“I warn you,” the brown girl with the black braid said quietly, “I cheat.” Her deep black eyes locked the stringy, sun-burnt boy in place. She punched him in the arm with the smiling, honest, and arrogant confidence of a feral, chthonic thirteen year old girl.
His young, white, male ego, the immature misogyny of insecure boys for all females, and the desperate prejudices some of the poor hold as shields against the marginalized - in short his need to be better than somebody, anybody else - stopped him from rubbing his shoulder. The strength in the punch stopped him from hitting her back. Instead, he tucked his chin and tried to match her impenetrably deep stare with his own striking green glare. "I can beat you."
She squinted, for a long slow moment, measuring him like a used suit.
“Get on your bike then.”
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