Theo the Street Kid and the Extraordinary Competition

Chapter 1 - A Fight at The Mountain of Garbage

"Give it to me! It's mine!" The older boy, Borm, screamed, yanking the piece of stale baguette his way.
"Hell no! I saw it first!" Theo yelled back, pulling it back towards himself.
"I haven't eaten in a day!" The older boy cried.
"I haven't eaten in two days!" Theo cried back.
Under the bright moonlight, a group of scruffy street urchins surrounded the two combatants, egging on the fight, all clapping their hands and cheering for one boy or the other.
A small fire burning on the Mountain of Garbage illuminated the unfortunate tug of war.
For many of the spectators, it was one of their few sources of entertainment. That, and sniffing glue, of course.
Sniffing glue allowed them to escape from the misery and drudgery of the harsh reality of their everyday lives. In fact, of the six kids milling around encouraging the fight, half of them were so high on glue they actually thought they were characters in a gritty indie film, instead of homeless street kids.
Suddenly, thunder rumbled above the group.
Theo looked up.
Dark clouds were forming overhead.
During the rainy monsoon season in the Kingdom, torrential downpours happened suddenly and without warning, often disappearing as quickly as they had come.
"It's mine," Borm shouted.
Theo looked back at his opponent.
I could take him, Theo thought. I think.
Borm was taller and older and stronger and more muscular than Theo.
But Theo had always been the underdog that succeeded, despite the odds.
A slender scruffy malnourished fourteen year-old with big puppy-dog eyes and dirty dark shoulder-length hair, Theo knew he didn't stand much of a chance against the bigger Borm.
Although Theo had a habit of constantly weight-training (he couldn't afford a gym membership, so he'd just lift whatever heavy objects he could find in the Mountain of Garbage), he didn't gain much muscle mass due to the lack of protein in his diet.
That was why he looked much younger than fourteen years old, more like eleven or twelve years old.
But at least he was limber and flexible and full of stamina.
He also looked tough, what with the many scars on his body that he had accumulated during numerous fights with other street kids, not to mention the angry serpent tattoo on his bicep he had exchanged certain favours with a flamboyant tattoo artist to get.
Theo knew he had to look tough to survive, even if he didn't feel tough.
Appearances and perceptions were everything on the streets and if someone sensed any kind of weakness, even for just a fraction of a second, they'd pounce and he'd be finished.
The dangers of street life were no different from the perils on the savannahs of Africa.
At that moment, sixteen year-old Borm pulled out a sharp blade.
For the first time in a long time, Theo felt fear rip through him.
Due to his many years surviving on the mean streets of Lotus Hill, he considered himself a tough alpha male (or alpha teen anyway) and never shied away from a fight, but the odds were not stacked in his favour that night.
For one, he was absolutely starving.
For another, he was exhausted.
The constant year-round heat and humidity of the Kingdom made him unable to get a decent night's sleep.
Most nights, he managed only three to four hours because the foreman of the garbage dump woke him up at four in the morning with all the shouting and yelling of directions when the garbage processing began - and those were considered good nights for Theo.
"Drop the bread, or I'm gonna stab ya!" Borm threatened.
Theo stared into Borm's face, grimacing at his enemy's acne-covered oversized nose.
Could Theo take him on?
He decided he was going to duke it out with his opponent. He couldn't afford not to.
Instinctively, he fumbled around in his pocket.
His fingers wrapped around a can.
With great relief, he remembered that he had found a working bottle of peppy spray on the ground the day before.
At that moment, Borm tried to stab Theo, but Theo was faster.
Theo aimed the peppy spray right at Borm's eyes and sprayed as hard as he could.
With a scream of agony, Borm dropped the knife and collapsed onto the dirty ground.
"Water! Water!" Borm cried in vain.
But everyone just stood there, motionless like mannequins.
With another scream, Borm got up and raced away, howling the whole time.
Seeing his enemy writhing in pain, Theo felt no sense of joy nor need for celebration.
He was just glad the fight was over.
Some people might call using pepper spray dishonourable, but Theo didn't care. He had no use for honour on the streets. Honour was something he couldn't afford, not if he wanted to eat and survive.
