Adventures of the Ten - Television and the Scare

It wasn't often that the ten boys got a chance to sit down and relax in each other's presence. After all, matches didn't win themselves. All the same, time and again, things happened that brought all the teenagers to the same room with no intention of destruction whatsoever. This time, it was Varun's sprained ankle. Said ankle had been sprained in an unfortunate incident which involved Varun toppling down a few stairs, and then a few more, owing to the weight of his bag. Centre of gravity and momentum too had a role to play, but nobody was inclined to give that a thought.

Fortunately, nothing had been broken. The doctor had advised him to rest his ankle for a few weeks. His friends had insisted they would keep him company during that prolonged time period because that was what good friends did.

And so, Saturday afternoon found all ten boys lounging in Varun’s living room while the young master asked Harshit, “Dude, what would you like to watch?”

Harshit’s presence was a rare occurrence. His parents were sorely against whom they thought to be their daughter spending time with nine other boys alone in a room, especially when all of them were teenagers. How being with nine others equaled being alone, Harshit would never know. This particular afternoon and evening, his parents had gone out. Slipping out of the flat hadn’t been hard.

So rare was the occasion of Harshit joining them that every time he was there, he was at complete liberty of calling the shots.

“WandaVision. We’ve got enough time,” Harshit said without hesitating. Varun frowned, but nodded. Tarun, however, wasn’t so subtle.

“No!” he whined, “That’s a sit-com. Nobody watches sit-coms!”

Dhruv and Sahil determinedly didn’t make eye contact with anyone. Both of them missed Aditya and Harshit looking pointedly at them.

“It’s Marvel,” Aarush said, “And Marvel never goes wrong.”

“Let’s watch Deadpool then,” Tarun argued. His movie of choice was getting enthusiastic support from Gourav and Abhinav.

“That’s R-rated,” Aditya protested weakly. Tarun and Abhinav merely raised their eyebrows.

“It’s Varun’s flat,” Shirsho said suddenly, in a voice that brokered no argument, “He asked Harshit for his opinion; Harshit said WandaVision. We are watching WandaVision.” He glared at Tarun daring him to disagree. Tarun wisely didn’t take the bait. “Turn it on,” he added to Varun.

“Something else can also be turned on,” Dhruv said with a wink, trying to dissipate the tension, but his voice was quelled when he saw the unimpressed and unamused looks the others were directing towards him.

Soon the TV show started and there was finally peace. Or as much peace as possible with ten boys packed in a room.

“Nobody said this was a musical,” Tarun grumbled at the opening scene. He was sitting on the single-seater sofa furthest from the screen. Sahil, who was lounging on the floor in front of his feet, smacked him on the knee without moving his eyes from the screen.

“Shut up,” he hissed.

The episode seemed to be straight out of the mid-20^th century, complete with the audience laughter. Every time the invisible audience laughed, Abhinav roared with laughter from his beanbag. The third time it happened, Shirsho kicked him from his position on the carpet. Abhinav was silent after that.

“Didn’t she have some red magic on her hands?” Varun asked after a beat, his forehead scrunched in confusion. He was more of a DC person, not that the others cared – he had been forced to watch all the MCU movies. It was one of the many perils of being friends with Avengers’ fans. All the same, he’d rather watch a show from Arrowverse than anything Marvel had to offer. But rules were rules, and it had been Harshit’s turn to choose, so he had stayed silent.

“That comes later,” Harshit said wisely.

“Spoilers!” Shirsho shouted. Abhinav kicked him.

“Shh!” he hissed. Shirsho raised a single eyebrow and kicked him back. Soon, the two were involved in their own smaller version of World War III. Tarun coughed awkwardly. No one spared him a glance.

“Are you two done?” Dhruv asked irritably. He had bagged the spot closest to the TV.

Soon the first episode was done and the second started.

“There were no post-credit scenes, were there?” Shirsho asked worriedly. Marvel was reputed for its post-credit scenes. They didn’t always contribute a lot to the overall plot, but Shirsho firmly believed all scenes were scenes and hence deserved to be seen.

“Nope,” Harshit and Aditya answered as one.

“You’ve already watched this?” Abhinav asked Aditya incredulously. Aditya just shrugged non-committedly.

