Diwali-Wali

Boom!

Yezhil's POV

Two hours later, I bit into a murrukku while on the lookout for Murali, feeling slightly dejected and very much bored at the routine of covering my ears as the crackers went off. I wouldn't tell Appa just yet but the explosions were kinda exciting to look at. But nonetheless, I stuck to my routine of throwing and stomping on baby poppers, waving around sparklers and eating murrukku. (Oh BTW, yah, that's what them cutesy crackers are called.)

Vikas teased all the other girls by lighting crackers next to them and they would jump and squeal and run away. But since I stuck to the squawky aunties table, he didn't come near for fear of their pincer-like hands that preyed on the chubby cheeks of adorable children like him.
I was bony and thin and my cheeks were so very far from chubby and their favourite pastime so far as I was concerned, was to go,
"Child, you're so unhealthy. You should eat more veggies. Do more exercise or your bones will crumble to dust." Though I was completely fine. Lord knows why they had some serious disorder to attempt to belittle everything and anyone. (Heck, I was faster than Vikas who was a year older than us.) The best solution was to tune them out.

Just then Murali and his friends ambled over to grab some snacks. I waved to him and hoped he would stay; the boredom was killing me.

He grabbed some thate murrukku that happened to be in the plate next to mine and whispered, "How you doing? Fire anything yet?"

"Just these." I showed him the baby poppers.

He shook his head disappointedly and was about to walk away when one of his friends snatched the bag of baby poppers out of my hands and emptied the contents onto the ground. Then, my brother's entire entourage proceeded to stamp on all of them, and use them up. I was a little upset so I wailed a bit until Murali grabbed my hand and pulled me over to follow suit. It was fun and I too was thoroughly enjoying myself before I realized that my entire stock of the only cracker I could fire was gone.

I sighed dejectedly.

"Haven't you fired any crackers at all?" the said friend of my brother asked me.

I shook my head in a vigorous no.

"Scared?" he asked, laughing

I turned away as a hot flush scalded my face.

"It's ok. We were all scared the first time," He said kindly, "Just start small and work your way up to the big ones."

"But they're so loud." I whined before providence proved my point by immediately pressing my palms to my ears at the sound of another bang. "See?"

"But you have a solution right there now don't you." He pointed at my closed ears. And it can't possibly get louder than when you and Murali fight, right?"

I giggled as Murali furiously denied the last statement and they argued back and forth. Maybe I could do it too.
"It does look cool" I ventured to comment, rather wistfully.

"It is! Come on! Join us." The rest of them chorused in an encouraging cacaphony.

"But what if it explodes in my face or I get burnt?"

"Then I become a single child!" Murali sneered, grinning wickedly and then emitting an evil laugh.

"Hey!" I pouted, crossly and the boys also began to admonish Murali for being mean to me, to my delight.

"It won't explode in your face if you do it properly. Besides your brother's here, we're all here....Your dad's here…. we'll all make sure nothing happens."

"Ok" I sighed and walked along with them feeling a tadsky spririted, but there were also a bunch of butterflies doing granjetés in my stomach.

"Here. Do this one." the same boy said, producing a single rose colored, rather cigar looking stick about 2 inches long with a thread wick jutting out of one end.