To Hawaii with Love by Michael P. Spradlin

CHAPTER ONE
Future Goddesses of America
There is a crazy man after me. Not just your normal crazy man either. Not some simple ordinary type of crazy, like a celebrity stalker or someone who gets messages from outer space. This is a guy who thinks that he can rule the world. We’re talking Adolph Hitler type looniness here.

Many years ago this guy accidentally discovered an ancient temple in a Middle Eastern desert that was once dedicated to a Roman God named Mithras. When he discovered the temple, either he unleashed some kind of supernatural force that made him nutso or his obsession with what he found is what caused him to check himself into the Crazy Hotel.

Oh, and did I also mention that he thinks I’m the living reincarnation of the Goddess Etherea? I told you: whacko. Anyway, whatever he thinks or however he came to think it, the main thing is he wants me dead. Somehow he’s got the idea that I’m the only thing standing between him and world domination.

His name is Simon Blankenship. For many years he was a member of an elite, clandestine group of US Secret Agents called the Blackthorn Squad. My headmaster and teacher, Jonathon Kim, was a member of the Blackthorn Squad as well. Mr. Kim was with Blankenship when he discovered the temple, but whatever happened in there didn’t make him crazy. I know this because Mr. Kim is probably the most centered and non-crazy person I know.

Mr. Kim is the headmaster at Blackthorn Academy, the boarding school in Pennsylvania that I attend. Well, ‘attend’ is not exactly the right word. Saying you ‘attend’ a school would imply that you had a choice in whether or not to go there, whereas I really didn’t. See, I was in a little trouble with the law and this Judge said I could either go to the school or go to Juvenile Detention. Since I figured that a young girl from a wealthy Beverly Hills family wouldn’t do so well in Juvie, I chose the school. Yep. I fought the law and the law won. I’ve been here for just about two months now and it’s been ‘interesting’ to say the least.

I’ve had to work every other day in the school’s kitchen, attend a full load of very difficult, really weird classes, and start to learn Tae Kwon Do, and for the most part I’ve been denied my beloved internet access. Also, I discovered that the school secretly sits on top of one of the most sophisticated crime labs and secret agent hangouts in the world. That’s because Mr. Kim, the former secret agent, established the school to train students to become members of a worldwide network devoted to stopping Blankenship and his Mithrians. Sometimes some of the upper classmen here at Blackthorn, the ones who belong to the ‘Top Floor’ section go on missions with agents to help with surveillance or sting operations. That’s way cool. Mr. Kim won’t let me into Top Floor yet, but I’m wearing him down.

Along with some of the other students here I also helped Mr. Kim recover a very rare, ancient book that Blankenship had tried to steal. Of course it worked out that Mr. Kim had actually switched the books ahead of time, so Blankenship ended up with a fake. Only Blankenship doesn’t know it’s fake. He thinks it’s real. Which is a good thing for us.

After that was when Blankenship, who now calls himself Mithras, swore that he would seek his revenge on me. Like I said, he thinks that I am the reincarnation of the goddess Etherea who, according to legend, was sent by the gods to banish Mithras to the underworld.

Did I mention he was crazy?

“No Rachel, you must cock your hip first, then sweep your arm like this and throw the attacker across your leg, like this,” said Mr. Kim. He grabbed the front of my do bak and sent me sprawling to the mat. I felt the air whoosh out of my lungs. Again.

From where he was watching Alex Scott let out a chuckle. Alex is a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and, while he’s pretty strong and brave and stuff, he’s really kind of a pain in my backside. He’s always laughing at me because for the most part, I’m a total klutz. Still I gave him my best stink eye as I struggled back to my feet.
Brent Christian, who was almost a black belt stood next to Alex, but Brent was different. He was quiet, soft-spoken and gentle and he never laughed at me when I exhibited my less than graceful nature. Also, it didn’t hurt that he has this kind of young Colin Farrell thing going either.

It was 7am and I was in the school’s do jang, taking another private Tae Kwon Do lesson from Mr. Kim. Do Jang is a Korean word that means “the place of the way.” It’s a training room where students practice and learn. Since all the fuss with Blankenship, Mr. Kim had decided that we needed to accelerate my Martial Arts training. So I met him at 6:30 every morning in the do jang where he drilled me relentlessly on the patterns and taught me self-defense moves. Alex and Brent came along most mornings to help out.

There were only two problems with this as far as I was concerned. The first was that I am not a morning person. It was bad enough that everyone at Blackthorn is an early riser, go-getter type. I mean, they serve breakfast at 8 o’clock and classes start a half hour later for crying out loud. I can’t possibly form a coherent thought before 10am. The second problem was that since Mr. Kim had started these “extra training sessions,” most of the ‘extra training’ involved me landing on my keister. Because Mr. Kim, in addition to being a super spy and the headmaster at this school, is one of the very best martial artists in the world. He is a 9th Dan in Tae Kwon Do, an Aikido master, and not only that, he is a personal friend of Jackie Chan. Needless to say, I was a little over-matched, so I spent most of my mornings flying through the air in one direction or another. But Mr. Kim felt it was important that I learned as much as I could, as fast as I could.

