Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) (23 page)

“There’s one more thing, it’s kinda
bad, and I’m most sorry about keeping this part from you all. Those men who
invaded the estate, killed my dad, he was afraid they were looking for
me
. I’ve been hiding from them, sort of,
for the last few months. But I’m sick of it. I’m not hiding anymore,” she said
with a ferocity that scared them all a little bit.

“What do they want from you,” Danny
asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

Emily paused for a moment,
pondering what it would be safe to tell them, what would be safe
for
them
.
There was no easy answer, so she just decided to push on with it.

“There’s no good reason,” she spat
out contemptuously. “My Dad said they think I carry some special gene,
something engineered in a lab, like, a secret code.” She paused, took a breath,
and continued. “There is no special gene, but they’ve fooled themselves into
thinking there is, and they’ll stop at nothing to find it.”

“Holy crap, Em,” said Wayne. “This
is all pretty wild, cloak and dagger stuff. You’re not just goofing on us, are
you?”

“I wish I was, believe me. These
assholes have destroyed my family. I’m not gonna let them take anything else
from me. I’m especially not gonna let them cheat me out of my friends. I love
you guys.”

The boys were shocked by this last
statement. They were thrilled to hear how she felt about them. But they each
knew there was a danger, obscure no doubt and perhaps illimitable, hidden in
all of this for them. But it’s in the nature of a boy’s soul that the threat of
danger, when it looms over the girl he loves, only sharpens his determination
to stick by her. He can’t bring his mind to focus on the danger. Only the girl
is real for him.

Emily had some sense of all this
and was not a little worried about it.

“Here’s the important part. These
are dangerous people. If you
ever
see
a suspicious person around the dojo, or around school, or anywhere near me, you
have
to keep clear. You know me, I
can handle myself. But I can’t risk your safety.”

“You mean someone like that woman
at the dojo before Christmas,” Danny asked.

“Yes, exactly like her! Steer clear
of her and anyone like her. Also, suspicious Chinese guys. Don’t approach
anyone like that. You have to promise me you’ll keep away from anyone who looks
wrong.” Emily was deadly earnest, and they all sensed it. “Guys, I mean it. You
have to promise me!”

They all reluctantly grunted and
nodded their heads in some sort of vague assent. That would have to do, Emily
supposed. She didn’t think she could get anything more explicit out of them.
She desperately hoped they would take her warning to heart. She was truly
frightened for their safety.

There was a long silence as they
all stared at Emily. Was there no end of the surprises this girl concealed?
Each one of them vowed in his heart to watch over her. They had no idea how,
but each one entertained the fantasy that he would be able to protect her at
the decisive moment whenever it arrived.

Emily spread her glances over all
of them, looking each one in the eye, this time not with a demanding glare, but
with affection. Finally, she wiped the last tears from her eyes, tears of joy
for the love of her friends.

“Let’s go, guys,” she said. “It’s
getting late.” They all nodded and went out to the SUV as Emily settled the
bill with the waitress. On the way home, she told them about her second
encounter with the guys from the pizza place.

“A video of it is on the web. You
can probably find it if you search for “ass kicking gas station” or something
like that.” Wayne had already found it on his phone before Emily had a chance
to ask them not to tell anyone it was her.

“Whoa, Em. It’s those same guys,”
Wayne chortled. “You really kicked that guy’s ass!” Danny grabbed the phone and
replayed it, hooting through the whole thing. Billy had to pull over so he
could see it, too.

“Did that girl pull a gun on you,
Em,” Billy asked, beginning to appreciate how awful that moment must have been.
“What did you say to her?”

“I asked her if she wanted me to
mess up her pretty face. You can see it had a powerful effect on her.”

“That guy you threw into the
building, he’s not moving. Is he dead,” Billy asked nervously.

“No, but his arm’s probably still
in a sling. But that’s my point. The whole thing was gross. There’s nothing to
brag about in it. I really wish they hadn’t insisted on a fight. And Wendy was
there. She saw it all. Be careful what you say around her. I think she’s still
a little freaked about it.”

