Prank Wars Read online

  Prank Wars

  Stephanie Fowers

  © 2011 Stephanie Fowers

  Published by Triad Media and Entertainment at Smashwords

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, incidents and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  Published by Triad Media and Entertainment, Salt Lake City, UT

  [email protected]

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  2012930391

  .1. Fiction. 2 Romance. 3. General

  Cover art by Kristi Linton

  Cover Design by Jacqueline Fowers

  Typeset by Heather Justesen

  Table of Contents

  Madeleine’s First War Journal

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Madeleine’s Last War Journal

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To my family, who laughs at dreams but can't resist helping me reach them.

  To my friends, who see past me to see me.

  To my hopes, who will never rule my life but still make life fun.

  To God, who gave me all of them.

  An excerpt

  from Madeleine’s

  War Journal:

  Day 114

  0134 hours

  “People are getting hurt. I’m not talking broken hearts or Jell-O packets in the shower heads; I’m talking real scary stuff. Things like this happen in New York, Chicago, Ogden even, but here in Provo? Something strange is going on here...and it’s not just the students.

  No one is what they seem. The player? A terrorist. The heart-breaker? A no good spy. My neighbor? They’ve taken her. The jerk? A pretty decent guy. My roommate? An utter sneak—but then again I always knew that.

  Grades? Dates? Pranks? They’re nothing to the danger that stares us in the face. You’ve got to believe me. If I could go back before everything—before the world went terribly wrong—would I change what I’ve done or have these meaningless pranks made me better able to fight this?”

  —Madeleine’s War Journal Entry (Wednesday, June 6th).

  3 Months Earlier...

  Madeleine’s

  first War Journal

  Chapter One

  Day 47

  1345 hours

  “War rules my life, though strangely I find myself attracted to it.”

  —Madeleine’s War Journal Entry (Friday, April 1st).

  “Hey, Madeleine! Your name’s Madeleine Doggett, right?”

  He knew very well what my name was.

  I swiveled in my seat and scowled, seeing Byron…or Lord Byron as I called him when he was really bugging me. It made him angry and that was my target. Normally, I would pretend I didn’t hear him, but he was looking straight at me with those devilish blue eyes.

  “What do you want?” I hissed. Our chemistry teacher lectured in the front, completely oblivious to the talking and fluttering of papers common to a class of four hundred.

  “You dropped this.”

  He scooted forward until we were almost nose to nose and held up a note. My hand lifted, but he grinned, keeping the note out of my reach. “From your secret admirer,” he read it to me. “I couldn’t help notice how gorgeous you are. We really need to go out sometime.” He glanced up at me with a knowing look. “Did you give this to me?”

  My face got red...until I remembered what today was. April Fool’s Day. Apparently Byron really got into the season. I recovered with a snicker, earning a few glares my direction for disturbing the class. “Nope, sorry,” I whispered. “Maybe the note wasn’t meant for you. Give it here. It’s probably for me.”

  “Oh, really? I must’ve written it then.”

  I turned even redder. So, that’s how Byron got all the girls. Not that he meant me to go for his game, he just liked to hijack my emotions and see me squirm. The guy had been a constant thorn in my side since he moved into my ward, and now he had the nerve to be in my chemistry class. I blew my dark hair out of my eyes and faced him squarely. “Did you also blow up a picture of yourself and send it to all the girls in our apartment complex?” His eyes took on a challenging glint, and I smiled disarmingly. “I saw you autographed it for us too, Lord Byron. How sweet. Now we can all have a part of you.”

  Byron matched my smile, his expression cool. That meant he already knew I was the culprit behind that little prank. “You realize you’re over your head, right?”

  I ignored the threat. He might have the face of an angel, but he had the heart of a devil. I knew how to handle his kind. Ripping paper from my binder, I wrote in my girliest handwriting: “To my secret admirer, maybe you should pay attention in class and stop harassing the ladies.” I dropped the note behind me. “Oops.” It fluttered to the ground.

  A minute later, a new note dropped into my lap. “I would never deprive the ladies of my attention—especially when they are in need of my social help.”

  “At least they don’t need psychiatric help.” I threw that one behind me.

  A tap on my shoulder signaled me to reach back and Byron folded my fingers over his latest retort, his hand resting too long over mine. I jerked away, refusing to give into his psychological warfare. Unfolding it, I read: “Maybe we should stop all this fighting and learn to love each other?”

  I wrote April Fools on it and sent it back. It earned a laugh from him and my lips curved up unwillingly. If I wasn’t careful I’d end up liking Lord Byron as much as his laugh. I forced my lips back down. He was much too smooth and practiced. I needed a guy more…not breathing. I still hadn’t recovered from my last relationship.

