Psychedelica – Pastel Ponies
A pony story by Joseph Raszagal
As inspired by stuff best kept away from children
Intermission (Chapter Jazz Hands) – Firecrackers and Beer

>Be Jeremy Robin, 16-years-old. Be annoyed.

With a groan, I successfully deflected a pillow as it was thrown across the room towards my face.

"You're getting up, you're putting on some shoes, and dammit, you're going to have some fun," Emily spat at me, throwing a pair of bluejeans at my face as well. The pants struck home where the pillow missed. "Hermit away long enough in that bed and it's going to develop a fungus or something. Jeremy Rot."

"You're not the Fun Police and I'm innocent until proven guilty anyway," I growled back. "What's the fucking occasion?"

Shaking her head, my big sister chided, "The 4th of July, you big dip. The day it's most legal to blow stuff up." Smiling, she added, "I figured maybe we could take some firecrackers and make mischief out by the Liberty Street bridge."

The eyebrow waggle at the end was what really sold it.

Slipping into the jeans, I smiled back and said, "Heh, alright, I'm game. I'm guessing you already have the crackers?"

"Now we just have to get down to Liberty Street to make the soup."

A pair of shoes and a backpack later, I made my way to the kitchen and loaded myself down with a 12-Pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, the beer of cheap champions. By the time I reached the front door, Emily was already at the sidewalk, armed with a duffel bag of dubious content.

"Mom would kill you if she knew," I snickered, jabbing her in the shoulder. She still had three years on me, but I was getting closer to being able to move her with every passing day. "You do know that, right?"

"Well, that's why you're not going to nark on me," she replied, jabbing me back and sending me an embarrassing number of steps away by comparison. "Also, we won't get arrested."

"That too."

As we rounded a corner and started our way towards the bridge, Emily quietly added, "Besides, she's still got it out for you ever since she found that pipe."

Rolling my eyes, I reached down into my right pocket and produced said item, "You mean this pipe?"

Stopping for a second, my big sis sighed, "You actually brought it with you?"

"Well, yeah, I'm supposed to be having fun, right? It's not like I'm not gonna hold a bunch of tiny explosives in my hand and set 'em off or something. Everything'll be fine."

"Jer, the weed was bad enough."

"And you called me a nark," I scoffed, smirking midway through. "Though really, I guess you can't help it; you're my nark. And you are the reason I'm even out here tonight." Pocketing the pipe again, I patted my backpack and said, "I'll... try and go easy on the pipe. Beer'll be fine."

"I appreciate it. You know I just wan~

Patting her on the shoulder, I grinned and laughed, "Seriously, Em, I know. Chill out, it's cool. It's all cool. Let's just go and wreak some havoc."

"Alright," she replied, sharing the grin.

As it turned out, empty beer cans made for great sound bombs (well, so long as you use the shit firecrackers; the Black Cats made dangerous shrapnel). It really paid off to be light on our heels too. Five or six cars actually stopped to scream at us, two of the drivers motivated enough to give chase. Track team made me a human blur though, while Emily sailed by me even faster.

Stupid ROTC training, how the Hell was I supposed to compete with that?

Sitting together in the concealing darkness beneath the bridge, we both cracked open a beer and toasted to our childish merry-making.

"To being hooligans," I chuckled.

"To being hooligans," Emily echoed back, taking a big swig.

As we sat there, drinking like high-schoolers playing hookie (which I suppose I still qualified as most of the time), I thought about my big sis. She pissed me off a lot of the time... well, most of the time really, but I guess she could still have her cool moments too.

I guess.

As I made my way over to a bush to take a leak, I looked over my shoulder to make sure she wasn't tailing me. Seeing that she hadn't, I pulled my pipe back out and took a quick toke.

What she didn't know couldn't hurt her.

To be continued in our regularly-scheduled programming, Psychedelica – Pastel Ponies...