“What’s the deal with her anyway,
Em,” Danny asked. “Isn’t she one of the Goths?”

“Yeah, I guess so. But she’s pretty
cool, you know. You should give her a chance.”

“Yeah, like I saw her wearing
non-black clothes before the break,” Billy observed.

“Next it’ll be non-black nails,
eyes. Who knows what else,” Wayne mocked and Billy and Danny laughed along,
until Emily brought them up short.

“Like I said, she’s just a poser
like the rest of us. Let’s cut her some slack, okay guys?” They murmured
another vague assent. They were surprised to hear how much this meant to her.
It was just another surprising side of their mysterious friend.

When she finally got back home,
Emily was exhausted. She left the luggage by the door and lay down in bed. She
was asleep almost instantly. The next morning, she unpacked everything and put
it all away. It was a good thing the apartment had a large closet, because the
clothes her mother had bought her filled it up. Six months earlier she couldn’t
have imagined it, though her mother would get immense satisfaction if she knew,
but Emily found it quite comforting to see all her new clothes hanging in her
closet. It was like a bit of ancient maternal magic her mother was working on
her from afar.

She spent the
rest of the day getting ready for school, buying groceries, household sundries,
cooking for the week, laying out clothes, all the domestic tasks she had foreseen
a few months earlier. She also sorted through the changes that would have to be
made in her various papers in keeping with her new resolve. This would include
changing the name on her truck and dirt bike, of course, maybe even selling
them and getting new ones. Most important of all, she would speak to the
secretary in the front office at school and get her to change the name on her
school records. She would also need to reintroduce herself to all her teachers
as Michiko. That by itself would probably suffice for the rest of the school to
hear of it. Undoubtedly some wit would be broken over her as a result, but that
didn’t really concern her. It was important to bring her real name out in
public, to live openly as who she really is, as the person who her parents
wanted her to be.

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Chapter 19:
Miss M Comes Out

The school secretary was a white
haired older woman, probably in her sixties, though to Emily’s eye she might as
well have been a hundred. Mrs. Telford had been working in the front office for
the last three decades. The records for thousands of students had passed
through her hands in that time. She remembered some from many years ago, but
her memory was not what it once was, and she couldn’t exactly recall who this
pretty girl in front of her now in fact was.

“Emily Kane, Ma’am.”

“That’s right, honey, I remember,”
she said trying to hide what didn’t need to be hidden. “And you want what now?”

“It’s my name, Ma’am. We need to
change it in my records, to put my legal name on the records.”

“Has your name changed,” she asked,
a little puzzled.

“No, not really,” Emily began,
spinning a tale about her name she hoped would be the last lie she would have
to concoct. “Emily Kane is just a family nickname. It’s what my cousins used to
call me. But my legal name has always been Michiko Tenno.”

“But what does it say on the birth
certificate we have on file?”

These records were carried over by
the school district from when she was first enrolled in elementary school. Emily
didn’t really know what was in the file. This was a sticky point she hadn’t
anticipated last night. Had her parents devised some sort of birth certificate
for Emily Kane? If so, it would be hard to explain how she had another one now,
with a different name. Emily’s mind raced through the possibilities as Mrs.
Telford shuffled over to the filing cabinets against the back wall. A moment
later she came back with a thick folder in her hand.

“Well I’ll be,” she exclaimed.
“There’s no copy of a birth certificate in here. How on earth did that slip by
unnoticed?” Emily breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

“I don’t really know, but I guess
that’s why the name on my records has been incorrect for all these years. Kane
is my father’s family name, so it’s always seemed natural to hear it. But when
I started doing college applications, I realized there was a problem.” That
story seemed plausible to Emily, though she wasn’t sure Mrs. Telford would buy
it.

But the old lady looked at the
photo attached to the file, and this was obviously the same girl sitting in
front her today. She had no reason to doubt what she was saying, even if it was
a bit unusual. She’d seen stranger things in her time.

