Sparring Partner

I squeezed back inside under the door gap and scrambled up the desk chair to the warm pool of light from the study lamp! Standing right beside a stack of notebooks was a jointed wooden artist mannequin, frozen in a dull, stiff pose. No champion stands like that on my watch! I braced my sneakers against the varnished pine, grabbed the mannequin's smooth wooden arm, and hoisted it into a soaring superhero punch. Then I bent its knee into a high-speed sprint to match my stride! I gave its wooden palm a solid celebratory high-five, then kicked back against its round base to call it a night.