Chapter 5

This week of school was as dull as last week, not counting the date with Jack, but it was more interesting on Tuesday when I started my Krav Maga lessons. Oh, Man, this was not one of those fancy to-dos where there there was a lot of bowing and formal carrying on. This class was run as a strictly business operation where one was expected to perform or get out. I loved it.

I was no stronger than the average girl when the class started, and I often would be paired with boys stronger than me. I had to remember that I was here to learn and not to show off, so I had to be sure that I did not use TK to enhance my physical abilities. That meant that I was usually the loser in a contest of strength, but I was often the winner when it came to a contest of finesse or skill.

By Thursday, I was better acclimated to the routine, and I did better, but I was still no match for the larger and heavier boys when it came to the strength skills. Later on, I would start using my TK to balance out my lack of strength, but I was gaining the respect of the teacher and the other members of the gang as I learned how to wiggle out of some of the strength holds.

There were seven boys and I was the only girl, so I did take a lot of teasing at first, but it didn’t bother me because I could see that it was in good natured fun. Boys just had different ideas of what was funny, sometimes. Once I learned that, I got along well with the boys.

I could feel my strength build as I worked, and I do mean worked, my way through the class. Well, I had asked for it, and I was getting it. Later on in the year, I actually wound up teaching some of the skill moves as the bigger boys had trouble grasping what they were supposed to do. All in all, the Krav Maga class was great fun, and it damned well taught me how to fight.

I got to use some of that knowledge about six weeks into the school year. I found that I was able to regulate the temperature of my body armor, so that I was never too cold nor too hot, and that made it easier to get around in my pseudo clothes. One Wednesday as we were riding the bus home, we had to come to a stop. There was something wrong with the bus, and we were stuck in a somewhat less than respectable neighborhood.

The bus driver said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have what seems to be a drive shaft problem, and this bus ain’t going anywhere under its own power. I’ve radioed for another bus and for a tow truck, but the other bus will not be here for at least an hour. My guess is more like two hours at the minimum. Any of you who want to get off and find other transportation home please feel free to leave. There certainly is nothing that you or I can do to improve the situation.

Well, by this time, I had enough strength and stamina to walk the rest of the way home if I did not try to set any records. Muffy was not going to join me; I think that she was still thinking of the last time we walked through such a neighborhood. I set out and figured to walk as far as I could. When I got too tired, I would teleport myself the rest of the way home. I was no longer using the walker; that would not be in the way.

I had gone about four blocks when I almost literally ran into four boys who blocked the sidewalk. One of them said, “Well, well, look what we found, my friends. Fresh meat all done up in a schoolgirl package. What more could we ask for, and she might even be a virgin.” I presumed that sort of talk was supposed to scare me, but it just jazzed up my adrenalin supply. I did give them a chance to escape by saying, “You guys have no idea what your are heading for. I recommend that you back off while you still can.”

I guess that was the wrong thing to say because it did impugn their macho self-image. All the four did was laugh, but I felt like I had done what I could to ease their suffering. I could understand their feeling of superiority because they were all bigger than me and there were four of them, so my efforts at a peaceful solution were probably doomed the moment they saw me.

Anyway, the spokesman grabbed my arm, and that was a far as I was prepared to let them to. I immediately transformed my clothes into the Avenger uniform and attacked. The one who had grabbed my arm was the closest, so he got the first taste of what I could do. I went into full battle mode and slammed my fist down on his extended arm. I don’t know how hard I hit him, but there was TK strength added to my own. I aimed for his wrist, and my blow shattered it immediately. He screamed and tried to jump back, but I grabbed that arm with the broken wrist and held on to give me some leverage when I smashed his opposite elbow. I then jammed my fist into his solar plexus and let him fall to the ground.

The next man tried to hit me in the chest. I’m not sure where he was aiming, but he would have hit my breastbone if he had completed his jab. I let him get very close with his jab before I grabbed his fist with my left hand and squeezed. Again, I used TK to help. I simply crushed his fist. I also kneed him in the crotch, and he was out for the duration.

