Fighter's Alley

By Heather Duffy Stone

Will's father is running for mayor. The competition is slim. So all Will has to do is keep from embarrassing his family during the election. Problem is, Will has been secretly boxing down at the Woodrat Club—just the sort of seedy place Will's dad wants to stomp out.

After training with Eddie Tancredi, a mysterious ex-boxer, Will enters a high-stakes Woodrat tournament. He even has a shot at victory. But will his family conflict ruin his chances? If not, secrets from Eddie’s past might . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781467740043

Heather Duffy Stone

Heather Duffy Stone writes stories and essays that are mostly inspired by high school—either her own or someone else’s. This Is What I Want to Tell You is her first novel. She has lived in Vermont, England, Los Angeles, rural New York and Rome, Italy. For now she cooks, sleeps, explores, writes and teaches in Brooklyn, New York.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

It was like they always said—everything around him turned invisible. Everything except the boy who stood in front of him, fists held close to his nose and eyes narrowed in concentration. The boy’s name was Durham, and he had won his last three fights.

Will raised his fists too and tried to narrow his eyes, but all he could feel was the shaking of his knees and the churning of his stomach. There was a shout and a roar—Oakley announcing the fight’s start and the crowd cheering. Or jeering.

Quick, Will thought, remember everything you’ve watched, everything you’ve heard. Remember to block with your left and—

BAM.

He saw red, then white. His cheek pulsed with pain, and in less than a second, he was on his back. The grinning, sweating Durham stood over him.

Take it easy on the kid, Oakley muttered, hauling Will up to a standing position. That’s one, he said to Will.

Will blinked and touched his hand to the side of his face, now pounding with pain. He pulled back his fingers—sticky. Blood. Something about his own blood gave him a spiked sense of energy. He bounced on his legs, which had stopped shaking. The faces and sounds of the crowd started to come into focus—mouths open in shouts, dangling cigarettes, fists clutching bills.

Get him outta there, someone shouted.

The boy can’t fight!

Durham’s fist came toward Will like a cannon, but somehow Will leaned away and the fist fell through the air. Will pulled his arm back and thrust his fist forward, as fast and hard as he’d practiced. He hit Durham’s shoulder and heard a crack of skin and bone. Durham stumbled back, still grinning.

Will bounced. He knew he had to keep bouncing, because if he was bouncing, he was moving. A moving target. But he was thinking too hard about bouncing. Or about not bouncing enough. This time, he heard the crack before he felt it, like wood against stone. The pain spread across his eyes, and he was back, half on his knees, nearly to the floor. Oakley pulled him up by his arm.

This time, Will didn’t wipe the blood off his face, and he stopped listening to the crowd. He bounced and thrust his fist forward, bounced and thrust until finally his knuckles cracked Durham’s cheekbones. Durham stumbled backward and fell.

The crowd hushed for just a second before the voices rose, angrier and louder than before. They’d placed their bets on Durham. Will was threatening their money. Will had been watching the fights at the Woodrat for almost three months now. He knew these guys took their bets seriously.

He’d been waiting for his dad to come out of the bank. He was always supposed to wait with the driver, he knew this. But on that day, it felt like he’d been waiting for hours, and Joe, the driver, was distracted. Will had been throwing stones at the sidewalk when he heard the muffled roar of a crowd and followed it down a narrow alley. The door to the Woodrat was ajar. Tracey, the bartender, leaned against it, one foot propped on the step inside. Will could see the shadow of crowds. He followed the noise past Tracey, who leered but didn’t stop him.

Shoulder to shoulder, men filled the smoky room, jostling and yelling, shaking fists and patting backs. Past the men, at the back of the room, two fighters stood inside a circle painted on the ground, a tangle of muscle and skin. Will had never seen anything like it. It wasn’t just fighting; it was carefully timed, perfectly skilled. The crowd cheered, and their cheers made the fighters stronger. Will was sure of it.

It only took a few minutes for the surly and terrifying and certainly in-charge Lew Mayflower to take notice of Will—to notice the suit Will’s father made him wear and the polish of his shoes, and to take Will by his collar and toss him out the door, to Tracey’s feet. But Will was hooked. He came back every chance he could.

He’d watch from the doorway, sneaking in to the crowd, making allegiances and taking advice from anyone who would talk to him. And today, he’d had his chance. Durham, a lightweight fighter, had pummeled through