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Monday's child is fair of face - Sam
Sam remembers what it was like in the Before Times, when boys’ eyes would slide right over her as if she were invisible. When merely brushing her hair and her teeth counted as being ready to go. When she and Aisha hurled inside jokes across the hours in a schoolday like skimming pebbles across the surface of a pond. When her body was useful For Things: spinning, kicking, blocking. Now she spends an hour on her makeup every morning and boys’ eyes get stuck on her like she’s covered in flypaper.
Tuesday’s child is full of grace - Demetri
“I want to try something,” says Yasmine, “close your eyes.”
“Uh,” says Demetri. Is this going to be where we give each other handjobs? he wonders, feeling a little hysterical.
Yasmine pulls his eyelids shut with two beautifully manicured fingertips, then wraps his arms around her waist. She sways her hips, the motion traveling through his hands into his wrists and up his arms, and pretty soon they are swaying together — holy shit, they’re actually dancing!
Wednesday’s child is full of woe - Robby
“People with disorganized attachment oscillate from two biological drives whenever the opportunity to attach comes about in life: the need to belong (to love and connect with others) and the need to survive (to protect oneself). People with this style of attachment often feel fear and anxiety when forming intimate relationships and suffer from a negative self-image and extremely damaging self-talk, not to mention intense loneliness.”*
“Christ,” Daniel stops reading and puts his phone down, scrubbing a hand over his eyes.
“It’s not your job to fix him,” Amanda says, coming up behind him and firmly resting her hands on his shoulders.
“I know,” says Daniel, turning to hide his face against the taut curve of her stomach, “but oh Mandy, me and Johnny... we made everything so much worse.”
Thursday's child has far to go - Eli/Hawk
They’d found an IQ test online when they were twelve, and of course Demetri insisted on taking it. And of course Demetri got deeply offended at testing two points below him, and launched into a diatribe about multiple intelligences, and how these tests were racist, classist, ableist and a whole bunch more -ists, which somehow eventually devolved into a heated debate about American imperialism.
If he could go back in time, before the birth of Hawk, would he? He supposes it’s a moot point, time travel being paradoxical and all. But two extra IQ points or no, he has no idea how to even begin to apologize to Demetri for the terrible things he did to him, or how to fathom why he’d done them in the first place.
Friday’s child is loving and giving - Miguel
Sam pushes her fingers into his thick black hair, tugs on it until he raises his eyes to meet hers. “Where... where did you learn to do that?” she gasps.
“You don’t want to know,” he mutters with a little rueful smile — ah, of course, Tory.
“Do you like doing it... to me?” she asks, a little shy.
“I love it with you, Sam,” he replies, beaming at her like the freaking sun before sinking his head down again and oh, oh WOW.
Saturday's child works hard for a living - Tory
$43.19 in tips, not bad, but not nearly enough, not two days before they’re going to cut off the electricity. Sensei can’t exactly threaten Southern California Edison for her.
She clicks on “Payment Assistance” and is immediately overwhelmed by the options: Family Electric Rate Assistance (FERA), 1-Time Energy Assistance Fund, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), 12-month Payment Arrangements Plan...
Tory feels a sharp prickle behind her eyelids, but tears are for losers and there are no losers in this dojo, are there, Ms. Nichols? She swallows hard and clicks “Learn More”.
And the child born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, good and gay - Aisha
“I thought you weren’t doing karate anymore,” Sensei says, grumpy as ever.
Aisha feels like her face might split in two, she’s grinning so hard. “I heard there was a lot riding on this year’s All Valley, and some things are worth risking parental anger for,” she says.
“Your parents don’t know you’re here?” he mutters, looking shiftily around the dojo. “Alright fine, but do not, DO NOT, tell Sensei LaRusso that, got it?”