The Blank Books

Chapter 10

I stood there for a moment until Roxanne pushed me lightly.

"Get in there! Don't keep your audience waiting."

With her urging, I climbed over the rope and faced Amira who was smiling at me.

"Didn't expect you to get in the ring on your first day," she said playfully.

"I didn't volunteer for this. Trust me. I saw how you took out that guy and he was at least twice the size of you!"

She laughed and said, "Well you're in here now and you can't back out now. I mean now you've got something to prove seeing as it's your first day. This is what everyone is going to take away."

The announcer said something and Amira looked back at me. "We're starting now. Best of luck!"

Then we took a couple steps back and got into a beginning stance. I bounced a bit on the balls of my feet and the guy that kept yelling things, shouted something else which I assumed was telling us to start.

I looked her over and remembered what I had observed earlier while she was fighting baldie. She used her legs more than her arms. While I was thinking about how I could use this to my advantage, she sprang at me. I moved out of the way just in time and turned around quickly where Amira was regaining her composure.

I moved forwards and tried to hit her with my fist but she was out of the way before I could even get too close. While my arm was still where her head had been seconds ago, she grabbed my wrist and my shoulder. Before I even knew what had happened I was on the ground with the wind knocked out of me. As she came closer to me though, I rolled out of the way to prevent her from pinning me down and was able to get up. Although I was still a bit out of breath I faced her as she tried to kick me in the chest.

As I moved out of the way, I kicked her legs from underneath her not completely unlike what she had done in the fight before this. Amira hit the ground with a little thud and she whimpered.

"My head... Ouch..."

My eyes widened as I went over to her. "Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"Oof!"

I was on the mat yet again with a grinning Amira over me.

"You cheater!"

"Well it wasn't in the rules that I couldn't act," she said trying to sound innocent. It seemed as if she was going to win when I tried desperately to use my legs to hit her but she just hit them aside.

I wasn't going to give up just yet so I wrapped them around her and pulled. She fell and I quickly got up sitting on her legs and holding down her arms. She struggled trying to get up but couldn't and finally everyone started yelling excitedly. I could hear Roxanne call out "You're done! You've won!" And I let go of Amira.

She grinned at me and said, "Good job. You're not that bad."

"Thanks. Wait so now what do I do?"

"You keep fighting until you lose."

I beat the next couple people until Anne decided to come in. She had me down in under a minute, and I left to go practice something else.

•••

"Don't look now, but that guy over there is totally staring at you."

"What?" She turned to look.

"No! I said don't look now! Otherwise he'll know we're talking about him... Okay... He's looking away! The guy in the blue T-shirt two tables away."