A boy was crying under her tree.
Her tree.
She'd even placed a small little plaque that specified it was her tree, but a boy was there, and she couldn't emphasise it enough but it was her tree.
She stalked towards him, ready to tell him off for sitting under her tree when she saw his bleeding knee, the blood a vivid red against his milky coffee tinted skin.
He looked up at her, scowling. "Go away."
He dared to tell her to go away when that was her goddamned tree he was crying and bleeding under?
How audacious.
"That's my tree you're bleeding under."
Short and quick to the point, just as Mini liked her statements.
He looked at his bleeding knee as though realising for the first time that it indeed was bleeding, and it was getting on the grass that was housing small drops of his blood on them like they were dewdrops.
Mini battled between going back and getting her first aid kit in the backpack she'd abandoned in the grass when she was huffily making her way towards the boy and telling him off for sitting under her tree.
She decided she could do both, in the same order because that wound looked extremely sad.
She ran back to her backpack, removing her first aid kit and water bottle before running back to the boy.
She sat beside him, taking his knee on hers, not minding the blood as her surprisingly steady hands for a five-year-old poured water on a chunk of cotton and wiped away the blood.
One time, two times, three times before the wound was clean of blood, and she put some betadine on the shallow wound that looked like it was worse than it really was.
A bit of gauze, and a cloth bandage later, his knee was completely clean and wrapped and her white skirt, which she frowned at now, was slightly stained with red.
She wordlessly handed him a tissue, and he blew his nose. She saw his extremely prominent birthmark on his temple, shaded green in a way that it looked like a collection of snake scales.
He sniffled, and Mini came to the conclusion that he couldn't be much older than she was.
"Some of the other kids tripped me over because of that." He said, blowing his nose again and pointing to his birthmark. "I thought they'd want to play, because we're the same age."
Mini hadn't asked for an explanation, but she listened all the same, because when someone breaks out into a story you didn't ask them to break out into, it means they need someone to listen to them.
"I'm also sorry for sitting under your tree. It was my only option, because everyone's scared of you and they wouldn't dare to come here without your permission."
Mini smiled. So he did have a valid explanation for sitting under her tree. "It's okay. What's your name?"
"Rudy. And I know you're Mini."
She sniffed. "Everyone knows me. I'm famous here, and someday, I'll be famous around the world as the best doctor ever. Do you want to be friends?"
When you're five, and popular where you live, but also never approached because you're too weird for a five-year-old, a random boy crying under your tree with a bleeding knee is your best bet at finding a friend.
Rudy nodded, aggressively. "I'd love to be friends."
Mini snatched the plaque away from under the tree, taking out her marker and adding two words to it in too neat for a five-year-old handwriting under the printed script.