  “Hey, did you give this to me?” I glanced behind me, expecting Byron again. Instead another guy beside him met my eyes quizzically. It was toenail guy. He left a pile of toenails on the floor every week in class and had to be the sole reason BYU discouraged flip flops. He handed me a folded up piece of paper, unable to meet my eyes.

  I opened up the note and figured out why. “You’re pretty cute,” it said. “Here’s my number.” And there was my number in black and white.

  My gaze shot to Byron as he edged wickedly away from the civilian caught in our crossfire. He was as slick as James Bond and twice as rude. “Thank me later,” he mouthed. It was like he didn’t know what I had been through this last semester. My eyes narrowed at him. I had the dark eyes of a Russian spy, which I fancied made me sinister enough to break an enemy with a glance, but Byron seemed unruffled by it.

  “Finals are in two weeks,” the teacher droned on with an emotionless voice. “You are allowed one 3 by 5 index card in the testing center.” I stared up at our teacher. He looked as bored as we were. Would he ne
ver dismiss class? I had a bad case of jumpy leg this time. After a dozen parting remarks, the teacher released us and I scrambled out of my seat with only minutes to execute my perfect evacuation.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned to Lord Byron’s latest victim, not knowing how to explain the phone number disaster, but toenail guy was gone. No one stood between me and the devil. “Byron!” I tried to find him in the crowd of mingling students. “You can’t just…” I stepped back.

  Byron was already halfway across the room. He pressed his palm against the wall, leaning over one of the many TAs from our chemistry class. I couldn’t tell if she was pretty because I could only see her from the back, but Byron sure acted like she was. Her hair was long and two shades blacker than mine. To top it off, she seemed way more delicate and fragile than me. Byron dripped with charm—something I had never experienced personally from him, but had witnessed plenty of times at ward prayer with his other doomed victims. The girl twisted her Gucci flats shyly against the gray carpet and wrote her number down for him. Typical. Just typical.

  I backed away from them both, feeling a strange surge of disappointment. How did Byron always show me up? And without even trying? I didn’t want all guys to be this way—a big fat illusion. I flung my backpack over my shoulder and retreated to the back door of our lecture hall. I had my own reasons for taking the back way out of chemistry, and it had nothing to do with Byron. No, my reasons were recorded in Journal Entry Number One. V-Day. That was the day my heart broke in two. I had refused to let it rule me since.

  Cameron’s class was across the hall. It had been our tradition in the beginning of the semester to meet right after class for lunch. As soon as my hands left the door in chemistry, they had found Cameron’s. I thought it was love. We had been that cute annoying couple no one wanted to be around. Was it only last spring when I had met him? All the girls had loved him. I should have guessed I’d eventually have my turn with him. In the fall, not only were we dating, but we had our own language. He’d surprise me with kisses, whisper sweet nothings. Cameron must’ve been caught up in the romance of it too because he asked me to marry him over Christmas break. That was farther than any of the others got. My mom hugged me over and over, and declared it was about time, but Cameron and I didn’t make it past V-Day. I had to hand it to him; it was a creative way to get out of buying flowers. I just wished he had bought me a ring so I could’ve thrown it in his face. Now I just avoided him like he was a Mary Kay saleswoman.

  I stepped out of the back exit of the Benson building, letting the door slam behind me. That’s when my heart did that weird plummet thing it did every time I saw Cameron. It was weird how I could always pick him out of a crowd of students. He lounged against a tree ten feet away, wearing the vest I picked out for him five months earlier. He played with the ring on a beautiful blonde’s finger. His signature leather bracelet slid up his sinewy arm, and he looked smitten.

  My eyes ran to this new girl. She wasn’t Kim. Kim was a beautiful brunette who had been hanging on Cameron for the last few months. A nice girl, who should have been too nice to let him cheat on me. Still, they were officially going out, so why was Cameron flirting with someone else? Number one rule, he cheats with you, he’ll cheat on you. Cameron chose that same moment to glance my direction. Almost simultaneously, he turned away and stepped up the flirting. The blonde took full advantage of it. Her giggles echoed past me.

  Note to my war journal; today is not my day with men.

  I tried to remember what all these girls saw in Cameron. I mean really, his mouth was too big, his red hair too slick. Okay, his eyes weren’t bad. In fact, they were mesmerizing, but other than that…well, he was really tall and definitely made a girl feel feminine standing next to him. He was funny and clever and listened to everything I had to say…and then one day, his interest faded.

  I tried to plot my way past enemy territory down the hill to my apartments, except this time the blonde flipped her hair and led Cameron my way. That’s when I did what any sane person would do; I walked slow motion through the thickest part of the crowd to avoid him. It was a perfect spring afternoon for it. The flowers were blossoming and love should’ve been in the air. It should have been.

