Prank Wars Read online

  “Therapy.” I steeled my eyes to match hers. “Would you like some?”

  She snorted. “I guess it makes sense. Shrinks are usually more messed up than their patients.”

  “Are yours?”

  “Look,” she hissed. “I’m not in the mood for this. I want my Jell-O back. All of it. And if you stashed it somewhere nasty, you’d better replace it fast!” She jabbed her finger at me. “And don’t touch my stuff again. Got it?” She stared at my impassive face and pulled away before I could deny her accusations. Lizzie moved out of her way to give her the grand exit she deserved.

  “You could get him back, you know,” I told Sandra’s elegant back. It stiffened—just as I knew it would. Yes, Sandra in all her coolness was just another casualty who fell for some smooth guy’s act. Or shall we say, Lord Byron’s smooth act. And since Lord Byron recently gave me the smack down, I figured I owed him another one.

  Sandra turned to face me and I met her eyes evenly. “And I’m not talking getting him back so you can date him again.” I ignored Lizzie’s warning look. “No, get him back so that no one ever wants to date him again.”

  Sandra’s chin lifted, but only slightly. “Who could you possibly be referring to?”

  “The one who made you the bitter woman you are.”

  Sandra gasped at that. “I’m not bitter because of him.”

  “Really? Then who was it?”

  “That, dear, is none of your business!”

  “We live with your bitterness. That makes it our business…unless you want to start acting like a normal human being again, of course.”

  “And what do you consider a normal human being?” She snaked her head back and forth at me. “Someone who holds guy intervention meetings for the clinically insane who just happen to lose their boyfriends? I swear most girls I know pull pranks on guys to get a date, but you? You do it because you hate men. Don’t you?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I was asking you.”

  I smiled. At last we had some common ground. Byron recently made the mistake of setting his sights on my gorgeous roommate. The only thing he could possibly see in Sandra was her beautiful face. And though we didn’t see much of her, we definitely saw more than that—she was a killjoy. Byron had dropped her on her head almost as soon as they started going out, which certainly didn’t help matters at home. Now it was my duty to reach out to her.

  “I know what you’re going through,” I said. “When I went through my last break-up, I cried every day and night—in class, at church, at work, in the car, when I saw babies, when he looked at other girls the way he used to look at me, when I heard the things he said about me. I blamed myself. I thought I wasn’t good enough somehow. Too obnoxious, too hard to deal with, too stupid.” Sandra’s eyes were glazing over and I cut to the chase. “You wanna know the worst part? When he pretended I didn’t exist. We could be alone in the same room together and he wouldn’t even bother to talk to me.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  I paced the room as was my usual habit. “Because one morning, I woke up and thought, ‘Madeleine! What are you doing? Look at yourself. Your eyes are red. You’re miserable, and you’re crying so much you’re dehydrated, and it’s all for nothing! He isn’t crying for you. He doesn’t even miss you. He’s lost interest. He’s not wondering why the relationship failed. He doesn’t care and he won’t ever care. Your tears will not bring back the man he used to be because he never was that man, so quit being a baby about it,’ and I did. So now I’m happy.”

  “You sound real happy.”

  “I’m free.”

  Sandra just stared at me blankly and I took a deep breath. I didn’t expect her to understand. Some girls lived off the adoration of males and didn’t know that life could be habitable without it. “Okay.” The more casual I made this, the more chance she would talk. “Tell me your story, Sandra.”

  Sandra hesitated, her eyes on mine. As always, she was a little intimidating, but to be fair, I’ve been accused of that too. Her iPhone went off and she heaved a sigh, echoed by all of us in the room. We’d get no information out of her now.

  Sandra glanced down at her latest text. “Get off my case, Madeleine.” Her fingers flew over the touchscreen while she told me off. Begrudgingly, I admired her texting skills. She was the queen of multi-tasking. “I don’t have a story, Mad, so drop it.”