He had to use dirty tricks like that. Borm would have slashed him and that would have been the end of him.
Since he was smaller and weaker than most of the other boys, he had always relied on brain over brawn.
The fight now over, most of the crowd dissipated, off to find food or a safe place to sleep for the night.
The only one who remained was Biyon, or as Theo liked to call her, Wolfie.
She was his neighbour and the only friend he could trust.
Just thirteen years old, Wolfie was a silent and reserved, skeletal and bony, but fierce-looking girl who didn't talk much.
Judging from her thick provincial accent, Theo guessed that she had come from the provinces. Like a lot of other refugees in the capital, she had probably fled from an abusive family, but whatever he asked, she wouldn't tell him, so he didn't know for sure.
Her dark skin covered in red rashes, a mass of unkempt black hair running down both shoulders and feral dark brown eyes, Wolfie physically resembled an emaciated wolf in the wild, especially when she bared her fang-like canine teeth.
She was also constantly tired and hungry, which was why Theo decided to hand half the stale baguette over to her.
"But you fight so hard...." she protested.
Her stomach growled.
She was absolutely ravenous and didn't have the luxury of disagreeing with her stomach.
She accepted half the loaf gratefully, and then, barely chewing, wolfed it down in one quick gulp.
Theo inspected his prize: the loaf of baguette he had been willing to die for.
The mold on the bread was absolutely disgusting, so he tried to eat around it.
Sure, it was rotting food found in a heap of garbage, but it was still food, which was the most valuable commodity for street kids like him.
The small amount of food was nowhere near enough for a growing teenager like Theo, but he knew it was all he could get for the rest of the night.
Most days, he had only one meal and he'd be lucky to get that.
But he was still hungry, but with his hunger temporarily satiated, Theo thought about the fight.
Poor Borm.
The pepper spray had really stung his eyes.
Theo had only fought Borm once before, and that first time, Borm had kicked his ass by playing dirty (he had thrown sand into Theo's eyes), so Theo had returned the favour this time around.
But still.
Years of living the hard life on the streets hadn't completely extinguished his compassion for others.
But the problem was that in order for him to gain the bread, someone else had to lose it.
It was a zero-sum game.
In order for Theo to win, his opponent had to lose.
And in order for his opponent to win, Theo had to lose.
There was no way around that.
That was the way of nature and the law of the streets. You either fight hard and eat or you lose and starve to death.
There was no safety net in the Kingdom, no social welfare system and definitely no compassion.
If you didn't have enough money to buy food, you either had to beg, cheat, steal or fight...or you starved.
That was the way it was.
That was life for 99% of the people in the Kingdom of Egalisia.
It was social Darwinism.
The strong survived by bullying the weak and the weak either fought back for their share of the resources or they died.
There was no middle ground.
The people at the top of society (government leaders and the like) took all the international aid for themselves.
This greedy elite 1% hogged all the money for themselves, leaving little or no money for the rest of the 99%.
And Theo was a part of that 99%.
He may not have had any formal education (even public schools were expensive in the Kingdom and he never could afford the $100-a-month tuition), but he knew how unfair and unjust his society was.
At that moment, small raindrops spilled onto Theo's face, interrupting his train of thought.
"Come on," he said, grabbing Wolfie's hand. "Let's go home!"
He knew that rain started off small but quickly escalated to torrents, especially during the unpredictable monsoon season.
And he was right.
No sooner than he took Wolfie's hand did the small raindrops become ferocious balloons, splattering onto his tattered blue shorts and torn white T-shirt that was tearing apart at the seams.
As the rain pounded the ground, Theo was grateful that at least it was drowning out the putrid rotting stench of the Mountain of Garbage, not to mention the smell of urine and feces.
As they zipped through the rain, they made sure to inspect the ground carefully.
They were so poor that neither one could afford any shoes so they normally walked around barefoot, which was unwise, due to the random sharp metals and needles lying around the Mountain of Garbage.
When they returned to the tiny metal shacks they lived in, Theo's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.
He couldn't believe his bad luck.