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I had been shocked when my grandmother had moved out of the apartment when my mother and Sensei Lawerence married. I had figured that Sensei Lawerence would move in with and things would continue like they usually were. But Yaya decided that she would make things more awkward for everyone and moved to a nice senior apartment complex across town. Which was why my mother was trying to hurry me out the door with a basket of homemade goodies for my grandmother’s birthday.

“Straight to your grandmother’s house, you hear me, Miggy?” she asked, looking at me with concern. “I’ve heard horrible things about a crazy man luring children into a van and kidnapping them and brainwashing them into karate zombies. We don’t want that to happen to you, now do we?”

“Hey!” Sensei said, hearing the words karate zombies and walking towards. “Being a karate zombie isn’t bad. We get all chicks.”

“Not help,” Mom said, giving him a look. “Now what are you going to do, Miggy?”

“He’s going to go to the bar and pick up a bunch of chicks,” Sensei said, jokingly. “Then he’s going to go and deliver that tres leches cake to his grandmother.”

“Johnny!”

I started to giggle a bit at this interaction. Sensei Lawerence was the best stepfather ever. He had a nack at being the best at everything I had ever met.

“Miggy!”

“I’d better get going,” I said, opening the door after pulling on a red hoodie. “Don’t want these goodies going to waste before Yaya gets them.”

“Hey, what about me?” Sensei asked as the door closed behind me.

Sorry, Sensei, every man for himself, I thought as I walked down the block to the bus stop that would take me to Yaya’s new house.

I had been walking companionable silence with myself and the baked goods that I was carrying when I felt like someone was watching me. Every time I looked to see who it was the feeling would diminish. But once I was comfortably walking again I would feel the prickling sense of dread crawl up and down my spine.

I pushed my earbuds into my ears and picked a song to calm my nerves. Sure Reseda had a lot of bad types out there but I was just letting my mother’s nerves get to me. Nothing bad was going to happen to me, right?

The nagging feeling continued to intensify as I got onto the bus at the bus stop. Like someone had followed me from the street onto the bus. I looked around me music still blaring to see if I could spot anyone who didn’t look familiar. Which was pretty much everyone. But it didn’t look like there was anyone who hadn’t been there on the street.

“Can I sit here, sonny?” asked a wolf-like man in a faded army green jacket.

“Sure,” I said hesitantly moving the basket of goodies I had put on the seat next to me. “Help yourself.”

“Thank you. What’s in the basket, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I’m taking my grandmother some birthday treats.” I opened the basket a bit in order to show off my mother’s famous tres leches cake. There were also some of my grandmother’s favorite cookies. A couple of hand pies in varying fruit flavors and homemade chocolates. Everything that a Yaya could want from her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.

“These look good enough to eat,” he said with a wolf-like grin that spread his features in a fear-invoking mask of almost terror. Sensei would have called me a pussy if had acted in fear. But Sensei wasn’t looking at this man. “Did you make these yourself, sonny?”

“My mom did,” I said, swiftly closing the basket and going back to listen to the music.

“Is that Metalica?”

“It is,” I said, raising an eyebrow. Why was this old man going out of his way to talk to me? Why was the feeling creep factor nine hundred intensifying? “My stepfather is a huge fan of 80’s rock bands. It’s something we’re bonding over.”

I didn’t bother adding they we also bonded over karate too. I thought that would be a bit too much information for a stranger off the street to know. After all, this man could be some sort of serial killer or something like that. Best to just stick to the information you would tell normal strangers and not get too in-depth.

“He sounds like an interesting character,” the man said, watching me carefully. “I’m sorry if I’m coming off a bit….” he seemed to wrack his mind for the word but didn’t seem to find it.

“Creepy.”

“I’m sorry if that’s how I’m coming off. It wasn’t my intention.” He held out his hand for me to shake. “I’m John. John Kreese. You are?”

“Miguel Diaz.” I shook his hand.

“I hope that kind of takes away a bit of the creep-out factor,” John Kreese said, shaking my hand firmly. “You’ve got quite the grip there, don’t you? The sort of grip one gets from working out. Are you an athlete?”

