She frowned in that way little children do, with that absolute certainty that she and not them were correct. Her brows creased to Norwegian fjords so severely as to threaten to crack her porcelain features. Her eyes narrowed. The crème de la crème, out came her tongue to blow a raspberry to wet the world. She ran.
“Come back, stranger!” roared the little boy.
Kara bolted back into the trees from which she’d emerged to a whiplashed face and thorn-tugged clothes. The boy had no such issues, for he was smaller than she. He proved faster, too.
The little boy had her by the ponytail before she’d exited the hawthorn bush. He tugged. She wailed.
There was a scuffle, a curse regarding the football shirt the little boy wore, one returned with interest about her red wellington boots — how she wished she’d worn trainers, he’d have never caught her then. And only when the two staggered from the bush and fell in the long grass did the idyllic summer return.
It was several minutes before the boy rose to his elbows and offered the first words of a truce. “You’re the strangest girl I’ve ever met.”
“My name’s Kara,” she hissed. “And I’m not.”
“Robbie,” he replied. “And you are so.”
Robbie was unsure whether the wellington that hit him square on the jaw was called Kara or the girl who tossed it? He imagined he ought to have known, but the stars in his head prevented any confirmation. So much so, that Robbie collapsed back into the grass with a thud. There, he remained.
Kara waited an appropriate amount of time before retrieving her boot; it slipped back into place with a schlep. She gave her new nemesis a kick, then a pinch to his bare arm, both to no reaction. “Hey-ho,” she mused.
Robbie remained as recumbent as an overfed sloth.

---

“Why did you leave him, love?”
“Why not?”
“But it sounds like he’s hurt.”
“So what? He started it.”
“It sounded very much like you did. It’s not normal to blow raspberries at someone who was just walking past.”
“Raspberry,” corrected Kara.
Her mum rolled her eyes. “Come on, you’ll have to show me where you left him. I want to make sure he’s okay.”
“He’s not okay.”
Her mum pulled the same frown Kara had.
“How’d you know?”
“The same way I knew he was going to call me names.” Her eyes widened to raging suns. “I’m strange!”

The End.

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Thank you for reading
Richard