Trudie Two Shoes hopped down the steep lane, humming to herself. her shoes flashed passed each other, one bright red on her left foot, a shiny Ferragamo loafer with a gold band on the heel, the second a dark blue suede loafer from Gucci with a gold stirrup at the front.
The favela in Rio de Janeiro where she had spent 7 tough years growing up, was not noted for chic shoe stores and she had been one of the first of her friends to have any shoes at all, by scavenging the city dump at the bottom of the hill, finding the mismatched pair, alongside other chic children's clothes from Ralph Lauren and Versace, thrown away by the samba star whose massive villa sprawled alongside the dump and whose 8 children, always had the latest fashions and threw the old (sometimes two days old!) over the wall without a thought as soon as something newer became available.
Trudie had had to act fast and beat Graziella to the shoes and earned the nickname Two-Shoes when she proudly wore them from then on. This ostentation had caught the eye of Eduardo, the local drug dealers son, who at eight years was already earning a fearsome reputation. His foot shot out from behind a dustbin filled with rotting vegetables and Trudie shot into the air and to his amazement and that of all his cronies lounging around him, she performed a perfect somersault, whilst managing to give him the finger, landing on one foot then transferring to the other, without a sound. At that point she gave a glorious tinkling laugh and vanished down the alley and was sitting in Pedro's bar two minutes later sipping a coke with a note she had lifted from Eduardo's top pocket, whilst distracted by her gymnastics.
A moment later the door flew open and Eduardo's father, Jose, all 6ft 9inches of him, all muscle and not so repressed violence barged in and ..................
Over to you ........................
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