Ropuia was wearing one of his favourite shirts and was gleaming when he went out to play with his friends. Every evening Ropuia and his friends played together on the street. Usually they played cricket. Though one or two boys did complain that playing cricket everyday was not interesting. But nobody really bothered to discuss this. Everybody pitched in with the equipment they had. Rema’s father made wooden toys. So, he carved out a nice wooden bat for the boys to play with. Ropuia got the ball and Fela used to get bricks and assembled them as stumps. Other boys volunteered to get a ball whenever it was their turn, in case a ball got lost or torn. One evening the boys got together to play and one of them complained again, “Not cricket again, please…. why don’t we play football?.’’  Ropuia laughed and said, “You don’t want to play cricket because you are not a good batsman. Let’s start our game, we are getting late.’’ They started playing cricket.  Fela hit the ball hard and it landed in Renu aunty’s house. Afraid of getting another scolding the boys decided to run and catch each other for a while. Anyways they didn’t have the money to buy another ball. It was better to wait for Renu aunty’s temper to cool down before knocking at her door to ask for the ball.