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be? She was skinny and didn’t tan, and her eyelashes and eyebrows were so light, they just blended in with her skin. She had a long face and she was too tall. She’d seen Elijah looking at her friend Lucia D’Angelo, who was voluptuous and looked like a movie star.
    Sissy was going to have to get by on her personality.
    Right now Elijah didn’t appear to be thinking of girls at all, only about his uncle’s dog, whom Elijah was holding by his wide collar, though he had a leash on him as well.
    Satchmo appeared to be all muscle, a little too lean, in Sissy’s opinion. Elijah agreed. He’d told her thatwhen his uncle’s dogs were “in the keep,” in other words training for a fight, they spent hours endurance-building on homemade treadmills.
    Elijah remained against a back wall with Satchmo, who was not one of the first dogs to be matched. Deciding to make her own way in this unfamiliar world, Sissy headed down to the pit. It smelled of beer and cigarette smoke and the occasional person in serious need of a bath. She saw a timer and another person she supposed was a referee. Neither of these individuals would have been allowed within an AKC ring as they were dressed, one in a white tank-style undershirt like her father wore under his business shirts, the other wearing a shirt with an embroidered pocket identifying him as “Mean Moe.” The timer was smoking a cigarette, holding it between his thumb and forefinger like a tough.
    A man beside Sissy looked her up and down, grinned, then looked away.
    She lit a cigarette. She did know how to smoke, as this was something she and her friends did when her parents weren’t around.
    There was a coin toss, and a red-haired man with peeling lips and many freckles and scabs began washing a white pit bull-type dog.
    Sissy peered around the group. There were only a few women, most of them hard-looking, but some simply could have been wives and mothers. It shocked her that women would enjoy seeing dogs tear each other to pieces. Already her own stomach had begun to flutter in apprehension of what was about to happen.
    The other dog was also white but with brindle spots.This one was skinnier than Satchmo—muscular but too skinny.
    Finally the fight began, and Sissy was stunned by the fury with which the dogs leaped at each other, stunned by the tenacity with which one latched on to the other’s ear.
    She started to feel sick. How would it look if she turned away from the spectacle? She glanced around to see what Elijah was doing.
    He still leaned against the wall, now talking to a middle-aged man who needed a shave. They were both watching the pit. How long would this go on for before the Humane Society people or the police, whoever was coming to save the dogs, arrived?
    Blood.
    Seeing Lucky the day Sissy had found her, Sissy knew she should have been prepared for the blood. The owner of Jackson’s Dock wandered to the edge of the pit but also glanced regularly toward the door. A man in a black leather jacket beside Sissy gave her a nasty smile. He held a black pit bull on a lead. He was handsome but frightening. He wore his hair in a DA style, and he had long sideburns.
    Sissy knew she should try to act her part. She tried to pet his dog, but it snapped at her.
    “He’s mean,” the man told her.
    Sissy glanced back at the ring and wished she hadn’t. The white dog with the brindle spots was bleeding profusely from its face, and she thought she might faint.
    It seemed to go on too long, until a whistle blew. The man with the black leather jacket told her that one of the dogs had “turned,” but Sissy didn’t understand. He was telling her that it was the all-white dog’s turn to “scratch,” whatever that meant.
    Legs shaking, she eased back from the pit to join Elijah, who was now crouched beside Satchmo, looking apprehensive.
    The double doors suddenly flew open, and a slight stirring went through the crowd.
    “Everyone stay where you are.” Two sheriff’s deputies