“Pyojong!” Jongup’s face turned animated, gesturing the movement.

“Will we get in trouble?”

“Hopefully not....”

“I don’t want trouble. My parents get enough of that.”

“There won’t be trouble! It’s not like it’s really dangerous.” Jongup fiercely whispered to me, we huddled up in the tent, reading the instructions.”It’s really cool. And my brothers all did it. It’s like a tradition. Where and when else will we get to do it?”

I was wary, but the idea of making bottle bombs overrode all the doubt in my mind. It did sound cool, crazy cool. Even though it seemed like something all the cool kids did, I didn’t like the fact that we were at a cadet residential; the price of being caught creating noise and havoc in the middle of the night wasn’t one I wanted to pay.

“You go first then.” I patted his bum out of the tent, and I felt the extra padding. If you went to a disciplinarian school, you’d understand. We all padded out trousers with pillows, cloth or something as equally soft, so if you did get caned or hit on the , it wouldn’t hurt as much.

We ran to the furthest corner of the forest that we could get to without getting fatally lost. He took off his backpack and reached greedily inside. He took out four bottles, a jar of vinegar, some baking soda and paper towels.

“It’s really easy, but we need momentum. You need to drop it down from somewhere high.”

“You? As in me?” He nodded quickly. ”Me?” I pointed incredulously at myself. “Why me? It’s your tradition.”

“You’re taller. And better at climbing trees.” His face was a picture of serenity. “I only asked you to come because I needed you to make it work.” This is why I loved Jongup; there was no pretence in anything he did, ever, and if he’d led you on by accident he would tell you. He didn’t understand sarcasm or diplomacy at all.

“Fine. Get on with it.” He quickly added a cup of vinegar to the first bottle, while I studied the tree, figuring out the best way to climb it. By the time he’d put the baking soda in the tissue, and then in the bottle, I was ready to go.

“Shake it and then slam it down.”

I climbed like a monkey to the highest point I could, and then shook the bottle furiously. I could hear it fizzling so I threw it at the ground with as much power as I could muster.

The sound was deafening.

I could tell by the way Jongup flinched that we’d just woken the entire forest up.