  I leaned on a table to watch her with steady eyes. “You still like him, don’t you?” Sandra froze angrily at the accusation. Before she could snap at me again, her iPhone beeped impatiently. She was getting bombarded with texts. Sandra pulled her cell to her ear and shot me a parting glare. “Mind your own business, brat.”

  My eyebrows lifted. Brat? That was uncalled for. Sandra couldn’t be that much older than me. She could even be younger. I had no idea.

  “You will not believe what my roommate—” We heard Sandra’s voice fade down the hall.

  As soon as she was out of earshot, I snapped at Kali. “Quick. Give me the ward directory.” Kali’s lip curled up eagerly and she ran to fetch it from the coveted spot from the microwave in the kitchen.

  “Poor Byron.” Tory grinned mischievously. “We’ll help Sandra whether she likes it or not.”

  Chapter Three

  Day 47

  1452 hours

  “War. It starts out so simple: just a bit of betrayal, a bit of pain, a bit of vengeance. And that’s when I find myself doing things I never thought I’d do.”

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

  Kali rounded the corner to my room and threw the directory into my hands. Her bracelets jingled. I flipped to Lord Byron’s page. Whoever worked on the ward directory clearly had a crush on Byron, but then again what girl in the 73rd ward didn’t? His picture was bigger than any of his roommates’ and he had about three different quotes under his name as opposed to the single quote most of us were allowed.

  He posed like some sort of GQ model with dark hair and blue eyes. Yeah, the ward directory girl put his picture in color too—normally not a problem, except everyone else was in black and white. The special treatment was justified in the name of teasing. He pretended to be disturbed by the attention, but I knew he reveled in it.

  “Just look at him!” Kali whispered in her baby doll awe. “He’s beautiful. Byron’s the reason polygamy was invented.”

  “Nice,” I said in my most sarcastic voice. Kali sighed dreamily, even though I shot her a disapproving look.

  Tory peered through her red hair to see. “Yeah, he’s hot,” she admitted.

  “No, no.” Lizzie shook her head vigorously. “He’s evil. There’s a difference.”

  I smiled at her. Despite our disagreements, we were still on the same side. “Beautiful boys generally are,” I said. Lizzie nodded in agreement. “I think that it’s time to play a little April Fool’s joke.” Lizzie’s head snapped up, suddenly realizing that our afternoon of intervention wasn’t over. “Don’t worry,” I reassured her. “It’ll be worth it. Where’s my cell phone?”

  “Are you crazy?” Lizzie blocked me from my cell phone. It sat on my bed. “C’mon Mad!” She held her hands out. “Would you just for a moment think things through?”

  I tilted my head, pretending to think then nodded, snapping at Tory. “Cell phone.”

  Tory dove over the bed, slipping easily past Lizzie. She was used to slithering in and out of tight spots when things got dangerous. “Don’t worry,” she tried to reassure Lizzie. “He won’t know it’s us. We’ll block the call.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about!”

  Tory slapped the cell phone into my hand. The cover was pink camo. I stared down at it. The phone had ruined my life more than once, but there was a time for love and a time for not, and a time for using the phone when love was not in the cards. I eased to the floor. With the exception of Lizzie, we sat in a tight circle around the directory.

  “Do it, Madeleine,”
Kali gushed with rosy cheeks. “He’s really cute.”

  My jaw clenched at her usual failure to see the big picture. “Cute has nothing to do with this.” It was possibly the four-hundredth-and-fifty-second time of giving her this lecture.

  “Doesn’t it?” Tory watched me steadily. She was calm in the face of danger and always throwing unwanted rhetorical questions at me. “Trust me. You can hang up anytime.” I tickled the pink camo cover on my cell phone. Byron deserved what he got. He was cocky, arrogant, and now he was moving onto every girl we loved and cared about. Never mind that he thought it was his duty to insult me at every turn. Today’s April Fool’s joke wasn’t the worst of it. “Or don’t you remember?” Tory asked. “He called you desperate last Sunday.” Tory had on her half-smile. It completed her mischievous redheaded look. Anyone who was friends with her knew what it meant. Byron had called me out and she was going to egg me on every step of the way.

