Chapter 109: The Neighbor Situation, Continued
Georgie stopped at the front door and looked at Mike with the expression of someone who had been working on a problem and hadn't arrived at the solution.
"There has to be something else," he said.
"There is something else," Mike said.
Georgie's face lit up.
"But it's not a good idea," Mike said.
"Tell me anyway," Georgie said.
"You could find a time to walk past Cecily on your own and give her a very serious look," Mike said. "Tell her in your most authoritative voice to leave Sheldon alone. She's six. It might work for about a week."
Georgie considered this.
"That's — I mean—" He paused. "I'm seventeen. That would be genuinely menacing to a first-grader."
"Yes," Mike said.
"So that's why it's not a good idea."
"That's why it's not a good idea," Mike confirmed.
Georgie looked at the street.
"I'm a good person," he said.
"I know," Mike said.
"I just wanted to help."
"I know," Mike said.
They went inside.
The living room had the assembled quality of a family waiting for a report.
Sheldon was there, which was notable — he'd come back out of his room at some point, which meant his curiosity about the outcome had outpaced his wounded dignity.
He was sitting in the chair nearest the hallway, in case a rapid retreat became necessary.
Mary looked at Georgie.
Georgie made the small, acknowledging gesture of someone who hadn't fully delivered on the mission.
Mary looked at Mike.
Mike told her what had happened — the conversation with Jeff Patterson, Cecily's response, the frog biology suggestion.
The family absorbed this.
"That's sensible," Connie said. "Sheldon might end up with a new friend."
"No," Sheldon said, immediately and firmly. He had the expression of someone for whom this option was not on the table. "Absolutely not."
"Sheldon—" Mary started.
"She's been psychologically tormenting me for two weeks," Sheldon said. "Friendship is not the appropriate resolution."
"She didn't know she was tormenting you," Mike said. "She thought you were playing."
Sheldon looked at him.
"I was not playing," he said.
"I know," Mike said. "But she didn't."
Sheldon appeared to consider this information and find it insufficient to change his position.
He looked at Mike with the specific, evaluating expression he used when he was about to ask for something.
"I want you to teach me to fight," he said.
The room went quiet.
"Sheldon," Mike said.
"I've watched you play football," Sheldon said. He said it with the earnest, practical energy of someone who had done their research. "You knocked considerably larger people to the ground on a regular basis. I need to be able to do that to one specific person who is four feet tall."
"She's six," Mike said.
"I'm aware of her age," Sheldon said. "I'm asking for the skill, not the application."
Mike looked at him.
He looked at Mary, whose expression had gone through several things and had arrived somewhere that looked like it might be yes, which was not where Mike had expected it to land.
"Mary," he said.
"If it gives him some confidence," Mary said, carefully, "and if it's nothing that could actually hurt anyone—"
"It's a six-year-old," Mike said.
"Then it definitely won't hurt anyone," Mary said, with the specific, mild logic of a mother who had found a position and was going to hold it.
Mike looked at Connie.
Connie raised her beer in a small, noncommittal gesture that said: this is not my battle.
"Fine," Mike said. "Backyard. Ten minutes."
Sheldon stood up with the composed determination of someone heading into important work.
The backyard in the September evening had the specific quality of a space that was about to witness something that would be retold at family dinners for years.
Sheldon had located the foam padding from his jacket and had reattached it under his shirt with the specific thoroughness of someone who had thought about this.
Mike looked at the foam padding.
"That's going to make everything harder," he said.
"It's protective equipment," Sheldon said.
"It's going to limit your range of motion."
"I'm willing to accept that tradeoff," Sheldon said.
Mike looked at the sky briefly.
"Okay," he said. "The first thing about any physical confrontation is your base. Where your weight is. If your feet aren't planted, nothing works." He demonstrated — his own stance, weight low, balanced. "Try that."
Sheldon attempted to replicate it.
The foam padding under his shirt was doing things to his posture that were difficult to describe.
"Lower," Mike said.
Sheldon went lower. He wobbled.
"The other way," Mike said.
Sheldon went the other way. He wobbled in the other direction.
From the back porch, Connie had materialized with her Lone Star, ostensibly for the evening air.
Mike looked at her.
She looked at the middle distance.
"Okay," Mike said. "Lower your center of gravity and put more weight through your heels. Don't lean forward."
Sheldon adjusted.
It was a slight improvement.
