Page 49 of The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly

When we graduated from our short driveway, we moved to a city park down the road. There was a long trail that ran beside a pond filled with suburban runoff, electric-green lily pads, and cattails. Midway down the path, right in the center of a narrow isthmus where the path crossed the pond, Chris had hung five rings in a row from an overhanging willow branch. He argued that putting the rings on this narrow strip of asphalt between the ponds would force us to stay balanced, just as if we were on real horses.

It was my turn first.

“Ride!” I whispered to myself, balancing my feet on the bike pedals.

I gripped the end of a garden rake that was standing in for today’s lance, and I pedaled. The trees and playground equipment raced past, smears of green and yellow. Kids’ laughter filled my ears, and I imagined they were roars from a crowd at the Castle.

As I approached the rings, I adjusted the garden-rake-turned-lance (exactly like the ones we’re using to train at Layla’s) in my right hand. As real knights had done in the Middle Ages, I angled it across my body.

My left hand gripped the handlebars, steering.

“GO KIT!” Chris yelled from the sidelines.

One ring, swish.

Two rings, swish.

The rings rattled down the garden rake’s pole and landed on my wrist like bangles. A wide grin split my face. One more left.

I was almost to the last ring, balanced perfectly in the middle of the isthmus, when the wind shifted. The ring wavered, and I adjusted the garden rake accordingly. It was a matter of the briefest bit of timing. Maybe a butterfly flapped its wings in South America and that threw me off. Maybe there was a stone on the path. To this day, I don’t know. But whatever it was, it disrupted my fragile balance. My hand slipped; the pole dropped from my grip. With a clatter it fell onto the path, bounced sort-of sideways, and somehow wedged itself in the spokes of my bike. The front of the bike tipped forward, rocketing me off the seat.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed as I tumbled into the pond.

Rocks scraped my arm as I fell, and I landed in the sludge deep within the cattails. Mud splashed up into my face, and one of my slip-on sneakers came off in the muck. Water rose up to my waist.

“KIT?!” Chris crashed through the reeds, looking for me.

“I’m fine,” I called. I reached into the mud, looking for my sneaker, but it was long gone.

Chris appeared at the edge of the bank, parting the cattails to gape at me. “Are you hurt? I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have insisted we practice on the isthmus.”

I started to reply, but—no joke—at that moment, a frog leaped off its lily pad and landed on my head.

Brave Kit, sitting in the mud, with a frog on her head.

Laughter bubbled out of me, and I reached for Chris’s hand.

“I’m fine,” I managed to get out through gasps of laughter. “Not your fault at all.”

He pulled me up the bank and we collapsed on the ground, both of us laughing too much to speak. A mother pushing a stroller called out to us, “Are you two okay over there?” She shot us a look like she suspected we were smoking pot or something.

“Totally fine,” Chris had called out, waving her down the path.

“But, m’lady,” I added, “we fear the garden rake may never be the same!”

Giggles overtook us again, and when we were finally done laughing, we lay on the grass, looking up at the spring sky.

“Still want to keep training?” Chris asked as he handed me a water bottle. I used it to wash some of the mud from my face and hands.

“Ha! Of course. I’m going to be a Knight. Even if it kills me.”

“At this rate it very well might,” muttered Chris.

I punched him lightly in the arm, and we retrieved our bikes. As we ambled home, we talked about sword moves and new plans for training.

But now, despite all that training, being a Knight could’ve killed Chris. Was it worth it?

I still want to say yes, but first I want to see Chris. Shoving the pancakes from Jett into the nurses’ fridge, I walk down the hall to see what shape the Red Knight is in.