Salt-Peter

   Peter was a strange child. And it was not only about his appearance, which included little tight curls of an odd ashy shade - little kids don't often have such hair color. But he thought it was better than the "curl boom" on the head of his friend Tom (yeah, that child was odd in his own way - walking around in long long stripy scarf and hat all the time). Anyway, Peter's stepbrother Matt was what you'd call a normal five-year-old boy. Cheerful, very very excitable and not caring about being laughed at, like when their preschool mate Mels had tied his hair into two pigtails and his eyes had been sparkling all day because, you see, those hairbands had been just like bowties. And Matt had a weakness for this type of accessories.
   But Peter was of a different kind. When he wanted to play, he liked setting his own rules, and this worked rarely. And almost each time when he wanted to do something good, it ended up in a flop, so now, after one more such flop, he was not in the best of moods, sitting on the second floor of the bunk bed he shared with Matt.
   "I'll show them who's boss", Peter muttered, addressing it to Matt's favourite toy giraffe carelessly thrown in the corner. But - how? If you're a child, you cannot have much success in talks with adults. They are always busy. And other kids considered Peter to be "all-buttons-fastened", whatever that meant (this was the expression of Sarah, the aunt of that very Tom-stripy-scarf). So... something was needed to attract them all and show who's the "man". What? What?.. At first Peter thought about banging on the drums, but abandoned this idea. No one had drums anyway, only pots, and that was a tried trick.
   Drums. Wait. Drums!.. No. That was a used trick. Peter's group mate John was crazy about drums, especially the four-beat rhythm, so this was twice useless.
   "Drums make noise, and adults are always mad about noise", Peter muttered, building a chain in his mind - adults call that "logic", don't they? "Need good noise. And more..."
   Wait a bit. What makes much noise but is loved by everybody? What makes not only noise but a spectle... spec-ta-cu-lar sight? What is able to attract everybody? Peter beamed with all of his tiny-toothed mouth - now he had an idea. But then his cheer was nearly all gone. How was he going to accomplish this?.. Another idea shot up in his head.

   "Why would YOU do it?"
   "Because I said so!"
   If Peter was good at something, that was telling others what to do in such tone that they couldn't resist. But here there was a counter-power as powerful as this. It had a ponytail, wore black jacket with loads of sewn-on pictures, knew what could explode with bangs and flashes and carried a nickname Ace (because this was one of her most favourite words). But she was stubborn as well, and right now Peter was attempting to convince her to lend him some of her belongings nicked from garages, rubbish bins and even school labs.
   After about half an hour of bickering Ace agreed to help him with his plan, but it appeared to be not so simple.
   "I have two tasks for you". She was getting her way at least here. "One: I help you. Because your boggled eyes won't help you when you need to see what goes where".
   Peter rolled his eyes (which were indeed very large and watery blue, so this made him look surprised all the time).
   "And what's two?"
   "I'll call you Salt-Peter!" Ace chuckled.
   "What the pudding?!"
   "Saltpeter is stuff that makes fire burn with different colors", Ace explained. Yeah, messing around with explosives required knowledge about them. "And your face is always as if you ate an over-salted dinner".
   Peter frowned, but this was the least of "counter-deeds".

   The place choice for their "prank" was easy. Town park. Many people were going to see it, and it was one of the meeting places of Clara and her boyfriend Danny (ooooooh, it wasn't easy to get Clara's attention when he was around!). Matt wouldn't give a damn about it - he would always run away in such cases either to catch a butterfly or to play with his friend David and his twin brother (Peter didn't remember his name), or to find adventures.
   The most difficult part was hiding the boxes with rockets for no one to see them and connecting them with a cable. At first Peter wanted to fire them up with matches - he coped with them perfectly, and for security he had stolen the electric thing which lit cooker up - but Ace had insisted on cable "because it'll be quicker". Quicker means quicker, okay - in fact, Peter didn't want to run around once more.
   "Done", he grinned, having met with Ace on their "base spot". "Let me!"
   Hardly had Ace said a word when there was a bang, boom, then another, one more and much more - and Peter jumped two meters high (or he thought so) because while all that running around he had forgotten that one of the boxes was hidden right in the bush next to him.

   "Clara! Clara!" Matt was bouncing around the bench, pointing at the sky. "Fireworks!"
   And indeed, the darkening sky was covered in multi-colored sparkles: green with white, golden spirals, red, blue and violet - all rainbow colors and their mixes. Or no, it was more of Northern lights and volcano eruption at the same time. However, marvelling at this sight (which was quite a rare occasion) didn't prevent Clara from catching Peter who attempted to dart past her but didn't succeed.
   One sight at Peter's soot-covered face with frozen expression of fear and stun was more than enough.
   "Pe-e-eter?" Danny asked, arching his brows.
   Again, again, again. I did it all wrong! No way I can make them... - this sounded in Peter's head, but he didn't scream it all out. Instead, he bit his bottom lip, his blue eyes growing even more watery. After all, he was just a kid, though strange.
   "I did it", he blabbed out, trying to keep his voice even. "I boomed the sky".
   "That's clear, you little sneak", Danny parried, but Clara hushed at him and asked in a calm quiet voice:
   "Why did you do that, Peter?"
   "You always talk to him, and you always talk to Matt, and you love 'em, and you..."
   "Peter, you silly boy, did you really think that I don't love you?" Clara was genuinely surprised. "Why did you?"
   Peter shivered when she put her hands on his shoulders. It was another odd feature of his - when it came to touch, his name matched him perfectly. "Peter". "Rock", "stone". Most of the time he didn't respond to hugging or patting or anything else. It was as if touching a statue.
   "Y-y-you always smile when Matt does things", Peter mumbled, struggling with himself - he didn't want to confess that the explosion behind the bush cracked him up. "And wh-wh-when I do things, you..."
   He didn't finish because Clara scooped him up and wrapped him in her arms, not caring that her red shirt was in black spots now. Matt climbed onto the bench and joined her, clinging to both his guardian and stepbrother.
   "You didn't have to make me like it or not like it. I love you because you exist, not because you do or not do something", Clara whispered.
   Peter would have preferred that no one saw him - his "rock" nature melted so much that he slowly hugged Clara back. It would've lasted longer if it was not for Ace, who dashed from behind the closest bush:
   "Hey, Salt-Peter! You were right, it was awesome! Care for more?.."
   "I have a very serious talk to you, young lady..."
   Ace was gone before Danny would've stood up - no wonder, after disappearance of explod-y stuff from his house he had a reason to get this little sneak as soon as possible.