I had seen Sensei Kreese following Miguel from the moment he had stepped onto the street near my father’s apartment building. What kind of a stepbrother would I be if I didn’t watch out for him? What kind of a friend would I be?

Which is why I had followed him onto the bus at the corner. I had seen Kreese walk onto the bus and had tried my hardest to make my way to Miguel’s side before Kreese could get there. But I had failed.

“Are you an athlete?” Kreese asked, letting go of Miguel’s hand.

“Does that matter?” Miguel asked, sounding more uncomfortable than I had ever heard him.

“No. It’s just you have the grip of an athlete is all. I was just commenting on….”

I excused myself from my seat and went to the upfront of the bus. If no one else was going to take the cue and protect Miguel I was going to do.

“Excuse me,” I said, tapping the shoulder of the bus driver.

“What?” asked, the irritated-looking man, not bothering to look at me even out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s just an older gentleman is bothering a young man in the back of the bus,” I said, nodding to the back of the bus. A smile crossed my face as I realized that was something that would make him pay attention. I watched as he looked into the mirror looking back into the bus. He could see Miguel’s discomfort. “I’m sure that I can’t be the only one that is feeling just as uncomfortable as he is.”

“I’ll take care of it,” the man said, pulling the bus over to a chorus of confused cries.

I walked back to my seat and watched as the driver made his way down the aisle to where Kreese was still pestering Miguel. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Perhaps this could be the start of me making up to Miguel for pushing over the railing during our fight at school. Maybe this could be the start of Miguel seeing me as more than the Robby who bullied him and more of something else?

“Is this man bothering, young man?” the bus driver asked, surprising me and Mr. Kreese as he continued to pester me about what sort of sports I played. “We’ve been having a fair number of complaints about him.”

I stuttered in shock a bit looking around for someone else who would speak up. But when no one else did I only nodded.

“Sir, can you either please move seats or leave the bus?” the driver asked, nodding to the door.

“I wasn’t bothering the kid,” Kreese said, glaring at me and at someone behind us who I didn’t recognize but the person did look familiar. “I was only making conversation with him. Is it all of a sudden illegal to make conversation with someone on a bus?”

“If they look as bothered as this kid does then yes,” the driver said, raising an eyebrow. “Now as I said before, sir, you can either move seats or you can get off the bus.”

“You’re going to regret this,” he said, glaring once more at myself and the mystery man behind us.

I looked behind me and mouthed a quick thank you to the man who’d gotten Kreese away from me. Then I put my earbuds in once more. If I had known that Kreese had someone tailing the bus in case something like this happened I wouldn’t have been so relaxed as I was. But I didn’t know that. Nor did the boy who had come to my rescue.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and I couldn’t help but keep looking over my shoulder at my mystery savior. Why did he look so familiar? Was he someone that I went to school with? Was it someone who was a part of the karate dojo that I was a part of? Was he part of the karate world that both Sensei and I had built around ourselves?

I pondered these questions and the strange feelings I got in the pit of my stomach every time I made eye contact with this dark-haired boy. I had only felt these sorts of feelings for three other people before. Two of them were definitely girls and couldn’t be this person I was looking at now. The other one didn’t even know how I felt at all. He’d only just tossed me over a stair railing at school and broken my back.

Soon the bus had pulled up to the stop I usually got off at when walking to Yaya’s house. I yanked the cord to stop the bus and exited it. I could hear a commotion behind me as someone else realized they were about to miss their stop but no one else ended up getting off the bus. Edwardo had a knack for not letting anyone off the bus once it had started moving again.

I resumed my walk to Yaya’s house but something seemed a bit off. It wasn’t the feeling of being watched. A feeling of pure dread was climbing up and down my spine. A feeling like something bad did or was going to happen. I know I should have called Sensei Lawerence or my mother once I had realized something was going on but my mind kept telling me I was imagining things.

But all of that seemed to fade away as I neared Yaya’s house. Her house was one of the homiest places that I had ever been in. Besides my own that is. The yellow paneling of the apartment building gave it a sunny glow. The stone bricks that led up to the numerous apartments made it feel like they were driveways and not sidewalks. The windows of the houses were wide with thick paneled glass. Yaya’s door was vivid blue which Sensei had painted for her.