“Do you have your birth certificate
with you, dear?”

“Yes, and my passport, too.” Emily
handed her the documents. Mrs. Telford was impressed. This was more
documentation than she was used to seeing. She made a photocopy of the birth
certificate and handed everything back to Emily.

“I’ll change the name on your
records in the computer and put a note in the paper files with your new
information.”

“Can’t we change the name on the
paper records, too,” Emily asked.

“Well, I don’t know. I’ll print out
your high school records with your new name and put them in the file, of
course. But the older records, the ones from elementary school, aren’t in my
computer. We’ll have to leave those as they are.”

Emily thought that might be good
enough. She toyed with the idea of switching out the files herself at some
later date. Mrs. Telford was unlikely to remember this conversation, especially
since she barely remembered who Emily Kane was in the first place. If the files
for Emily Kane simply disappeared sometime after graduation, no one would be
the wiser. It was a tempting notion, but she wasn’t absolutely convinced it
would be necessary.

“Thank you very much, Ma’am,” Emily
said politely. She smiled as she got up to go.

“You’re very welcome, dear. I’m
glad we got that straightened out, Miss… Tenno.”

“Oh, you can still call me Kane, if
you like. It’s my dad’s name after all,” Emily said graciously, as she stepped
out the door into the main corridor of the school.

She had a few minutes before her
lunch period so she headed to her locker to get her bento box and change out
books. She walked by Mr. Jameson’s room, her World History teacher, on the off
chance that he was available. She could see him through the window working at
his desk, so she went right in.

“Ah, Miss Kane, what can I do for
you?”

“Well, that’s just it,” Emily
began. “My name, it isn’t really Kane.” That was blunt enough, she thought.
Jameson looked puzzled.

“If that’s not your name, what is
it?”

“You’ll probably get a note from
the office about it soon. Kane
is
my
name, sort of. It’s my dad’s name. It’s what people in my family usually call
me. But it’s not my formal, legal name. That’s Tenno, Michiko Tenno.”

“You know, it’s the strangest
thing,” he said, a little embarrassed, “but all this time I’ve been assuming
you were Chinese. But I suppose you must be of Japanese descent, judging from
your name.” Emily smiled.

“I get that a lot. My mom’s from
Japan.”

“I see. Well, should I call you
Miss Tenno now?”

“That’s up to you. Either name is
fine with me.”

Emily felt very pleased with
herself. She knew Jameson would pass the word around the faculty, and from
there it would make its way around the students. But she especially enjoyed
showing indifference to her names. Of course, the difference between the names
meant the world to her. But it would still please her to answer to either one.

At lunch, Wendy sat with her. She
looked enviously at Emily’s lunch. Her mom had made her some sort of sandwich
and a bit of cole slaw. But Emily had an exotic meal prepared for her: pickled
vegetables with tofu on rice with what looked like teriyaki sauce. It hardly
seemed fair to Wendy.

“Where did you get
that
, Em?”

“I brought my lunch from home, just
like you.”

“I know, but yours looks so much
better. Did you make that?”

“Yeah, it’s like one of my mom’s
recipes. You want some?

“You bet,” growled Wendy hungrily.
Emily slid it across the table and ate some of the cole slaw. Wendy gobbled
Emily’s lunch down. She had eaten more than half of it before it occurred to
her that she should give it back.

“I’m sorry about that, Em,” she
said sheepishly.

“It’s okay, Wendy. If you like it
that much you can finish it. I’ll just eat yours.” Wendy giggled with delight
and finished it off. Billy and Wayne sat down a moment later. Emily ate half of
the sandwich and finished off the cole slaw.

“Hey, Wendy,” said Wayne, mindful of
Emily’s request the other night. “How you doing?”

“I’m okay. Thanks, Wayne.”

“You going to the dojo tonight,
Em,” Billy asked.

“I wouldn’t miss it. How about you
guys?” Just then Danny joined them.

“Hey, Wendy,” said Danny, trying to
sound like there was nothing out of the ordinary in her joining them at lunch.