A few minutes later and a short uphill climb took them to a park in the city centre. Charlotte steered them to a picnic table beside a large children's play park. "Okay, lunch first. It's way past midday."

She unpacked the sandwiches and drinks and they sat watching some small children playing whilst they ate.

"I am absolutely having a go on that flying fox once we finish our lunch." Charlotte said as a mother held her son and walked him down the length of the wire whilst he held on for dear life.

"Really?" Kelly asked with a cringe, hoping her friend wouldn't embarrass her.

"Oh yeah. Especially now that I know you don't want me to!" She quickly stuffed the rest of her sandwich in her mouth when she saw the child moving to another part of the playpark.

"Thish ish goin to be aweshum." She mumbled around the food as she ran to retrieve the hanging rope seat.

Kelly shrank in her seat, trying to make herself invisible.

"Woooooooooo" her friend screamed as she zipped down the long cable.

"Oh my god, that was great! You totally have to try that!" She called loudly across the park.

Kelly shook her head vehemently.

Her friend ran back to the bench and physically dragged her towards the flying fox, "Come on. One go and I will let you go back to your lunch." She said, causing Kelly to reluctantly comply.

She lifted her legs onto the plastic disc tied into the rope and it accelerated her downhill surprisingly fast, as she reached the middle she gave out an unintentional whoop and then as she hit the endstop and swung up and then was propelled backwards she squealed.

She was breathing slightly faster when she stopped, "Holy crap, that's a little kid's ride?"

"Yep, want to go again?" Charlotte asked with a giant smile.

"Hell yeah!"

They each had another six shots down the flying fox, all thoughts of lunch forgotten until a group of children came and asked if they could have a go.

They retired to the bench, smiling and giggling, glad they hadn't finished their drinks.

"So, ready for some more fun?" Charlotte asked once they had recovered from their exertions. She pulled some plastic frisbees from the now slightly emptier bag.

"Oh god, disc golf?" Kelly asked with a groan.

"Hey, it's fun! What do you have against it?" Her friend asked.

"It's for old people." Kelly said dismissively.

"Well, the flying fox is for little kids! Try a few holes at least."

Kelly realized that she was trying to be upbeat and enthusiastic, she took a deep breath and put on a smile for her friend, "Okay, I guess it won't hurt."

Charlotte grinned, "Excellent! Follow me." She slung the bag over her shoulder and skipped off across the park, leaving Kelly running to catch up.

"I think this is where you start." Charlotte said in a dubious tone.

"Yeah, the plaque over here shows where the hole goes." Kelly pointed out, "Apparently it's a par three?"

They examined the colourful picture for a minute, trying to line it up to reality.

"I think it's that horse feeder thing over there." Kelly said, pointing to a copse of trees in the middle distance with a metal basket surrounded by chains.

"Oh, cool. Well, I'm going first." Her friend said, taking a few steps and throwing the disc as hard as she could. It traveled straight as a die for a few seconds before taking an unexpected right turn. "Pants! Why'd it do that?"

Kelly laughed and half heartedly threw her disc, it went high and followed Charlotte's frisbee to the right. "Must have been the wind." She said, smiling.

They walked towards their discs, "How can a giant yellow plastic circle be utterly invisible?" Charlotte griped as Kelly picked up her blue one and threw it on towards the now considerably closer basket.

"You threw it too hard, it probably disintegrated."

"Very funny. I bet it's in that hedge."

They walked towards the foliage, "Oh, there it is!" Kelly exclaimed, pointing at the grass near her own disc. "How come you got that far with one throw?"

"Because I'm awesome." Charlotte deadpanned, "And I put some effort into it."

They each took three more shots before the discs hit the chains and dropped into the basket.

"Wow, that just stopped dead! I guess these things maybee' aren't horse feeders." Kelly pondered.

"Of course they aren't, we're in the middle of the city. Why would people bring horses here?"

"Well, they had that armoured knight thingy a couple of years back. That was all horsey stuff."

"Jousting? I didn't go to that, was it good?" Charlotte asked enthusiastically.

