She has an answer to every question and she’s really good at focusing her chi.

Dear Dad,

My arms feel like rubber. I can barely hold the pencil in my right hand, and my left is even more tired. It feels good.

I spent an hour and a half hitting the heavy bag today. Rhonda came down and watched me do it. She kept giving me advice: “You should grunt when you hit like the kung fu guys do. It helps you focus your chi.” “Don’t dance around so much. You’re just gonna tire yourself out.” “Quit hitting like a girl.”

Rhonda’s a girl. If I could hit as hard as she does, I’d be fearless. She’s always been good at giving out advice. I never know if she actually knows what she’s talking about or not. She’s really convincing.

I remember reading this old book of Peanuts comics, and Linus asks his sister, Lucy, if farmers always bring dairy cows in at night. “Of course, you blockhead,” Lucy yells. “If they leave them out overnight they get pasteurized. Linus says something like, “I didn’t know that. I guess I’d make a lousy farmer.”

I’m Linus. Rhonda is Lucy. She has an answer to every question and she’s really good at focusing her chi. I don’t think Rhonda has ever been picked on in her life. At least outside of her house. Steffan and Keith used to wail on her pretty good.

When I was in second grade, this freckly-faced kid named Jim McMicken smashed my lunchbox on the second day of school. It was a brand new lunchbox. SpongeBob. I loved it. Jim McMicken was in Jan’s class—two years older than me. He kicked the lunchbox out of my hand as I was leaving the building at the end of the day. He shouted, “Hi-ya!” then brought his heal down and mashed a big dent into the box. I guess he was good at focusing his chi, too.

Rhonda came out of the building right after that, when I was probably crying or something. Jim McMicken was still glorying in his karate kick. Rhonda shouted, “Hey!” He turned pale and turned around. She walked up to him and tore open his backpack.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for my brother’s lunchbox.”

“It’s right there,” he said, pointing to the ground.

“That’s his old lunchbox. His new one is…right…here.” She pulled a cd player out of Jim McMicken’s backpack and handed it to me.

“That’s not a lunchbox!” protested Jim.

“Close enough. Don’t ever touch my brother again.”

Jim McMicken walked away. Rhonda tried to knock the dent out of my lunchbox. It didn’t really work. Mom made me use it the rest of the year anyway. But I still have the CD player and it still works.

I’ll talk to Mrs. Henry again tomorrow. Thanks for the boxing lessons.

Your son,

Trevor