Antwan's Pride

This one gives you a taste of important plot developments (YA novel, Tiger Claws, search on Amazon for ebook or paper version). Do not be offended by the foreign swear word. I struggled for quite a while deciding how to keep the character authentic, because urban kids cuss, and how to keep the text presentable for a wide audience. My solution was to give Antwan a talent for picking up foreign languages quickly and using them. I think it quite elegant although you may disagree. However, you can't quibble with the rare talent for languages. I based it on an actual person who was a spy for the U.K. during the 1920s and drove the Russians mad because he sounded like a native and could go into areas of the country that the Soviets did not want the world to know about.

Antwan’s Pride

Those conchetumadres, they carved my chest

With burns and cuts they marked my fate

In a deep well they made me wait

Yet of all of them I proved best

Kill the tiger--me they pressed

While at their feasts they sat and ate

Those conchetumadres, they carved my chest

With burns and cuts they marked my fate.

But I tracked the beast. I said yes

To their strange dare, and weirder bait

Fourteen to hunt a tiger great

With that man-killer I had a date

Those conchetumadres, they carved my chest

With burns and cuts they marked my fate.