The childhood? 04/11/2016

I was born in a small village nestled between two mountains at the end of a road,a dirty river running through a few meters from our little house.A village school sitting high above the hamlet,just below the St George church that dates from the 10th century.I loved school and though I thought I excelled at nothing, was considered excellent at everything and soon acquired the reputation for being not only the best in class,but the best in school with straight A in all subjects for the first four years.I had two competitors only - The Boy and my friend Emily.The Boy was not local. He was not one of us,the village children,dressed in poor cheap clothes, playing poor children's games.He came from nowhere,the son a a government employee,arrogant,handsome,clever. And in that little village where he expected to impress us all, he met his match.He hated me with vengeance.Always so very,very good, never quite good enough to be the first. Emily was my only match.She was born 9 days before me,her mum never had enough milk to breast-feed, so my mother kept her alive. Our bond unbreakable. Two years ago she fell down in the street and found herself in a hospital room staring at a monitor,a male voice shouting I need help,I need help.Her artery was blocked.Had it not been for the best heart surgeon in town who was about to leave on holiday,she would be dead today.The thought of ever losing her is too unbearable to contemplate. She was terrified of heights but for me she would climb a tall cherry tree so that I could photograph her.And the poses she struck, a leg here, an arm there,her terrified little face trying hard to smile. And then when she could climb no higher I burst out laughing and said  there was no film in the camera!She chased me promising vengeance. Oh and the vengeance came. It came a week or so later when she said my fringe was too long and as she had learnt how to cut it,she would do it for me.With my head buried in a book I would have let her do anything. And anything she did.She left just a 2 mm stubble sticking out like a brush.Then she cut out a large circle on the top of my head leaving almost a bald patch.She said it was the latest fashion,she saw a picture in a magazine.When I got home my mother looked at me and said - who did this to you? Emily,it is the latest fashion.I don't know what your teacher will say,said my mother shaking her head.The teacher patted me on the bald patch - nice.Emily did it for me,it is the latest fashion, she saw a picture in a magazine.The Boy laughed and laughed and laughed. You are an idiot,you do not understand fashion,I said to him indignantly.