1953…

Ann O’Malley enjoyed the rest of her lessons for that day, but the discovery she made at lunchtime was somewhat disturbing. She was talking to Mary Wathlow, when the two of them noticed a tennis ball flying towards them. Ann instinctively put out her hand and caught the ball. She had her special outfit on under her school uniform. She had worn thick coloured stockings to cover the legs of the outfit. She was wearing all of her outfit and exolimbs, except for the mask, exohands, and gloves, because these would look rather conspicuous at school.

"Just as well I was not wearing my exohands," thought Ann, "It would have looked a little bit suspicious, if the tennis ball bounced rapidly off my hands by my not grabbing it quick enough."

A tall girl ran towards them to claim her ball.

"You ruined my long shot!" she shouted, "I was aiming real long distance."

"Well it would have hit us," said Ann.

"I didn't know it was going to fall so low. You should have jumped out of the way."

"Why should we?" asked Mary, "You should have aimed it in a safe direction, not near us."

The tall girl lumbered forward.

"Why is Mary taunting her?" thought Ann, "Mary's usually shy, and she is shorter than I am. That girl is huge."
Ann decided to apply the law of gravity to the tall girl, by kicking the tall girl's right leg back with her exoleg, causing the tall girl to lose balance and fall over; but before Ann could do anything, Mary surprised the other two considerably. Mary had been standing with her right foot leaning forward. Suddenly her left leg shot forward and upwards, putting a right-angled bend into her leg at the knee. She twisted her leg and kicked out, knocking the tall girl over with a kick that struck the tall girl's chest heavily. All of this had happened in a single second.

Ann almost said, "Do you have exolimbs too?"

She checked her thoughts and said, "How did you do that, Mary?"
"You, you're dangerous," groaned the tall girl, as she rose to her feet and staggered away.

"Between us, Ann, it was a simple roundhouse kick. We learn them at Karate College, a martial arts school which meets in the St Ives Community Hall near the shops on Mona Vale Road. I had a lesson yesterday afternoon. It's on every Thursday, and we learn to fight well. I could beat a boy, if he didn't do any karate. I've been learning it for months."

"You've convinced me," said Ann, "What are these classes like?"

"Good. We have warm up exercises, and then spend half the lesson learning techniques and the other half practicing by sparring."

"Sparring?"

"Fighting each other."

"Are they good teachers?"

"Oh they're alright as teachers, Josh and Adam, but they're bad at parties. They play the worst practical jokes on people, really destructive ones that wreck people's property, but nobody dares to stop them, because they both have high black belt gradings; and if anyone plays a similar practical joke on them, that person gets beaten up. Still, they're great at classes, if you don't fool around. They want you to put the effort in to learn the stuff properly," said Mary.

Ann got to thinking:

"I think that I should teach these black belt jokers a lesson, like how to get their minds above their black belts. Sure, why not? First I will go to classes as a raw beginner and use the exolimbs to beat them in front of their students. I'll have my special outfit on, gloves and all, with all the exolimbs underneath. They will never get hold of me to remove the stuff. I will have to spend this coming week's three dollars on a lesson, if it's enough."

"What's going through your thoughts, Ann?"

"Do you think I would be any good at the karate? I would like to try. It would be good to feel as confident as you around boys and girls like that one who just attacked us."

"You would have to start at the bottom."

Ann suddenly realized that if she defeated two high black belts, it would certainly arouse Mary Wathlow's suspicions.

"Don't worry," she said, "The truth is that I have been taught a few things too."

Ann wanted Mary to think that she had learned some martial arts. In reality, her statement referred to Butler One's having taught her to use the exolimbs.

"Why don't you use what you've learnt at school?" asked Mary.

"I've never needed to. There aren't many girls like that tall bully in this school."
"Let's test you out. You must have been kidding me when you asked about what sparring was. Do you want to spar with me?" asked Mary.

"I'll try," said Ann.

Mary bowed Ann copied her, and then dodged a forward kick, which was aimed at her right leg just below the thigh. Ann kicked out erratically with her right exoleg, and caught Mary's left thigh, knocking her over sideways with a terrific force that did not need any martial arts skills to assist it.

Within Ann’s pocket, tiny Wendell felt the sudden movements by Ann, and began to fear what would happen if Mary kicked Ann in the spot that concealed him.

"Alright, enough," said Mary, "I've never seen a kick like that before. Whatever you learned must be good stuff. You should come along to one class and get graded."

"I could come after school next Thursday," said Ann.

"Good. I'll see you at the hall at four o'clock."

"I'll see you at school before then," said Ann.

"Please don't tell anyone we do it though. I like the advantage of only revealing it as a surprise by using it when I really need to."

"Sure, I understand," said Ann, thinking, "And do I ever appreciate the idea of keeping it a secret. I wonder what she would say if she knew what really enabled me to kick her that hard."