  “Cameron?” Kim materialized from the crowd and clutched her books close, staring from her boyfriend to the girl he was flirting with. I felt like I was in a rerun, and it was me staring at Cameron with Kim.

  “Got to go,” Cameron mouthed to the blonde. He squeezed her hand and headed for his stunned girlfriend. He towered over Kim. She sniffed, trying to flounce past him down the hill, her long brown hair swinging against her back.

  He reluctantly joined her. Kim’s voice rose and I cringed, knowing I was about to witness a lot of tears and accusations. Why did I have to be here for it, besides the fact that lunch was down the hill and I was super hungry? I hid behind a gaggle of girls heading the same direction. “Where were you last night?” Kim asked.

  Cameron sighed, his expression turning serious. “I was at the hospital. My grandfather’s sick. He had a stroke, Kim.”

  “Oh.” She was silent for a moment, digesting his pity story. Now she looked like the insensitive one. Of course, I knew it was a lie. Cameron’s grandfather always got sick when he couldn’t think of a better excuse. “It’s just that…” Kim fought for words. “Why haven’t I seen you lately? Every time I want to hang out, you have homework…or work…or you’re tired.”

  “I’m really busy, Kim. This is the hardest semester of my life. I thought you understood that?”

  “Yeah…I do.” She rubbed at her watering eyes. “But you still hang out with your friends. It’s like you don’t want to be with me?”

  Cameron looked down at his big hands and sniffed. “It’s just…I’m not ready for a serious relationship right now.”

  I choked back a retort. Where had I heard that before?—oh yeah, in his break-up speech with me, almost word for word. I walked even slower. There was no way I wanted to get caught in the middle of this, but if I bailed now I’d starve for the rest of the day.

  Cameron took Kim’s small hand in his, every movement gentle. “I hate this. You know I want to be with you.”

  Kim turned to him, showing me a shocked profile. “Then why are you doing this?”

  “I don’t feel right about us. I fought it, but I can’t see it working. There are some things I need to do with my life right now and marriage isn’t one of them.”

  “But…but…I’m not ready to get married either!” She tried to reassure him, but it wouldn’t do any good. Now any threat of marriage—real or otherwise would send him running. “You’re the most amazing guy I know, everything about you is what I want.”

  He licked his lips. “Okay, now you’re making me uncomfortable.”

  She let go of his hand and looked contrite—he managed to look like a lost puppy. “Sorry,” she took a steadying breath. “Are…are you okay?”

  He nodded, his head bent sadly. I felt the anger rise up in me. He was working her like the inexperienced violin she was. “I just don’t know if I can ever get married, but if I were to marry anyone, it would’ve been you.”

  Liar! Unless in his alternate reality, he wanted to be a polygamist because he said the same thing to me. Even a perfect girl couldn’t hold onto a guy these days. It should’ve made me feel better about all the times I got dumped, but it didn’t.

  “Would you like me to walk you home?” he asked her.

  She sniffed and wiped a hand across her eyes. “No.”

  Cameron stepped awkwardly back and I ducked behind a group of girls, trying to blend in. He brushed past me, retreating for the gardens—slowly at first, but then faster as if incredibly relieved. He’d better hurry if he wanted to catch up with that blonde.

  Kim headed blindly for our apartments. I considered skipping my lunch break, but before I could do it, she glanced back and spied me. “Madeleine?” I managed a smile back at her, trying to pretend like I didn’t hear the wh
ole exchange—until she started crying. “I thought he cared about me!”

  Oh! I jumped from the protective ranks of the girls hiding me and gave her a hug, patting her back. It felt unnatural because I had no idea how to make anyone feel better, but if anyone could empathize with breaking up with Cameron, it was me. “What’s going on?” Somehow I got out the words.

  “He doesn’t want me. But...I...I came between you two. I deserve it. I just thought…I thought we were meant to be. I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

  “No,” I soothed. He played her like he played me and now he was finding someone else to play. And I would’ve married such a man?

  Kim sniffed and pulled away, hugging her books closer to her. My hand found her arm. I doubted she knew where she was going or who she was talking to or what she was saying, so I guided her to our apartments. “He’s confused,” she said. “He’s hurting right now. He’s not ready for a serious relationship.”

  “He’s hurting?” I frowned. He didn’t hurt. “Did he say he wasn’t going to date anyone ever again?”

  Kim nodded sadly, not getting what I was saying at all. “He can’t…because…because he just isn’t ready. He might not ever be ready. He’ll be alone for the rest of his life and he won’t have children or grandchildren or anybody!” The tears streamed freely down her face. She was no longer crying for herself, but for Cameron. He had her right where he wanted her.