Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Thirty-Two: Slingshots

Let me tell you about Kate Bishop. She's five foot 'could-probably-fit-under-your-thumb', but she has an attitude the size of the Empire State. She's rowdy, cocky and cloistered.

Physically; she has these big dark eyes capable of decimating you if you offend her. She has a waterfall of unruly dark hair that always seems to be in disarray, in her eyes or catching in her mouth. And she's surprisingly sculpted for a slender girl. Do not underestimate her on basis of height or weight; stature is not everything and she will prove that with a lightning-fast punch to the nose if you doubt her.

I learnt that the hard way, and still have the scar to point to with bragging rights and as proof of the tall tale.

As great as she is, Kate is spoilt rotten. She's the kind of spoilt where at times she doesn't realise how privileged she is: turning up in designer clothes, owning the latest in technology and always being chauffeured in a flash car.

The kind of spoilt where she doesn't see her parents all the time because her dad has some high profile job that has him flying all over the globe at any given time. He's CEO of an international publishing corporation based in New York City. Her mum is the cliché dismissive trophy wife; always busy doing anything but paying attention to her kid and looking prim and presidential; which means Kate was practically raised by a nanny. Her older sister is that much older that she'd always been moved out, living it up in the towering heights of New York City, and was the heir to the Bishop family fortune - their father practically groomed her, as the oldest child, for taking on the role as CEO.

But because both of her parents grew up in the Big Apple, they decided they wanted her raised in the country, so that's how she ended up in the back of beyond, lumped with me.

You might wonder why an affluent daughter of a multi-millionaire hangs around with a ragtag farmer's son.

You'd be right to wonder.

I'm still wondering.

It's probably because I made her look good; in the sense that if she arrived at school with the latest designer handbag and I turned up with tatty sneakers, it made her look even richer than she was. Or perhaps it was more of a charity stitch. Like how celebrities go out to third world countries and pose with starving children to make themselves look charitable and knowledgeable.

Our friendship started on accident from a very young age.

I remember it vividly.

A bunch of boys had rallied around me, pushing and pulling me in a dispute to snatch my football off me - a birthday present from my day in a rare state of sobriety. Country runts from this town weren't used to coming across luxuries even as simple as a football, and they would do rotten things to obtain them. Bullies, the lot of them.

One guy had taken to pulling my straggly uncut hair, whilst another tried to yank the ball from my hands. There had been nasty trampling feet and childish name calling until out of nowhere my foes were struck down.

It was simple as a handful aerodynamically shaped stones being slingshot out of thin air, into painful places, to leave the kids bothering me with bruises and a renewed sense of self-preservation. And as they'd dispersed, the dark haired kid had hopped down from the tree she'd been perched in and pulled me to my feet.

It's safe to say that girls have been saving my ass since I learned what an ass was. That's why when boys in my year called me a "big girl" I'd always laugh and agree.

"Kate Bishop," she'd announced aloofly, munching on gum at one corner of her mouth.

She had offered a handshake to me, and I remember I had no idea what to do with a handshake at five years old. Being the idiot I was, I invented a kind of street handshake, slapping her hand back and forth like I'd seen the kids with friends do in my grade; before she finally informed me all I had to do was shake it.