Chapter 1

John Thompson and Mary Snelling were married on one of those beautiful summer days that come to central Florida occasionally. They had met at a Fourth of July dance put on by the city as part of the day’s celebrations. It was a case of love at first sight on both sides. By the end of July, they were living together in John’s apartment in Silver Creek. It took them seven months to decide that they had stalled around long enough and made plans for the wedding. Well, actually, it was Mary’s mother Joan who had made most of the plans.

That was okay with Mary because she was busy with her job as a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) and tax season was her busiest time. Joan jumped in and took over, and neither Mary nor John complained. Both of John’s parents had died in an automobile accident five years before, so his mother was not around to voice an opinion.

Anyway, John joined the Army as soon as he graduated from high school, and, in the course of events, spent two tours in Korea. There he fell in love with martial arts, especially Shaolin Kung Fu. The most interesting part for John was the stick fighting. After eight years in the Army, he resigned and started his own dojo in Silver Creek.

One would think that a dojo in a central Florida small city was bound to be a losing proposition, but he happened to get caught up in the craze for the Kung Fu movies. Therefore, he had students from miles around and built a solid reputation of teaching Kung Fu as a useful bit of self defense. By the time he had been in business for a little over two years, he had four employees who were doing the actual teaching while John was visiting the various schools to promote martial arts and Kung Fu.

He had hired Mary to look after the dojo’s books shortly after meeting her at the dance, and things had progressed from there. Within a week after the wedding, Mary discovered that she was pregnant, and it turned out that she was carrying fraternal twins. A normal pregnancy came and went, and Mary gave birth to Jack and Nelly Thompson.

Joan and Alvin Snelling, the grandparents, were overjoyed with the twins and would have taken over raising them if Mary had not figuratively beaten them away with a stick. Nevertheless, Joan and Alvin were very close to the kids. Alvin had been a “strong man” in a circus act, nothing fake there, and insisted that he wanted to do what he could to build up Jack’s muscles.

It only took one day for Jack to have Grandpa’s undivided attention for Nelly to scream that she wanted in on the program. Nobody could find anything wrong with that idea, and Alvin was highly amused and flattered, so Nelly was welcomed into the class to build up her muscles. Both kids were only three years old, so much of the training was really calisthenics to improve the muscular coordination of the kids, but the kids loved what they considered to be nothing but an extended play time with a favorite relative.

By the time the kids were five years old, Alvin’s efforts had turned the kids into two powerhouses of coordinated action. They never wanted to come back to Earth, and they were driving their mother nuts. She screamed for help to John, and he decided on an experiment. He took them on as special students in his dojo, and both kids were in hog heaven. Fortunately, the discipline of martial arts was what the kids needed, and even their 1^st Grade teacher was impressed at how well they performed in school.

Dad and Grandpa emphasized how important it was to learn everything possible, and this rang a bell with both kids when it came from their most respected elders. The upshot was that Jack and Nelly easily moved to the top of their class, and were reading, printing, and doing simple math as well as most of the second graders by the end of the school year.

By this time, Alvin had them moved on to simple exercises with light dumbbells. This was doing exactly what he had in mind for their strength. Even though the kids had just turned six years old, they were as strong as most of the kids in the 4^th Grade.

Of course, every school had its bullies, and this school was no exception. The first meeting with bullies fell to Jack. One day at recess, he was wandering around the playground, and Nelly was there with him. She tended to let Jack set the pace for their social progress in that she simply followed along with what he wanted to do unless it was simply too boring. So far, she had not reached that stage because 1^st Grade was too much of an adventure to be bored at anything.

They happened to approach some 4^th Grade boys who immediately noticed the fresh meat which they identified as easy pickings. One of the boys said, “Hey, you two. What are you doing in our territory? This section of the playground is reserved for the upper classes. You’re not supposed to be here.”

Jack answered, “Oops, sorry. We didn’t know that there was such a division.”

“What, are you calling me a liar? No snot-nosed 1^st Grader can get away with that! Come on, Boys, let’s show them who is the boss of this playground.”

One would almost think that Jack and Nelly had been waiting for such a challenge. They were immediately surrounded by the larger boys, and the jeering started as the boys built themselves up to attack. Naturally, this drew a crowd of other kids, none of whom were friends of the bullies, but who wanted to see the coming fight. Nothing was more exciting to kids that age.

Jack and Nelly recognized what had happened and stood back to back just as their father had taught them in the dojo. Finally, it happened. The loud-mouth who had started all of the trouble figured that he had all of the backing that he was going to get walked up to Jack and raised his fist to strike a blow. Jack never gave the bully a chance. He hit the boy as hard as he could in the bread basket (solar plexus). A careful listener could have heard the sound of the expelled air all across the playground.

Naturally, the bully bent over at the waist—he had no choice. This was when Jack raised his knee and caught the bully in the nose. Jack was not trying to break the boy’s nose, he just was following through with what he had learned at the dojo. Well, the nose was not broken, but blood spurted everywhere, along with the tears from the pain. The injured boy fell to the ground, and Jack did not attack him further.

Meanwhile, two of the boys from the other side of the circle rushed what had to be an even softer target: the 1^st Grade girl. Nelly hit the first boy in the solar plexus just as had Jack with his attacker, but she did not have time for the followup knee in the nose because the other boy was about to kick her. She turned her attention to him and ignored the first attacker.

She waited for the boy to kick at her before she dodged. In the process of dodging, she grabbed the extended ankle and pulled. That caused the boy to fall to his left side and break a bone in his leg. Nelly didn’t know or care which bone it was, all she was concerned about was that the boy was not able to mount any more attacks.

One of the teachers supposedly monitoring the playground finally showed up and was shocked by the mayhem dished out by the two 1^st Graders. Natuerally, she assumed that Jack and Nelly had started the fight simply because they were untouched, and three older kids were lying on the ground.

She pointed to Jack and Nelly and ordered, “You two, to the principal’s office.” She then called 911 for medical assistance.

Not knowing what else to do, Jack and Nelly went to the principal’s office and spoke to the receptionist. As usual, it was Jack who did the talking. “Ms Alfredson said that we should see the principal. She didn’t say why.”