The Slingshot

The Slingshot.
When I received a slingshot for my birthday many years I ago, I couldn’t keep my feet on the ground. It seemed to me that finally my parents considered me a grown man. And so whether it was needed or not, that slingshot remained in my hand at all times.
In those days Indiana Jones was still considered cool and my new toy gained the envy of all the boys in my grade. I was immediately ousted to the height of popularity and my slingshot became my best friend, even though I couldn’t hit anything.
I studied in an all- boy school and girls still had “cooties”. My first adventure costarred one of the girls from the Little Lady Elementary down the road. So did many others later.
It so happened I was going along with my friends when I crashed into that very girl. Little Lady has a reputation for having students who are the opposite of their brand name. This girl was no exception. Most probably five foot two, when all us guys were four five, she towered above us and looked mean enough to chew us for lunch and have room for dessert. My immediate idea was, “run for it!” but the slingshot in my hand egged me on and I decided to stand my ground.
“Hey! Watcha think you're doing?” I hollered, oblivious of the scared glances my friends were giving each other.
The girl seemed to grow larger. “Nobody…I repeat nobody talks to me like that!”
“ Oh yeah! Well me and the guys will have to teach you a lesson then! Right guys?”
I turned around expecting supporting glances and clenched fists ready for a fight, but strangely I found myself alone. Bewildered, I looked back at the girl, sure she had made them disappear, and there she was. With an amused smile and a gaggle of gigantic girls, she eyed my slingshot with what looked to me like greed.
“ Oh yeah? What guys?” she grinned wickedly and the gaggle of gargoyle- like girls giggled. I winced and quietly tried to inch my way back when they all pounced and proceeded to beat me up. I’ll always remember coming home and having to tell my mother I was clobbered by three Little Ladies.
It hurt a lot at first, but after the first ten seconds it stopped hurting, maybe because I became numb. They took my slingshot as a souvenir, and for months the same girls used to pelt us with stones whenever we passed by. Strangely, they always hit us.
Time passed and we grew older, as is the natural thing for young boys, and I stopped missing my slingshot. I grew taller and bigger, in fact we all did. The gang, I mean. The girl remained 5’2’ throughout her whole life. Our schools integrated and the same girls we couldn’t stand to go near to in case we got infected became the most important people in the world to us. I never got over the girl who could beat me up and take my most prized possessions (my pride and my slingshot), and it never occurred to me that what happened in my childhood could so little affect my feelings later. You see, people change, as they grow older. And I grew to love the same girl I feared and I ended up marrying her. She still beats me up now and then, but the truth is she still has my most prized possessions. My heart and my slingshot.