by Frankie Rose
Cliff’s lesson was supposedly about body language, but I suspected it was more likely he wanted to demonstrate how utterly pathetic I was. He’d run me through the mill, and all under the guise of teaching me the importance of observing my opponent, studying their body language and watching their technique. Nine times out of ten I failed to guess which way he would lunge, or to keep my eye on his blade. I lost count of how many times he thrust the hard heel of it into my shoulder or my stomach, loudly proclaiming each time that I was dead.
I truly pitied Cliff’s enemies. If he was this hard on someone he professed to like (Agatha assured me this was the case), then they stood no chance whatsoever.
“Come on, Cliff! It’s my turn to embarrass the girl!” Beatty arrived to seal my absolute humiliation. I groaned and rolled my eyes when Cliff gave me a curt nod, abandoning me to the giant. Apparently there was no such thing as a five minute break.
“What’s the matter, Highness?” Beatty taunted. “You think Immundus line up to fight skinny girls one at a time? You think they stand around having tea and cake until Princesses have caught their breath?” he chuckled mercilessly, and I gritted my teeth.
There was only so much I could take. I spun on the spot and lashed out hard in a back kick that landed with a satisfying thud, square in his chest. He stumbled back and fell to the ground with his eyes wide, staring at me as I had a small laugh of me own.
“What’s the matter, Beatty? You think skinny girls wait politely while big hairy men take time out to laugh at their own bad jokes?”
That was twice I’d managed to put him down now. He took my jibe as well as he could, given the amount of people standing around watching, all of whom were unable to suppress their laughter, but it was obvious he was embarrassed that a girl had landed a proper strike on him.
The rest of the day consisted of ‘enforced slave labor’ as Tess called it. It was funny that as soon as any real work needed doing, all of our guests suddenly had other places to be. The hangar slowly emptied in the early part of the morning as they went to regroup with their other friends and families, promising to return in a few days’ time.
Beatty and his family, along with Cliff, were the only people who remained. Otis had been to the city. When he returned, everyone was strong-armed into helping lug supplies from the service hatch down through the corridors to find suitable homes for the gallon containers of water, sacks of rice, blankets and other miscellaneous items that were constantly unloaded.
I was actually glad of the work. It was great to be in the fresh air, even if it was just moving stuff from the back of the truck to the hatch. The few minutes of sunlight on my face were well worth the pain in my back and the aching in my arms.
And so it was no surprise that come eight p.m. I was falling asleep on the couch. I dragged myself to my room so I could slide underneath the cool sheets and let my exhaustion overcome me.