S25: "My Super Hero"

She was sitting in her 5B class with her bag on the desk and her eyes stuck to the floor.

Her bangs covered her forehead but she wished they could have covered her entire face so as to hide from this world.

She was shy and timorous. She always stay quiet in the class, not socializing with anyone.

She gets bullied all the time but she tends to ignore acting like she is deaf and they are talking to a wall.

She only makes eye contact with the teacher and when the teacher is not there, floor becomes her best friend.

The ‘cool guys’ of the class who are a bunch of six boys always hinder her and keep taunting her but she never acknowledged them.

One day-

During the play period, all the children were playing in the ground.

She was sitting on the swing pushing the ground hard with her tiny legs but the swing condemned making large movements.

‘Need any help sulky?’, the cool guys make their steps towards her.

She didn’t look at them.

Mittu, who was the fattest of all and who looks like a laughing Buddha came closer to her and hold the strings of the swing.

She tried to get down but before she could put her both legs on the ground, Mittu pulled the swing with force and left.

She had her one leg on the ground and the other in the air because of which she fell on the ground with a terrific thud. Her face got punctured into the sand.

Everyone in the ground started laughing and singing

‘Sulky sulky, sulky got yucky

 Sulky sulky, sulky got yucky'

As she tried to stand up, their chorus reverberated in her eardrums.

She stood up, dusted herself and walked closer to Mittu and said with her eyes spearing into his and with a subtle expression, ’Don’t mess with me’

‘What will you do, you sulky monkey’, he pushed her which made her to take a few steps back.

‘I am warning you’, she said again with a meek, non-aggressive voice.

‘Oh I am scared, I am scared’, he tried to make fun of her.

Without any mere change in her expression, ’you don’t know about my super hero. You will pay for this’.

She said and left while they kept mimicking like Superman and Spiderman.

That night in Mittu’s house-

While Mittu was sleeping with his mouth wide-opened, drooling all over his pillow, there was a furtive sound of a window opening.

Inadvertently, he peered with his one eye but he can only see a blurry image. He saw a person’s silhouette standing before him.

Out of a sudden, the sleepy head sat gaping at him and his hair stood on end.

He started covering himself with his bed sheet and tried to hide from him.

‘Wh..who are you’, he stammered.

 The silhouette moved forward. The moonlight from the window fell on him and his image became clearer.

He is wearing a dark grey suit from neck to toe having clouds with thunder in between them scattering all over the suit just like a furious sky engulfed with a cluster of clouds rumbling with thunders and lightening.

The suit also has a symbol of a massive cloud with a thunder penetrating into it in the center of the chest. He covered his head with a mask leaving his eyes naked and vulnerable.

‘Don’t you dare to shout’, his muffled voice was just as frightening as a roaring thunder.

Mittu was about to cry.

‘Are you sulky’s super hero?’, he said almost covering his head with his bed sheet like an ostrich 

trying to hide inserting her head into the ground.

‘She has a name, you dumbo’, he grumbled.

‘Sweety sweety, sorry’, Mittu began to shiver.

‘I got something for you’, he said taking something out of his pocket.

‘Noo, I don’t want anything’, Mittu started crying.

‘What I said about not making noise?’, he said holding a pencil box in his hand.

‘Sorry sorry’, Mittu whispered and gulped his cry.

He opened the box and took out a mammoth spider and threw on Mittu’s head. ‘I know what you are scared of’.

Mittu jumped from his bed and was shivering closing his mouth with his hands so that not even a single scream would escape from his mouth.

‘Will you ever tease her or should I give you one more present?’, he asked in a ferocious tone.

‘No, never never’, Mittu was  trembling vigorously in one of the corners of the room hoping that the wall would make a secret opening from him to escape.

‘Good’, he said and leaped out of the window which is on the ground floor.

The next day-

The whole school was talking about Sweety’s Super hero.

Mittu was no less than a radio and it was a worst night he went through.

Everyone in her class and in her school started treating her with respect (Though it’s the fear sugar-coated as respect).

Sweety’s little brother Bunny who was studying in kindergarten in the same school came to know about the news of her sister’s super hero.

That night-

Bunny came to her room with his spider man toy sweeping the floor.

‘Sweet, do you really have a superhero?’, he asked with his eyes sparkling like stars.

‘Who told you bun?’, she asked smiling.

‘In school, all are coming and saying that there is a superhero in our house’, he said wavering his hands.

‘Is he under your bed?’, he asked looking under her bed.

‘No bun. Do you really want to see him?’, she asked.

His eyes twinkled like lights in a stadium and his mouth with a wide-spread smile showing his freshly grown baby teeth.

‘Okay then, I will tell him to come to your room after sometime. But don’t tell to mom and dad’, she said.

‘I know about super heroes. They are secret’, bunny replied innocently.

‘Pinky promise’, she moved her little finger forward closing the rest of the fingers.

‘Pinky promise’, bunny held her little finger with his which interprets that he agreed to the vow.

Bunny was eagerly waiting for Sweety’s superhero.

The door slowly swung open and he saw the shadow of a person entering the room.

‘Hi bun’, he said.

Bunny was totally wonder-struck by looking at him. He sat speechless for some time, just 

communicating with his eyes.

‘Will you be my superhero too?’, Bunny asked throwing his Spiderman toy aside.

‘I am always your superhero’, he said.

‘Can I see your face, I won’t tell anyone. Mother-promise’, Bunny said touching his neck with his thumb and forefinger.

He laughed and removed his face mask.

There was a complete silence in the room. Bunny’s eyes blasted out and he was utterly shell-shocked.

‘Swweeet, it's you’, he shouted.

Sweet winked. Bunny ran towards her and hugged her.

‘Sweet, you are my superhero’, he said.

* Be your own super hero instead of waiting for someone to come and lit the lights in your life *