  “Give me his number,” I said.

  “Madeleine!” Lizzie tried to convince me with a steady look in her chocolate brown eyes. “Mad! Mad!” By this time, I was beyond reason. I tried to concentrate on her calm voice. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Oh yes. Yes, I did. Even now, Byron had the upper hand and needed to be taken down. I dialed his number and pressed send before I got second thoughts. I waited while I listened to the phone ring. It was a scarier sound than the silence before a battle.

  “Hello?”

  I gulped, recognizing the arrogant voice, though it didn’t sound so arrogant right now, almost human. I steeled myself against its charming tones. “Guess who?” I forced myself to sound sugary and happy. It wasn’t hard if I imagined the voices of the girls clamoring for his attention at ward prayer.

  Lizzie took a steadying breath.

  “Um, I have no idea who this is.” Byron gave a light laugh that most girls would find oddly attractive. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “How about I just give you a hint?” I told him sweetly. Tory nodded at me in approval.

  Byron hesitated a moment and I stood up. It was absolutely impossible to sit still while my arch-nemesis was just breaths away from me on the other line. “Okay, let’s play,” he conceded, “Give me a hint.”

  My heart flipped at the first surrender. One more mistake like this and he would be ours. I paced the room, not caring who I stepped on, which was Kali. I stumbled over her and she gave a little squeal. I motioned wildly at her. “Alright, alright, first hint.” I carefully maneuvered around Kali. She squirmed like a lost puppy. “I’m the one who sits behind you in chemistry.” Sort of true, except not. He usually sat somewhere in the back, not like I was paying attention, of course.

  “Yeah?”

  “And I sing la la la la behind your head.”

  “What?” he seemed surprised. “When?”

  I forced out a stupid giggle. “Only when I’m happy. When the professor is giving out assignments. I love chemistry! I mean—not chemistry—but the word, chemistry!” I shrieked happily. I was sure that would kill his ears. Lizzie’s lips clenched even tighter together. “What?” I mouthed to her. Her disapproval always made me uneasy.

  “Um, nope, not getting it.” Byron was starting to sound a little testy. Just as planned.

  “Okay, next hint. You smiled at me. Remember that?” I stared at my mirror, forcing my face to go dreamy, so my voice would follow. The look didn’t fit my dark looks at all and I twisted my lips. Despite Byron’s goads, I wasn’t completely lacking in girlish charms. I wore a lot of black, sure, but I’ve been told that my lips are very kissable—not that I’ve been doing much of that lately. “And uh…in class when our eyes met...” I tried to make the words work on my tongue, but only managed to sound like a gooey Glinda the Good Witch, “it made my heart go pitter patter.” I gave another girly giggle.

  “Really?” Now his voice seemed tense. Good. “I have no idea who you are.” It came out flat.

  “It’s Suzy Q!” I announced with a laugh. “Suzy Q Miller!” I gave another squeal as if he would be just as delighted with the announcement. “Well, it’s really just Suzy. That’s why you didn’t guess it. Everyone calls me Suzy Q for short. My best friend Sandra does. You know Sandra, right?” He wasn’t saying anything, and so I easily filled up the silence with silly girly talk. “Well, I guess you might know her, she’s your girlfriend, after all. Well, I mean not now, I guess.” I laughed. “Awkward. But uh, you and I never dated before…so you could date me, right?”

  “I could?”

  I blew out, trying to keep from exploding with laughter. Tory hid her face in a pillow. I saw her body jerking with silent mirth. Kali just looked dreamy. She bounced happily on my bed. I noticed the dignified Lizzie had deserted me. I had disappointed her. My heart lurched briefly at the thought, but there was no turning back. “Yeah, um, so you can take me out to dinner and then to a movie. I really don’t care what we do as long as you pay for it.”

  That was the clincher. He would wipe the floor with me for sure, but then I would laugh in his face for buying my stupid story. It was all so perfect. “Wow, that sounds like a night to remember,” he drawled. “I didn’t realize how easy it would be to please a girl like you.”