"Now — if someone is coming at you and you want to stop their momentum without absorbing all of it, you don't stand straight in the path. You get low and redirect." Mike showed the motion. "Try to push my arm."
Sheldon pushed his arm.
Mike redirected it with a simple quarter-turn.
Sheldon stumbled forward two steps.
"Again," Mike said.
Sheldon tried again. Same result.
"The problem," Mike said, "is that you're committing all your weight to the push. When it gets redirected, you have nothing left to recover with. You need to—"
He stopped.
He had just watched Sheldon attempt to grab him around the waist — apparently deciding that a different approach was required — and achieve a position that involved Sheldon's feet being approximately four inches off the ground while the rest of Sheldon remained attached to Mike's midsection.
From the porch: a sound.
Mike looked at Connie.
Connie was not looking at him. She was looking at her Lone Star with very focused attention.
Her shoulders were doing something.
Mike set Sheldon back on the ground.
"Feet on the ground," Mike said. "That's the foundation of everything. Both feet, ground, generating force upward. Without that, none of the rest of it works."
Sheldon looked at his feet. Looked at Mike.
"What if my feet are on the ground and I still can't generate sufficient force?" he said.
"Then you use leverage instead of force," Mike said. "Put your foot behind your opponent's foot and push. They lose their balance. It works on size differential."
Sheldon's expression indicated this was a satisfying answer.
He tried it on Mike.
He got the foot position approximately right. He got the push approximately right. He then, for reasons that were not entirely clear, also tried to incorporate some element of the earlier waist-grab, lost his own balance in the process, and went sideways onto the grass.
From the porch, Connie made a sound that was not a cough.
Georgie's head had appeared in the kitchen window.
Mike helped Sheldon up.
"You're learning," Mike said.
"That's a very diplomatic description of what just happened," Sheldon said.
"You got the foot position right," Mike said.
Sheldon considered this.
"I did get the foot position right," he said.
"That's the hardest part," Mike said, which was not entirely accurate but was the right thing to say.
Sheldon brushed grass off his shirt with the composed efficiency of someone putting an outcome behind them.
"I think I've absorbed the fundamental principles," he said. "Further physical practice may not be the optimal use of my time."
"That's fair," Mike said.
"I'll continue developing the theoretical framework," Sheldon said.
"Good idea," Mike said.
Sheldon went inside with the specific dignity of someone who had decided the lesson was complete.
From the porch, Connie looked at Mike.
"Foot position," she said.
"He got it right," Mike said.
"He did," she said. She took a sip of her beer. "He really did."
The following afternoon, Sheldon came home from school with Georgie, retrieved the mail from the box at the end of the walk, and turned to find Cecily Patterson standing on the sidewalk.
She was not holding the frog.
She was holding a drawing.
Sheldon went extremely still.
"I drew you a picture," Cecily said. She held it out. It was a crayon rendering of what appeared to be two people, one very tall and one shorter, standing next to something that might have been a train or might have been a bus.
Sheldon looked at it.
"That's you and me," Cecily said. "And your train."
Sheldon's expression went through several things — the initial alarm response, then the processing of the fact that she was not holding the frog and was in fact holding a drawing, then the specific, confused quality of someone whose prepared response was designed for a different situation.
"You drew my locomotive set inaccurately," he said. "The scale is wrong."
Cecily looked at her drawing.
"Sorry," she said.
"The proportions would require the figure representing you to be much smaller," Sheldon continued. "And the figure representing me would need—"
"Sheldon," Mike said, from behind him.
Sheldon stopped.
He looked at Cecily.
Cecily looked at him with the patient, unintimidated attention of someone who had dealt with complicated reactions before.
"The locomotive set does have seventeen cars," Sheldon said, after a moment. "If you wanted to see it."
Cecily brightened.
"Okay," she said.
"Not today," Sheldon said quickly.
"Okay," she said again, with exactly the same brightness, apparently unbothered by the qualifier.
She turned and went back toward her house.
Sheldon watched her go.
He turned around and found Georgie and Mike looking at him.
"I was being polite," Sheldon said.
"I know," Mike said.
"It doesn't mean anything."
"Okay," Mike said.
Sheldon went inside.
Georgie looked at the Patterson house.
"He's going to show her the trains," Georgie said.
"Within a week," Mike said.
Georgie nodded.
"She's going to be over here constantly," Georgie said.
"Probably," Mike said.
They went inside.
(End of Chapter 109)
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