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.

"Deyy Raja!," Murali exclaimed horrified, "She won't-"

He never got to finish as the other boys clasped their hands over his mouth and dragged him to a corner.

"Don't listen to your dum brother." Raja told me handing me a dhoop (incense) stick. I giggled nervously hoping that both me and Burj khalifa would be ok.

"Now once you put the glowing end of the dhoop stick on the wick, it's going to start sparkling and as soon as it does, you need to run back here because it's going to blow up. Understand?"

I frowned, my panic rising.

"Oh come on, I'll be right behind you!" He huffed.

He showed me the cracker, walked to the center of the path, set it down and beckoned me.

I followed and gave the cracker a wide berth while trying to lean in and light it at the same time.

"Go closer!" Raja urged, "You're gonna run away anyway."

Reluctantly obeying, I doubled about 5 times before I set the orange ember on the wick and soon as the first golden sparks spewed out, I ran for my life.

Shoving the dhoop in Raja's hands, I blocked my ears just in time before an the tiny red cigar blew up , shocking me to the core. The  unexpected volume rattled my bones despite the fact that I had taken the precaution to cover my ears.
I turned around to face the boys who silently watched me with bated breaths.

As a natural reflex to escape the numerous pairs of eyes pasted on to me, I simply went to Murali and buried head my stomach; again.

"I told you not to give it  to her!" He growled menacingly. "Now look what you did!"

Raja sprang to his own defence and a bit of a shouting match ensued.

"Anna?" I ventured feebly, lifting my head as soon as I heard a gap.

"What?" He snapped.

"What was that?"

"What was what, you stupid girl? Don't you know-"

"What was that cracker I just did, you ram-rod stick-head?" I cut him off, annoyed.

"Kadugu!" He growled, gesturing to the onlooking crowd with a tilt of his head.

"Just answer!" I whined, jumping on his feet.

"Ow! It was a 1 wallah bomb, you bhayandanguli!" He said shoving me off again. Thankfully  there was a crowd of boys behind me to cushion my fall instead of an exploding 100-wallah.

Speaking of those, another one had just started to explode on the street. It seemed to be made of a 100 of these 1 wallah bombs.

The short felt a rush of excitement coursing through me. Sure the bomb gave me a shock but I was over it already. And it was the annoying stares of the worrisome boys that were my problem. The thrill of making something explode had entered my veins….maybe Appa was right….

"So just 99 more of those makes a hundred wallah?" I turned and asked Raja.

He nodded.

I smiled excitedly.
"Cool! I'm ready for a 50 next." I piped as I skipped through the herd of boys whose jaws were hanging of hinges. Eager to find a 50 Wallah, I began to dig through the bag of crackers when all of a sudden the boys started beckoning and flailing their arms around yelling and screaming for me to get away from the bag.

"He's lit a 20 Wallah there! Get away! Get away!"

"Have you gone mad?! What are you doing you stupid boy?!" They growled.

Boy? I sharply turned around to meet Vikas's sneering white teeth as he hastily backed away from the l from the glowering string of bombs that erupted with explosive blasts. With great presence of mind, I scrambled and followed suit after grabbing the cracker bag. I don't think I was fast enough because 2-3 hot rosy cigars hit my shanks before I realised I should face the way I was running; Yep! I had been running backwards….. anyways I turned around and my face slammed into my brother's stomach for the 4th time that day.

"Aren't you and your skinny stomach lucky that I'm an airhead." I mused as he put a hand on my head to steady me.

"Yeah I thought so too, till today," he replied in monotone, "It seems that your head is filled with rocks instead."

"No, not really. It's Vikas's head that's filled with rocks, Anna." We all turned to face a little girl with pigtails and a very strong frown knitted onto her brows.

"Yeah no kidding." Murali said in the same monotone voice before asking me, "'You okay?"

"Just a couple of hot ones hit my shanks," I mumbled, not wanting to lie, "but I'm fine; really!"

"Has he been bugging you too, Veena?" Raja asked the annoyed little girl.

"Which girl hasn't he bugged?" She asked, rolling her eyes as she handed all the boys a murrukku. Looks like one of the cackling aunties had set her up to it.

"He's annoying, mean and stupid and needs to be set right." I cleared in a deadpan voice.

"No kidding, Kadugu." Murali smirked a bit, "But what are you gonna do?", "Throw baby poppers at him?"

He seemed annoyed at Vikas's prank, which was kinda touching. I think Murali's way of expressing his protective affection for me was to tell me that I was too small or too incapable to do some things. (You know, come to think of it, I'm definitely putting his put downs in an exageratedly positive way!) But in that moment, I knew I wanted this showdown all to myself. I needed to prove to myself, if not to anyone else, that I could do stuff without burying my head into the shadows of my big brother's shirt.
Crunching sounds of murrukku filled the momentary silence before I began to smirk at the plan formulating in my head.

"Veena, Get any other girls you know who know how to do crackers and want revenge on Vikas and meet me back here."

She gave me a nod and a two finger salute before jogging off to the parking lot with an empty tray.
(What do you expect? A gang of growing kids <cough, cough *boys* cough, cough> and anything but an empty tray? You fools! Hah!)

"Um, Kadugu?" Murali's face wore a questioning and worried expression. "What are you planning?"

"You'll see, Khalifa," I drawled in a sing-song voice as I stared at the singed remains of the rosy cigars ,"you'll see…"