The third man tried to grab me from behind while the fourth man moved in to grab one of my tits and rotate it. That would have been very painful if he had been successful. However, I dropped to my knees so that the two heads crashed into each other. I don’t know if any bones were broken in either skull, but they did hit hard enough to generate a mild concussion. I straightened up and kicked each man in the crotch and then broke all of the elbows and knees that were still in one piece.

I searched the men and found a cellphone which I used to call 911. I reported that four men had tried to rape me, but I had been saved by a woman dressed in a red outfit and who called herself Avenger. The dispatcher wanted me to wait until the cops showed up. I asked how long the wait would be, and I was told that it might be thirty minutes. I said that I was not going to wait around that long alone in this neighborhood. I would wait 10 minutes and then I was leaving. I got a whole lot of static from the dispatcher, but I finally hung up on her.

After 10 minutes, I left. I dodged into the alley and changed back into the Avenger uniform and took off to fly home. I went straight up about 500 feet and headed home. I figured that no one would be looking in the sky, and anybody who saw me would figure that his eyes were playing tricks, and I was just a bird.

I landed behind the garage on the side where nobody was home, changed to normal clothes, and walked around to the front door. I used my key and went inside. I went to my room and used the shower in the attached bathroom. I felt dirty from contact with those creeps.

I dried off and changed into my “painted on” clothes before going downstairs. Mom was in the kitchen, and she said, “You are running a little late. What happened. All I said was, “The bus broke down and I had to walk partway home. When can I get a car?”

“I’d like to get you a car, but we don’t have the money right now.”

“I think from what Dad said to me the other day that he could come up with the money if you would okay it.”

“Well, I’ll talk to him, and maybe we can get you a used car.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I headed to the TV to see what the news might have. This must have been a slow news day, but about an hour later, the TV news reported that four men had been found on Anderson St. badly beaten up. They refused to say who had done it, but there was a 911 record of a woman calling in to say that a woman dressed in red had rescued her from four rapists. The reported address was where the four injured men were found.

That was really more of a report than I had expected from the TV, so I was happy with the first report of an Avenger strike. I was not out to get a reputation, but the public did need to know about me before they could ask for my help. I was going to discuss the situation with Dad when he got home.

While I was waiting, I started using a little trick that I had discovered for myself a few weeks ago. I found that I could identify any element by the way it affected a sense for which I had no name. It was kind of like testing the DNA of the material, and I could identify the types of atoms it contained. I had not yet advanced to identifying molecules, because I did not yet know enough chemistry.

At this point, I was scanning a material and then comparing it with similar stuff that I could find. Of course, being a woman, it did not take long for me to sniff out gold. Somehow, the identifier for gold and silver stuck with me, and I didn’t have to do any comparisons to make the identification.

I shifted my attention to the gold fields of Montana and plunged my notice to several thousand feet deep. It only took about half an hour for me to identify a mother lode of gold, and I mentally marked it so that it would be easy to find again. I did pull out a small piece to show to Dad. That should convince him that I had known what I was talking about a few weeks ago when I promised that we would never be short of money.

This nugget weighed a little over seven Troy ounces, so it was worth on the order of $10,000. I could use TK to melt it into smaller bars if he thought that was preferable. When he saw it, of course, Dad was astonished. “Oh, my God, Liz, when you said that you could come up with gold, I never expected that you meant this much at one time. Is there more where this came from, and how much do you think is still there.”

Dad looked kind of pale when I said, “There is probably at least two more tons, and maybe more. Do you want me to find out exactly?”

“Oh, no, don’t go to that trouble. I was thinking of more like two or three pounds if we were lucky. Where did you find it?”

“I looked under the old Montana gold fields that have been long abandoned. There is a lot of gold still there, and it would be easy for me to get. The gold is very deep and not likely to come to the surface because of a lack of seismic activity in that area. I don’t know much about those things, so I will let you handle the gold after I retrieve it. Is that acceptable?”

“Yeah, I’ll handle it from here. Let’s find a sack to keep that in to keep away the curious. This Saturday, you and I should visit a shop that buys gold to see how much this is worth on the open market. If it is worth the $10,000 or so that I expect, then another piece about half this size will get you that car you want.”

