158 Congratulations, Crimebuster!

When I got there, Neeka was holding her hand and telling her not to worry. I gave her the purse and we got back in the car and drove off. We were almost home before either of us spoke.

"I'll go into work right after school tomorrow to let them know I'm quitting," Neeka said. "So, I'll see you right after school on Friday, OK?"

"Yeah. We can check out what Bambi's had done to the workshop."

"The Dragon's Lair," she smirked.

"Oh, stop! See you later."

Neeka dropped me off and went on to the coffee shop. Bambi was waiting for me at the door.

"How did it go?" she asked.

"Fine."

"Sam! I can get that kind of answer from Jim or Bud. Tell me about your lesson."

"Sorry. I'm just a little down. The lesson went better than I hoped. Master Li is going to help me get control of my abilities. I learned a lot of exercises that will help. Having Neeka along makes a world of difference. We had a really good sparring session and Master Li gave us some good instruction. Kung Fu is actually much simpler than I thought. The fundamentals are very straightforward. Getting the form right can take a long time. Oh, and I broke a board."

"You broke a board? I thought that was advanced stuff."

"I guess it would be for someone else. Master Li could tell I was pulling my punches. After class he asked to see what I could really do."

"And you felt comfortable showing him?"

"Yah. He's the kind of person who inspires confidence. He tries real hard to be unreadable. I think he thinks it's expected. Anyway, I impressed him by breaking his board."

"How would that impress someone like him? Don't they do that sort of thing in demonstrations all the time?"

"Well, this wasn't that kind of board. This was a two-inch thick slab of fresh, rough-sawn oak with a couple of layers of rope wrapped around it. You're supposed to practice hitting it, but it's not supposed to break."

"And you snapped it like a toothpick."

"No. I blew it into tiny splinters like it had been hit with an artillery shell. A big artillery shell."

"Ah!"

"Yeah, that's what Master Li said."

"So why are you depressed?"

"On the way home after the lesson, Neeka and I stopped a purse-snatching."

"Good! So why are you depressed."

"A purse-snatching? It's just so... minor."

"I'm sure it wasn't minor to the woman whose purse was stolen."

"I guess. But... I mean, I didn't actually do anything. I just ran up beside the guy and he freaked and knocked himself out on a lamppost. I didn't touch him. I didn't even have to use harsh language."

"I hope they are all that easy."

"It just seems such a waste. Today at school I ripped the lock out of a fire door and I jumped over a fence and did a flip over a bus. So what do I do with all this speed and power? I stop pursesnatchers."

"You'd rather be fighting super-villains, monsters, giant robots, mad scientists, and invading aliens?"

I laughed. "Not a lot of those around here. All the other superheroes must have mopped them up."

"How about murderers, kidnappers, and rapists? Would they be more to your liking?"

"Yeah. They would."

"So you wouldn't mind people getting killed or raped, or babies being stolen from their cradles so you could have a more exciting afternoon."

That put things in a totally different perspective. I sat and thought about what a selfish little twit I was. While I was wondering why she put up with me, the phone rang and Bambi went into the kitchen to answer it.

By the time she got back I was so ashamed of myself I wanted to crawl under the rug.

"Congratulations, crimebuster!"

"OK, please don't rub it in." I said. "You made your point. I feel terrible."

"That was Sheriff Foster on the phone. He said to thank you."

"For a purse snatcher? Why? Was that his mother who got attacked?"

"No, the trash you so untidily left lying on the sidewalk was the suspect in a string of convenience store holdups. Including the one where the pregnant girl was hurt — you know, the Cuban girl who got the beer bottle broken over her head and almost lost her baby. Bob said to tell you that when he said he wouldn't mind finding the occasional felon lying on the sidewalk — he didn't think you would take him so literally."

"Is that what made him think it was me?"

"Not entirely. Apparently some good citizen called 911 and the cops got there just after you left. The woman you helped gave them a description of you two and Bob recognized the 'short, large-breasted, blonde girl'. That, and your modus operandi of leaving the perpetrator horizontal and incapacitated pretty much spelled it out for him. He says Deputies Murphy and Rosario will probably get a citation for making the arrest; even though all they did was pick the guy up off the ground."

"Damn."

"You did good. Still disappointed about the shortage of mad scientists and killer robots?"

"I guess not. There is a lesson here that I hope I can remember. And speaking of lessons... I better get going on my homework."

I took my bag down to my usual spot in the downstairs family room and worked through my assignments.

After I finished, I used the computer to look up psychological conditioning and ways to reverse it. I found a lot of very disturbing stuff on how to turn people into human bombs. I also found a lot of stuff on classical and operant conditioning and deprogramming and de-conditioning. Some of it sounded like George Orwell wrote it. I came away with the basic tools to help Jolene deal with her problem: support, reasoning, reinforcement, reward. She needed support while she dealt with it, a reasoned explanation of why she was afraid to be alone with a boy, reinforcement of any changes in her behavior, and a reward if she were able to make progress toward losing her phobia.