  “Yeah, I figure the more dates I go on, the faster I get married, right?”

  He burst out laughing. “Sure.”

  I frowned. Byron laughed at my joke? How did he know it was a joke? I took a steadying breath. This was a more treacherous mission than I thought. I was always a sucker for a man with a sense of humor. I couldn’t let things get out of hand. “So, uh, how about it, hot stuff?”

  He paused for a second and I readied for a fight. “Okay,” he said.

  Okay? My forehead wrinkled. Did he just say okay? He’d go out with this monster I had just created of myself? What was wrong with him? No guy liked clingy girls. No guy liked high-maintenance girls. No guy liked girls who made la la la la noises behind him in class, especially a player like this. He couldn’t possibly be serious? I muted my cell. “He said, okay.”

  “What?” Kali fell off my bed and slid to the ground in surprise. Her blonde hair splayed out behind her. I stared at her just as Tory pulled away from her pillow in stunned silence.

  Lizzie poked her head through the door, clearly eavesdropping the whole time. “That’s because he’s nice,” she lectured me, “unlike some people.”

  Nice? Could he actually be nice? No! This man was not nice, not without something to gain from it. He was the biggest noncommittal player I knew, and I couldn’t believe that he was getting the best of me. I’d force him show me his true colors. Tonight was the big intramural championship dodge ball game between us and the 104th ward. There was plenty of trash-talking and lots of tempers involved. There was no way he’d miss it. “How about tonight at 5:00?” I asked.

  “Oh sorry. Can’t. I’m playing a dodge ball game.”

  I smiled. Now we were getting somewhere. “5:15?”

  “No…”

  I didn’t even give him time to explain. “5:30? 5:45?”

  He burst out laughing. “No, I can’t.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” I simpered, expecting a set-down. “Are you sure?”

  He was quiet for a moment. Every instinct told me not to trust his supposed defeat. “Why don’t you come and be my cheerleader,” he shot back. What? Shallow guys didn’t invite girls sight unseen to their precious games. What if I was ugly? He’d never chance it. “Maybe we can do something after the game?” he said. “Yeah, we can take a walk through the trails on campus. Then we can get to know each other a little…better.”

  My eyes widened. Was he really that big of a player or was he playing with me? Did he know what was going on? Or did he think I was someone else? “Uh…” I was thinking hard.

  “I know,” he suggested. “How about we do something right now?”

  “Right now?” I tried to keep the panic from my voice and reminded myself that he couldn’t reach through the phon
e and steal me.

  “Yeah. Where are you?”

  This was getting serious. “I…I am just…busy with…” I tried to think of the most disgusting thing possible to a noncommittal guy like him, “my marriage prep homework. Gotta get an A. Whoo!”

  “You wanna put your marriage prep to work right now, Suzy Q?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Why don’t you come over and we’ll study it together? Maybe a little chemistry too? You’re in my class, right? Yeah, I remember you. Dark hair, right?”

  Yeah—no! This was not going the way I expected. He was supposed to freak out because a weird girl was calling to ask him out and then I would let him stew over it for the rest of the day until I called him and bragged how he fell for my April Fools’ joke. Why was he actually going for it? And how did he know I had dark hair?

  Maybe there was an information leak? There was no way that my number was in his phone. Did we have spies in the ranks? I glanced over at our blonde little Kali. Her cell phone was nowhere in sight. Tory was stunned; her freckles looked a little more pronounced than usual. Lizzie’s hands were on her slender hips, a smirk on her dark face. But she was the last person who’d turn against me. How did Byron know? Did he recognize my voice? Impossible. I meant nothing to him. I gulped. “Sure, sure, fine. Sandra’s with me. She won’t mind tagging along. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear about your sudden interest in chemistry.”

  “How about you just come by yourself?” his voice sounded lazy and just a little dangerous. “I think we need some alone time together.”

  He was calling my bluff. Now I knew he wasn’t being nice. I smiled wickedly, getting back into the game. “It would be rude to leave my best friend behind.”