Olivia regarded me for a moment. “You know what I like to do when everything’s getting to me and it feels like I’m going to explode?”
“Smoke thirty cigarettes.”
“No, even better.” She turned to everyone else, cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey!” she shouted. “Who’s up for a boxing match?”
“How about up there?” Judith asked, jerking her head upward, her arms full of the homemade boxing gloves we’d sewn from feed-sack fabric and pillow stuffing.
We all looked. Up on top of the Blue Moon Diner was a wide, flat area perfect for setting up a makeshift boxing ring. My heart seemed to constrict. The man who owned it had died two weeks ago, according to Lucy. Another victim of the Dust Sickness spell.
“There’s a ladder back here!” Mowse said, pulling at a stack of crates behind the building.
As we climbed the ladder up to the roof, my heart twisted in pain as I thought of the pies the Blue Moon man had given me only a short time ago, how Lucy and I had eaten them on her porch back before everything had gotten so bad.
Susanah and Asa moved the crates out of the way, and one by one, we climbed up onto the flat, dust expanse of the roof.
“There’s just something liberating about looking out over it all, isn’t there?” Cassandra said, her bracelets and necklaces clattering as she opened her arms and spun in the dusty night air.
We went to the edge of the roof and looked out, Olivia and Asa with Rosa between them. The whole of Elysium stretched out before us: the animal pens, the factories, the church with its steeple and stained glass. We looked out over the roofs, both flat and pointed, the jail with its barred, dark windows, the hospital, ever bustling no matter the time. And despite all of the doom and gloom, the death and hurt and magic that surrounded us like an ocean, the windows of the houses still glowed with warmth and light, and the smell of home cooking rose over the smell of dust and Sickness. And as we stood there, looking out, a woman calling her children in for the night looked up at me and smiled. The people of Elysium were doing what they had always done, even back when we were just farmers living through the Depression: surviving, despite everything. I couldn’t fail them.
“All right!” Judith said, weighing down the blanket that would serve as our ring with bricks. “Let’s get this started!” She threw us each a pair of gloves. “Come on, Zo! First one to twenty hits wins!”
“That’ll be way too fast,” Zo said, pulling on her gloves. “I’ll be done with you in five minutes.”
“Put your money where your mouth is!” Judith said with a wink. “Let’s go, champ!”
We gathered, sitting around the ring, drinking our Coke bottle water rations as Judith and Zo ducked and weaved and dodged, throwing punch after light, jabbing punch. Rosa clapped in delight and Olivia and Asa stood back, holding hands.
“Twenty!” Olivia called, Rosa waving her hat like a flag. “That’s it! Judith is the winner!”
“One point! Just one point!” Zo said. “Or I’d have had you, Goliath!”
“Come back with a sling next time,” Judith countered, sticking her tongue out.
“I’m going next!” said Mowse. “Get ready, Judith!”
“You’re not even half my size, pipsqueak,” Judith said.
“I’ll fix that,” said Susanah. “Come on, kid.”
And we all laughed as Susanah hoisted Mowse up on her shoulders and squared off against Judith. Mowse swung like a kitten batting at a string, and as Judith made face after face, I allowed myself to just sit and enjoy the spectacle of it.
“Oh nooo!” Judith shouted, throwing herself to the ground when Mowse landed a punch.