‘Yes, it’s Cameron Wolfe, the Underdog!’ he shouts through the mike. ‘Give the boy a hand — our youngest fighter! Our youngest battler! Our youngest brawler! He’ll fight to the end, people, and he’ll keep getting up!’

The hood of the jacket is still over my head, even though it has no string, no anything to hold it in place. My boxing shorts are comfortable on my legs. My gym boots walk on, through the sharp, thick crowd.

They’re alert now.

Awake.

Eager.

They watch me and size me up and they’re tough and hard and suddenly respectful.

‘Underdog,’ they murmur, all the way to the ring, till I climb in. Rube’s behind me. He’ll be in my corner, just like I’ll sit in his.

‘Breathe,’ I say to me.

I look.

Around.

I walk.

From one side of the ring to the other.

I crouch.

Down in my corner.

When I’m there, Rube’s eyes fire into mine. Make sure you get up, they tell me, and I nod, then jump up. The jacket’s off. My skin’s warm. My wolfish hair sticks up as always, nice and thick. I’m ready now. I’m ready to keep standing up, no matter what. I’m ready to believe that I welcome the pain and that I want it so much that I will look for it. I will seek it out. I’ll run to it and throw myself into it. I’ll stand in front of it in blind terror and let it beat me down and down till my courage hangs off me in rags. Then it will dismantle me and stand me up naked and beat me some more and my slaughter-blood will fly from my mouth and the pain will drink it, feel it, steal it and conceal it in the pockets of its gut and it will taste me. It will just keep standing me up, and I won’t let it know. I won’t tell it that I feel it. I won’t give it the satisfaction. No, the pain will have to kill me.

That’s what I want right now as I stand in the ring, waiting for the doors to open again. I want the pain to kill me before I give in …

‘And now!’

I stare into the canvas floor beneath me.

‘You know who it is!’

I close my eyes and lean on the ropes with my gloves.

‘Yes!’ It’s the old ugly guy who yells now. ‘It’s Cagey Carl Ewings! Cagey Carl! Cagey Carl!’

The doors are kicked open and my opponent comes trotting through, and the crowd goes absolutely berserk. Five times louder than when I walked in, that’s for sure.

Cagey Carl.

‘He looks about thirty years old!’ I scream at Rube. He barely hears me.

‘Yeah,’ he replies, ‘but he’s a bit of a runt of a thing.’