Everything was going smoothly until it no longer was. It started with Varun shrieking his patented ear-piercing shriek. Sahil, Dhruv and Gourav yelped.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” Abhinav thundered, twisting in his beanbag so he was facing Varun. He wouldn’t admit it, but Varun’s shriek had spooked him. The happenings on the show were already spooky as it were.

Varun’s face had gone white. He was pointing at Abhinav’s shoulder.

“Sp-spi-sp-”

Abhinav turned his head to look down on his other shoulder. His eyes widened, and the very next second he had given the most inhuman scream possible by a human, and was trying to scramble out of the beanbag. He failed majestically, and somehow ended up toppling over Shirsho. Shirsho looked mortified. His eyes turned towards Aditya, pleading for help, but he was slowly backing away.

“Get off me!” Shirsho yelped. His looks and actions were conflicted – on one hand, he wanted nothing more than to push Abhinav off him, on the other, well, he didn’t know how he could possibly touch Abhinav with that thing on his shoulder.

“No!” Abhinav sobbed, “If I’m going down, so are you!” And with those words, he shifted awkwardly so that the thing on his shoulder fell onto Shirsho. Nobody except Aarush and Dhruv saw or heard Varun fall from his chair, clumsily stumble into the nearest room, and lock the door. In fact, Aarush was the reason Varun fell – they had bumped into each other in their haste. One left the room; the other left the flat.

Shirsho screamed, and didn’t stop. He finally managed to push Abhinav off him, and scrambled out of the beanbag, falling headfirst. He did an awkward back roll and got up, still screaming.

“Is it on me? Is it on me?” he asked frantically, patting his entire torso. “Oh, ditch it!” he said hysterically, pulling off his t-shirt and throwing it onto the floor. Only, for once, his aim was terrible, and the t-shirt ended up falling on Tarun.

As soon as Tarun had seen the beast on Abhinav’s shoulder, he had gotten up to move away, all the while reminding himself that he was older now and no longer afraid of spiders. But the beast on Abhinav’s shoulder hadn’t been just any spider – it was a behemoth, a giant monster that could probably take up the entirety of his palm, hairy, grey and golden, and had eight eyes. Whoever had eight eyes, for goodness’ sake!

Consequently, he had done the sensible thing of getting up and moving away, at least, he had tried to. Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten that Sahil was sitting by his feet. He had tripped over him and ended up sprawled on the floor. Shirsho had, thank heavens, missed him with his falling and back rolls, but the t-shirt he had thrown had landed on his face.

“AAUURRGH!” Tarun screamed, pulling the offensive piece of clothing away. He tried to get up, tripped on Sahil, and fell down again.

Harshit couldn’t take it anymore – he burst out laughing. Abhinav turned towards him with tears running down his face.

“Were you – are you RECORDING this?” he demanded angrily. Harshit kept laughing.

“I’m gonna title this, ‘The Bravest Boys on the Block versus a Toy Spider’.”

“Toy?” Shirsho asked weakly, as Harshit got up and picked the spider from the floor.

“This video is gonna be priceless,” Harshit laughed out.

“In your dreams,” Abhinav whispered warningly, and with an expression that screamed murder, tackled Harshit onto the ground and wrestled the phone out of his hands.

Dhruv found the entire episode – the one on screen, but more so, the one that had played out in real life – entirely enjoyable. He had planned the whole thing with Harshit and Sahil. When he had seen Harshit take the spider out of his pocket, he had excused himself and gone to the kitchen from where he would have an excellent view of the happenings. Harshit’s recording was a farce, a mere distraction, and predictably, everyone had fallen for it.

“It was a toy?” Varun asked, finally opening the door and stepping out into the living room. Aarush too had walked into the flat.

“Yeah,” Abhinav said savagely, “At least the video is gone now. It would have been perfect blackmail material.”

“You mean this video?” Aarush asked, holding his phone up in confusion. The video had been WhatsApped to their official group only minutes ago. It was how he’d known it would be safe to come back. Shirsho shot Abhinav an injured and betrayed look.

“How?”

Dhruv could no longer keep his sniggers in.

“Today’s not even 1^st April,” Tarun protested weakly.

“Nope,” Sahil agreed.

“Today was just a trial run,” Harshit added, smiling wickedly.

Aditya couldn’t stop his eyes widening in horror, none of them could.

“Is this really happening?” Wanda’s voice came from the television screen.