“Okay, give me a couple of minutes.” About three minutes later, a nugget weighing about four Troy ounces was perched in the middle of his desk. “Let’s sell this as soon as possible so that I can have my car.” I smiled at that, but I think that Dad could see by my facial expression that I was not kidding.

“Okay, let me see what I can work out before Saturday, but we will sell the gold on Saturday and find you a used car. I think that a new car would be a red flag to the IRS, and I want to dodge them for now. Later on, we will pay all of the taxes that we owe.” That was what I wanted to hear, and I left him to find a suitable cloth bag to hold the two nuggets until Saturday.

Mom came up with a plain cloth draw-string sack, and we stuffed the two nuggets in that and put the whole thing in the small safe Dad had in his den. Oh, Boy, I could hardly wait for Muffy to see my new car, whatever it turned out to be.

That Friday, I had another date with Jack, and I had to struggle not to tell him too much. Fortunately, we spent most of the time talking about the Krav Maga class, and I was trying to get him to join. I figured that if he did, it would do wonders for his self-confidence. Mostly, we just held hands and talked—there was no movie on that either one of us wanted to see.

However, this night he did get up enough courage to touch my breasts through my clothes. He did stay away from my nipples, though, but just touching my breasts was enough to thrill me more than I would ever have expected. I’d had doctors and other medical professionals touch my breasts before, but the feeling was noting like having a boyfriend do it.

Yes, we now considered ourselves boyfriend (BF) and girlfriend (GF). Jack even kissed me goodnight on the lips. I almost floated into the house, and I would not have needed ESP to do it. That was truly heavenly!

The next day, Dad and I visited a couple of shops that advertised that they wanted to buy gold. It turned out that what they were really after was costume jewelry. A little mind reading told me that they really made their money by selling the gems that were attached to the jewelry, but that they did not include in their purchase price. I thought that was not ethical, and that was what I said to Dad. It took him only seconds to agree with me, so we started driving around the city with me scanning for somebody whom we considered ethical enough for us to deal with.

We finally ran across a tiny office that advertised “J. Aaron, Gold and Silver Broker.” We went inside the office and Dad introduced us to Mr. Aaron. While he and Dad made some trivial small talk, I madly scanned Mr. Aaron’s brain to test his honesty and to try to see how he would treat us. I jumped into Dad’s mind long enough to tell him that Mr. Aaron was honest, and I did not expect him to try to cheat us.

That was when Dad dumped the two nuggets on Mr. Aaron’s desk and asked how much would he pay for the two. All of this time, I was reading Mr. Aaron’s mind, and I was impressed at how quickly he suppressed a thought about heating us. At the time, refined gold was going for $1,446 per Troy ounce. Mr.Aaron offered us $1,000 per ounce, based on the fact that there was no assay of the gold.

Dad considered for about 15 seconds and countered with a demand for $1,200 per Troy ounce. Mr.Aaron had all kinds of reasons as to why he could not pay that much for raw gold nuggets, and Dad and I secretly agreed with him. Unfortunately, for Mr. Aaron, Dad was having fun, so he suggested $1,150 per Troy ounce. Mr. Aaron came back with an offer of $1,125, and Dad accepted.

The main thing that we were interested in at this point was in finding a good buyer and getting enough money to buy my car. The price of $18,000 for the two nuggets was okay with us. We took a check for that amount and left the two nuggets.

Dad asked Mr. Aaron if he would be interested in more gold after these nuggets were analyzed. Mr. Aaron jumped at that offer, and Dad said that he would be back with more gold as soon as he could. They shook hands on that, and we left to find me a car.

We visited several dealers and found what looked to be the best deal for a 2010 Ford Taurus for $7,000. Oops, the price dropped a $1,000 when the manager found out that we were paying cash for a car that had been on the lot long enough to become a burden to the dealer. I carefully checked the mind of the manager and the salesman, and the car seemed to be what they represented it to be.

The dealer had even repainted the car a beautiful red to try to get it to move. I loved that car and thought that it was the kind of car that did justice to Avenger. As soon as I got it home, I was going to coat the whole car with body armor to protect that wonderful red finish. Dad was listed as the owner of the car in order to keep the insurance costs down, but everybody knew that the car really belonged to me.