meetings are to be held on Sundays at noon. They won’t last long but I believe from a note I received yesterday evening, two of our candidates will be unavailable to attend.”
Tom and Tristan’s hands fell, they knew straight away that Ms Anderson had not selected Sunday lunch by coincidence. Bitch!
“OK, so we still have Chen, to make it fair, does anyone else want to do it…” she paused to allow other hands to go up, nobody’s did, it wouldn’t have seemed right after not putting their hands up at first.
“OK, well Chen it is then. Congratulations Chen.”
A small round of applause welcomed Chen as the 1H captain.
“Our first competition is Judo. We have a one hour training session before the competition begins. Anyone have any experience?” asked Miss Sullivan hopefully, it seemed she was as keen as anybody to do well.
A few hands went up. Tom raising his proudly, following his experience with the Ned. Chen raised his, as did Mingmei, Mia and Dev. Lela however did not. Tom nudged her.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m not going to parade myself in front of the school, what are you doing?”
“You showed me a few moves and look what I did!” he said proudly.”
“Oh for God’s sake Tom, you were just lucky! Put your hand down and don’t be silly, Chen, Mingmei and Mia are all black belts, I’m not sure about Dev.”
At the mention of black belts, Tom’s hand slunk back down for the second time in five minutes.
They made their way across to the Dojo area to start training for the competition. An hour later, Chen had an excellent idea of his squad’s capabilities although despite Lela’s average performance, he knew she was his secret weapon. He just had to find out how to get her to fight properly, like she had with Yuri and his gang.
At 11.15 a.m., the competitions began. The first years in their judo contest while the other years tackled other sports.
Chen, Mingmei, Dev and Mia were superb and Chen had played an excellent strategic game, using his weaker team mates very well and had taken class 1H to the final, having beaten a number of other classes. Each student had to take part in at least one bout and as they moved into their final three bouts against class 1C, the other finalists, Chen was left with Tom and Lela who had still had not had a fight. The other team had already played each of their team at least once and could use anybody.
“Can you please let me fight,” whispered Lela to Chen, exasperated at not having been used. She wanted her one bout out of the way. “I’m not going to fight properly, so you can forget it I don’t care if we win or lose, I’m not a sideshow,“ she added.
“Look, you can go last. I’ll put Tom in now, then me. All we need is one win and we’ve done it. You might not even need to fight,” he replied.
He entered the sheet detailing the running order. They would not know who they faced until the bout commenced.
Tom was first and stepped forward, Lela wishing she had spent more time training him. He was up against Yuan, an ugly brute who was uncharacteristically large for his age both in height and weight. He was well trained and despite his size was surprisingly agile. He also had a tendency to use just a little more force than necessary. Lela quickly gave Tom instructions.
“Take a dive,” she said.
“What?” he stammered. “That’s your advice? That’s the best you can do to gee me up?”
“I don’t want to see you get hurt, just take the dive. Chen can win the next match, don’t try to be a hero, Yuan plays dirty,” she pleaded.
Tom walked towards the mat looking back towards her as if she were nuts. He took the stance and began to circle his opponent. He didn’t stand a chance, Yuan moved and flipped him up and over, laying Tom out on his back. Rather than simply pin his shoulders down, he reacted to his team mates’ cheers and body-slammed Tom with all his weight, completely and totally unnecessarily. A gasp of air blasted out of Tom’s mouth as he was winded by Yuan’s bulk. Lela immediately jumped out of her seat but Mia had anticipated it and grabbed her.
Tom had lain still for a few minutes while he was attended to. He then hobbled back to the team in agony. Lela was incensed and had to be restrained by both Mingmei and Mia. Chen was up next and was met by 1C’s best fighter and current Junior Judo Champion of Japan. It was a tough and close match with neither of them able to get the winning move, it was a tie. Chen looked to Lela as he came back to the team.
“It’s down to you Lela,” he said.
“I warned you all along Chen, you realise you’ve cost us the win. I will not fight in front of an audience.”
Lela walked towards the mat to a huge cheer from 1H, although most wondered why the hell Chen had left the smallest girl in the class to fight the last bout. Class 1C began to laugh at who was stepping up for 1H, they knew who she was up against. Chen was gutted, he was sure he would have got her on side but she was serious. She was going to throw her fight and she was right, it was his fault. Lela had warned him from the start.
However Chen began to smile as a huge cheer erupted from class 1C. Yuan had just stepped forward, the 1C captain had decided to use Yuan twice in the last three bouts which he was perfectly entitled to do, having used everyone at least once already.
The giant Yuan towered over Lela.
“I’ll try not to hurt you too badly as you’re a girl,” he said to her as they waited to start..
“I won’t, seeing as you’re an ugly git and deserve whatever you get,” she replied angrily. Yuan had committed the cardinal sin, he had hurt her brother.
The bell sounded to announce the start. Yuan lunged, Lela dropped and as she seemed to fall, she caught Yuan perfectly and transported his energy over her dropping shoulder and threw him like a rag doll across the mat and into class 1C. The bell sounded again even though it hadn’t quite stopped ringing from the start of the bout. Class 1H had won. However, the hall was silent as a stunned audience were still trying to understand what had just happened.
