Then I swung past her and walked through the school gates.
* * *
By lunchtime news of the fight was all around the school. Moira tried her best to make me change my mind. ‘You haven’t a chance, Hannah. And you know what Wizzie might do …’ Her voice trailed off. The word ‘knife’ unspoken.
‘It’s just something I’ve got to do, Moira,’ I said.
There was a sudden bellow of laughter behind us. ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!’ Who else but Zak Riley? ‘You think you’re living in the Wild West, Driscoll. You’ve not gotta do anything. Get real!’
‘I think she’s been really brave, Zak,’ Moira said.
I smiled. ‘Thanks, Moira.’
‘Brave? Are you kiddin’, Moira? I think she’s dead stupid.’
‘It’s better than being dead ugly,’ I snapped back at him.
‘And tonight, you’ll just be dead.’
‘Don’t bet on it.’
‘I’ve never known anybody like you in my life. You like fighting better than boys do.’
‘That’s because I fight better than boys do.’
Zak wasn’t a fighter anyway. He was never in fights. ‘Me and my mates are coming to watch you. It’ll be good for a laugh.’
‘I’ll take you on when I finish with Wizzie.’
Zak laughed and moved off with his mates. ‘I’ll take along a shovel and scrape you up. You’ll be like raspberry jam.’
It was then I remembered again, Wizzie’s knife.
Slash! Slash!
I pictured it in my mind, gleaming in the dying sunlight as it hacked and slashed in front of my face.
It was the only thing that freaked me out. Wizzie’s knife. The rumour was she always had it on her, the scars on her neck and arms evidence of the knife fights she had been in. How bold I had been when I’d had my friends about me. Wizzie’s knife hadn’t bothered me then. But now I was alone, and I thought about the old woman again. She’d been threatened with a knife. So why should Wizzie draw the line at using it on me? Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realised that she wouldn’t risk her reputation by using a knife when I had none.
Square go, we had said, and that’s what it would be: a square go. There were certain rules we all stuck to and that was one of them. If there was going to be a lot of people watching, even more reason for her to fight fair.
The thought of an audience kind of bothered me. Maybe I shouldn’t have challenged them so publicly. But it was too late now. From now on I would have no regrets about anything. So the whole school were going to be there to watch? Good. They would all be waiting for me to be humiliated. I was determined to put up a good show. I wouldn’t win, I knew that. But no one would ever call me a wimp again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
They were all there, Grace and Lauren and Sonya, and in the middle of them, Wizzie. I’d take her first, I decided, remembering from somewhere that if you cut off the head, the body couldn’t survive. I think I’d heard it in a zombie film, but then, what else were the Hell Cats but a gang of zombies?
Wizzie turned and stared at me as I approached. ‘Oh, here comes Rocky!’ And then with a wild tribal roar that was meant to take me by surprise I suppose, she threw herself at me.
But I wasn’t surprised. I had been prepared for anything, even this. I side-stepped her and she landed with a thud on the ground. There was a cheer from the crowd. Wizzie was on her feet in an instant, her eyes blazing. She lunged at me and I grabbed her hair. It was a great target with those spikes of hers. I pulled her head back and kicked the back of her legs. She was down again, this time on her back. I was on top of her in a second, straddling her chest, pinning her wrists to the ground. ‘Give up!’ I said.
‘Never,’ she said through gritted teeth. I thought I had her, but with a sudden burst of strength, she arched her back and threw me off her. I tumbled to the ground and only a quick roll to the side stopped her landing on me. Her fist caught the side of my face, and sent my head spinning. I got to my feet quickly and launched myself at her. I wasn’t going to give her a minute.
This time we both tumbled together on the ground. She had me by the hair. I almost wished I’d had the nerve to tug at the earring on her eyebrow, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Instead I punched her on the side of the head so hard her eyes went squinty. She pushed me off her and we both got to our feet. But my punch had knocked Wizzie for six. She was having trouble focussing and took a step back, to let someone else take her place.
That someone was Grace. ‘My turn,’ she said and she squared up to me, stepping in front of Wizzie.