Secret Agent #11

TITLE: The Good Fight
GENRE: YA Historical Fiction

Not a soul surrounding the pallet-made fighter’s ring would ever believe Ofelia was starving. There was enough meat on her to make her dangerously ‘thick’, and strong enough to inflict damage with weary fists. Spectators leaning over the crude ring splashed the concrete floor with the contents of their brown-bagged bottles. They cheered and taunted. Her feet were bare, and she felt every puddle of spilled beer. Everything felt wet.  Her skin was drenched in sweat and crimson tendrils streamed down one side of her face. It all added to the seeping damp.   

 

    She looked more boy than girl before entering the ring. Short black hair, T-shirt nearly down to her knees and large enough to fit two of her in it.  Her baggy, black jeans hung from her waist, and she had cuffed them around her ankles. Ofelia pulled her shirt over her head and flung it into a corner of the ring.  The air thundered with a commentary of lewd suggestions and propositions.  They called for Eights.  She was Eights.  They loved and hated her all at once.

 

“Damn, Eights.  Why you hidin’ all that?!”

 

“You want a banging, nena?!  I got one for you.”

 

“Break my heart, Eights.  Dykes can look like that?”

 

“Kill ‘em, Eights.  I got my rent money on you.”

 

    The jeers continued, two fights in.  Eights was sure of it. But their words were no longer decipherable, stretching and blending into one pounding mass of sound.