"Yeah, it was great. They had food stalls and a craft fair and jugglers and things. It's a shame they aren't doing it again."

"Oh! Why not?" Charlotte pouted.

"Apparently they haven't got enough trained horses or something."

They had found the next tee off point and this time Kelly made an effort to throw her disc hard. It sailed down the fairway and bounced hard off of the only tree in that direction, coming half way back to her.

Stolen story; please report.

"Damnit!" She stamped her foot in mock annoyance.

Charlotte laughed at her and threw her own disc, again with a running start. It went like a rocket, straight into the same tree, ending up almost on top of Kelly's disc. They both burst out laughing.

In the end they did all nine holes. Kelly had to admit it was far more fun than it sounded.

***

As they walked up the street after their game, Charlotte quickly pulled Kelly into a small shop, she looked around in baffled amusement. All around were rows of dwarf walls with windows installed and blinds or curtains.

“What are we doing here?” Kelly whispered, acutely aware of the distrusting gaze of the shopkeeper.

“Duh! Window shopping? Come on, everyone loves window shopping!” Charlotte told her whilst playing with the windows on display, opening and closing them and playing with the blinds.

Kelly sighed, shaking her head but followed suit, walking the rows of windows and fiddling with them.

“Look at this!” Charlotte called from the other side of the room.

Kelly wandered over to see her flicking a switch and causing a window to instantly go from clear to frosted, “Wow! That is cool!”

She watched it happen again before grabbing a brochure from the stand.

“Oh wow, it's a film you can put on existing windows. I wonder what happens when there’s a power cut? Do all your windows suddenly go clear and like, people can see you on the toilet?”

“It defaults to frosted so during a power cut all your windows are opaque” the shopkeeper said from over their shoulders. Both girls jumped. “Now, can I help you with anything?”

“Erm… no? We were just looking. Sorry.” Kelly sad in an unintentionally squeaky voice.

“Yeah, sorry, we’ll erm…get out of your hair.” Charlotte agreed whilst they both shuffled towards the door before turning and making a run for it.

Once outside they kept running for a hundred meters or so before both breaking down in laughter.

“Oh my god that was so funny. Whew.” Charlotte said whilst leaning on her knees to catch her breath.

“I should have asked him how much it was. I wonder if Mum would let me get some for my room?” Kelly mused.

“I bet you it's like, a million pounds. Cool stuff is always stupidly expensive.” Charlotte said, opening the backpack and taking the brochure from Kelly to pack away. “You should totally find out though. But not today, no way am I going back there!”

***

Charlotte took the lead again, this time taking Kelly somewhere she recognised, the mall.

“You're remembering I have no money?” She asked her friend.

Charlotte looked at her as if she was daft, “Window shopping!” She insisted.

They entered the busy mall, wondering at the number of people shopping in the middle of the week.

“I have to admit, I thought it would be empty at this time of day.” Charlotte lamented, “Oh well.”

They wandered the shops, Charlotte insisting that they look in the most bizarre places, a shop that sold only beard and shaving products, a kitchen knife shop, even a men's clothing store.

“Why?” Kelly asked after they finished looking through a South African speciality food shop.

“Well, it's not like we are going to buy things, why look at places we might be tempted?” Her friend told her, as if it were the most obvious thing.

“But I really wanted to buy some of those milk tarts.” Kelly reminded her.

She just shrugged, “I can't help your poor impulse control.”

Kelly laughed, then realised she was actually having fun.

They visited a few more shops before Charlotte declared, “That's enough not buying things! Come on, we have people to see!” And dragged Kelly out of the store by the hand.

This time they walked quite a long distance, for some reason Charlotte hadn't let go of Kelly's hand, Kelly wasn't complaining but assumed she either was making sure she was following, or had just forgotten to let go.

“Ah, yes. These are the people we came to see!” Charlotte declared, standing beside a massive double doorway.

Kelly looked up and saw that it was the city portrait gallery, she put her face in her free hand and groaned at her friend's joke. Even so, she let herself be led into the gallery.