Don’t get me wrong. There aren’t any shortcuts to learning a martial art. Believe me, because I looked for them. All you could do was practice and train over and over until the movements and patterns became second nature. So Mr. Kim’s solution to my problem was simply to train more. And when Mr. Kim felt something was important, he had a way of making you feel it was important. Only somehow he made it all seem like it was your idea. He was a tricky one, that Mr. Kim.

I stood there for a moment, hands on my knees, trying to get my breath while shooting daggers at Alex. I don’t like being laughed at and he seemed to think my training is all a big joke. He’d told me earlier that I didn’t have the ‘martial arts mentality.’ I’d replied that I thought it was amazing that he could use three such big words in the same sentence and congratulated him on his improving verbal skills. Since I always had to have the last word, he was a little sore at me. Hence the chuckling while Mr. Kim tossed me around like I was his own personal cat toy.

Speaking of Mr. Kim, he stood waiting for me to straighten up so he could throw me a different way again. I thought maybe a question would stall him before I took another short flight across the room.

“Mr. Kim?” I said.

“Yes?”

“I have a question,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Well, you told me that Simon Blankenship is going to be gunning for me now and that the only way to stop him would be to find him first, right?”

“You are correct.”

“Well, how are we going to do that? I mean how are we going to find him when he has followers all over the world and a million places to hide and we never know where he is?”

Mr. Kim straightened his do bak while he looked at me and then almost faster than I could see, he launched a spin kick. But I was ready this time and since he was only going at about half speed, I was able to catch his kicking leg with my crossed arms and at the same time, sweep his standing leg from under him with my foot and send him to the mat. Take down, Rachel Buchanan! I couldn’t believe I had done it. Soon I’d be starring in the remake of Fists of Fury. Hah! I gave Alex a smirk and was very pleased to see the look of total disbelief on his face. Brent smiled and gave me a big thumbs-up. I noticed that he had a pretty cute smile when he smiled, which wasn’t often.

“Excellent, Rachel! First rate!” Mr. Kim bounced back up quickly and beamed a big smile at me. “You showed excellent reflexes. Self-defense is a matter of thinking and planning ahead. When someone approaches you, someone who may be a potential foe, you must learn to sub-consciously do a ‘threat assessment’. If that person is an attacker, what are they likely to try first? From which direction might they launch a strike? Continually ask yourself those questions and eventually it will become second nature.” Mr. Kim was still smiling. Alex was shaking his head and staring at the floor

“How did you anticipate my kick?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“Think. It is important.”

I paused for a moment and closed my eyes, replaying the sequence in my mind. I saw Mr. Kim straighten his do bak and then launch the kick. But wait. While he had straightened his uniform, his weight had shifted to his left leg as he prepared to kick with his right.

“I saw your weight shift, right before you kicked. I knew something was coming and it gave me a chance to prepare,” I said.

“Excellent. Well done. You see what I mean? You can learn to do this almost without thinking so you are always ready.”

“Ok,” I said, “but still, you were only at about half speed. If you’d been going full out, I never would have seen that kick coming,” I said.

“Two things, Rachel. First don’t be negative. You did something well. Accept that. Second, you are correct, my skills in Tae Kwon Do far surpass yours at this point, but not everyone you meet in battle will have my level of skill. Most attackers are clumsy and unbalanced. In time, they will pose little threat to you. With time and enough study, you may reach 9th Dan yourself.”

Sure, and I also might become the fourth member of Destiny’s Child. But then I thought about that for a moment and decided he had a point. Not the part about becoming the 9th Dan, but that in the last two months, I had trained hard and I was getting better at this. To Alex’s shock and dismay I’d progressed all the way to a green belt. I mean, I’m still a klutz for the most part, but I was improving.

Wait a minute. Did he say ‘meet in battle’? Battle? Gulp.

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“Teens will love the hip language, the nonstop action and the strong characters!
~ VOYA, Starred Review

“This thoroughly enjoyable James Bond-esque romp is pure, action-packed fun!
~ Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“A healthy dose of butt-kicking and intrigue!”
~ The Florida Sun-Sentinel

When it came time to continue the adventures of Rachel Buchanan, I knew almost immediately that I wanted to set the story in Hawaii. During a previous vacation there, a visit to Volcanoes National Park left an indelible impression on me. Parts of it are almost eerie, with steam rising out of the ground and you realize that in some places you are standing over a river of molten lava. The entire island is full of lava tubes and it just seemed like the perfect place for a megalomaniacal madman intent on world domination to build a hideout.

Not to mention the fact that I got to take another vacation to Hawaii to do research!