I knocked gently on the door. It wasn’t that big of a surprise when no one answered. I just figured that some of her friends had come to take Yaya out for a birthday lunch or something. She was a pretty popular person in the community. But when I knocked two more times with the same result I started to get a tiny bit worried.

“Yaya, it’s Miguel,” I called at the window. “I just came to drop off some birthday goodies for you. Your favorites.”

I wait a bit more the concern building higher and higher as the minutes passed by. I knocked once before a rather old-looking gentleman answered the door. I stood back a bit in confusion and a tiny bit of fear.

“I’m sorry,” I said, moving away from the familiar-looking wolf-like eyes of the man. “I must have the wrong door. I’m looking for Rosa Diaz, my grandmother.”

“You’ve come to the right place, my dear boy,” the man said, trying to cover his voice with that of an older person. But he couldn’t fool me. It was that strange Kreese guy from the bus. I was pretty much sure of that. “You’re grandmother had a rather terrible accident earlier today. I’m here helping take care of her. Come in. Come in.” He stood back allowing me to squeeze past him.

“Yaya!” I called, walking down the hall t the room that I knew was hers. “Are you alright?”

I could see Yaya’s eyes and nightcap peaking out from underneath her blankets but something still felt wrong. I could hear a muffled cry coming from somewhere nearby. Why did that muffled cry sound so familiar?

“I heard you had an accident, Yaya? Are you feeling alright? Should I call an ambulance or something to take you to the hospital.? Mom would probably want to know what’s going on. I’m going to call her too.”

“Don’t worry about it, Miggy,” Yaya said in a rather unYaya-like voice. The voice sounded like a man pretending to be a woman if I was being honest with myself. “Why don’t you come and sit by Yaya’s beside and share those delicious-looking goodies with her and her friend?”

“But Yaya, aren’t you always the one advocating for a nice balanced meal before eating snack foods?” I asked, watching the eyes peeking out from underneath Yaya’s nightcap. “A well-balanced meal is one of the best things for a young man, Miggy. Isn’t that what you always?”

“Yaya’s been in bed for almost the entire day and is probably just hungry for anything to eat,” the older-looking man who was definitely Kreese said, stepping closer and closer to us.

I drew a sigh of relief when a knock sounded at the door. I looked over the concerned look sweeping across Yaya’s face. That wasn’t something that Yaya would do. She would be happy to have visitors.

“It seems like you’re very popular today, Yaya,” I said, watching as Kreese walked into the next room. “I wonder who’s coming to visit now?”

“I don’t know,” the Yaya look-a-like said, trying to conceal even more of her face.

I could hear arguing going on in the next room. The splintering of wood as someone pushed into something. A fight had broken out in the next room. My heart was hammering as I made my way to the doorway. When I got there I was shocked at what I found.

Robby Keene was standing in my Yaya’s kitchen with his phone to his ear and his foot on Sensei Kreese’s chest. I could hear footsteps approaching me from behind. I quickly swept out with my leg taking the fake Yaya off of her or as it turns out to be his feet. Underneath the Yaya disguise was Sensei Silver.

“You have got to be the most unconvincing Yaya I’ve ever seen,” I told him as I drug him out of the room and over to where Robby was tying up Kreese. “Don’t forget this one.”

“I won’t,” Robby said, nodding at me. “How’s your grandmother doing?”

“Shit! I almost forgot.” I walked back into the room Robby following me this time. “Yaya! Are you here?”

I could hear the muffled cry coming from Yaya’s closet and moved towards it. I looked at Robby and then opened the door. Yaya was bound in the closet and glaring daggers at the empty bed. I helped her up after Robby untied her.

“Don't worry, Yaya, Robby, and I and have the bad guys all tied up and the police were called,” I told her as the sounds of sirens approaching drew near. “No one messes with my Yaya and gets away with it.”

“From now on if you need a ride to your Yaya’s house just ask,” Robby said, smiling at me as we helped Yaya into a chair in the living room. “I’d do anything to help you.”