“They change the portraits every few months.” Charlotte explained, picking up two slips of paper from the front desk. “We get to vote on the best one so keep that in mind.” She had obviously been to the gallery a few times.

They slowly perused the paintings, discussing which paintings they liked, which they didn't and which looked like a four year olds finger painting.

"Why does this artist get to have a dozen pictures? That seems unfair to the voting system." Kelly asked, looking at a collection of the same picture painted in various techniques and mediums.

Charlotte explained that there were exhibits from a single artist which were not included in the voting, which was good as the ones this month were awful, and that each other artist only got to submit one work.

“I like how everything is different. Like, the exhibits are all kind of samey, where the ones people submit are wildly different.” Kelly admitted after a few minutes.

“Yeah! Like, you have acrylic right beside a watercolour, or a giant five foot closeup right beside a tiny little one of someone in a rocking chair. It's like, if you don't like one, just look at the next one instead of those stupid clay heads over there.” Charlotte said enthusiastically, pointing at an exhibit that she had been quite scathing about. Admittedly, at first they had been impressed since they had assumed the artist may have been intellectually handicapped, at least I until they had read the card on the wall.

“I wonder if Abby has ever submitted anything to the gallery. Her art is better than most of these in my opinion.” Kelly mused.

“Is that your sister's girlfriend?” Charlotte asked.

“Yeah. She's going to art school or something next year.” Kelly absently confirmed. “Apparently she painted a nudey picture of my sister. So I've heard anyway. They refused to even confirm it, let alone show me it.”

“Eww! Kelly! You shouldn't want to see naked pictures of your sister.” Charlotte complained.

“Oh come on, I've seen her naked often enough, I'm just interested in whether it's any good. I also want to know if it is erm, you know, tasteful or if I need to beat her up for painting porny pictures of my sister!” Kelly exclaimed, indignantly.

“... Huh…I guess that's … less weird.” Charlotte accepted grudgingly.

Kelly gave a big sigh, "Does everyone think I'm a pervert?" she asked her friend, morosely.

Charlotte paused, trying to think of an appropriate response, "Well… you do seem to own that particular rhetoric…"

Kelly huffed, "I sometimes wish you weren't in the top English class." She scuffed her feet, thinking, "Are you saying people see me as a pervert because I intentionally give them that opinion?"

"Not really! They just kind of go along with you, like you're sort of joking so they joke along with you, but then sometimes they don't know for sure if you are joking. Which makes it awkward." Her friend told her in a rush, grabbing her hands in an attempt to stop her storming off.

"Oh god!" Kelly exclaimed, unable to meet her friends eyes, she took a few rapid deep breaths, "I guess I have been a bit… cringy." She blinked to stop herself from crying. "Why do you even hang out with me?" She asked, feeling that familiar sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Because I sort of like how you don't give a fuck?" Charlotte told her, honestly.

Kelly sniffed, "I guess I'm ruining that persona now too?"

Charlotte led her off to a bench in a quiet corner of the gallery.

"It's not like you do things that we all don't do, you just sort of, do them like they're funny. Like you're trying to make people notice and laugh."

"So, if I decide to do them, less, do you think I can change people's opinions? I don't want to be known as the weird pervert." She asked her friend.

"I think the way you behave is very… you? I don't think you should try to be something else, you're like, this chaotic whirlwind and that's cool. Just possibly, tone down the comments about naked spa pools and Emily Hassett's bum, things like that. Everything else is fine."

"But you did see her in those leggings?" Kelly asked in a serious tone, "She could crush rocks with that ass!"

Charlotte laughed, "Okay, you can talk to me about that sort of thing, just, tone it down in polite company. And perhaps be less obvious in your appreciation in the future, people don't like to be stared at."

"Okay, I get it. Stop perving on people and people might think I'm less of a pervert. Makes a strange sense." She sniffed and wiped her eyes, "Want to look at some more strangers, I'm fairly sure I saw a nice nude over in the left hand wing."

Charlotte laughed and batted her arm before helping her to her feet.