A Fool's Day

It was a normal day, as long as you could ignore the fact that it wasn’t.

April Fools Day. A day where mischief was excused and people ran wild with it. It was a day of pure chaos and a whole lot of paranoia. Thousands of people participated in this strange culture where each year people planned pranks and jokes, both major and minor, and pulled them on family and friends. You’d have to watch your back constantly if you wanted to avoid the joking, but it would be bound to sneak up on you at some point. And that’s exactly what happened to me.

I’d been waiting for this day since the beginning of March. The dreaded date was marked on my calendar and set in my phone. I constantly thought about it, whether I was in class or even asleep, the thought of the pranks that would ensue haunted me like some nightmare.

I have a pretty lively group of friends, all of which I’ve known since high school or I met in college. They love to joke around and have a good time, and I’m a bit of the opposite. I prefer to stay in the dorms and keep to myself opposed to going out to parties and meeting new people. I’m fine where I am. But that isn’t the point of this story. 

Each year before April Fool’s Day, we used to get together and plan our annual prank. Sometimes it was multiple smaller jokes, but usually it was one big one. I was always somewhat involved, but in my sophomore year at OCU I stopped messing around and started focusing on school. So then they resorted to pulling pranks on me. Why? I don’t know, maybe to get me back in the “swing of things” or maybe to get back at me for kind of abandoning them. Now it’s our senior year, and just like the previous year and the year before that I’m expecting yet another massive pranking.

I sat anxiously in my dorm, hunched over with my elbows on my bouncing knees. My arms bounced right along in a steady rhythm. Everything felt so much louder, like the wind outside and the clock near the door to my room. For what would be the fifth time, I rose from my bed and paced to the window. Outside the sun still shone, but soon it would set and the campus would be engulfed in darkness. The only lights would be those of the city and the street lamps with the occasional car. There would be no moon tonight, which made it all feel even more ominous. And of course, that made me feel even more anxious. But why was I anxious? It was just a week with my friends, friends I’d known for years. But it was sure to be a week full of pranks. I knew it. April Fool’s Day was on a Monday this year, and we were leaving this weekend to my friend’s family lake house for spring break. The remote setting and the size of the house provided ample opportunity for my four buddies. It was pathetic that I was this worried over a few silly pranks. But I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be made fun of for months and embarrassed.

A sharp knock on my door made me jump and spin around. I rushed past the bathroom across my room and into the living room and kitchen that I shared with my roommate. He’d left for break before classes ended, so it was just me in the dorm. I paced over to the front door, took a deep breath, and cautiously placed my hand on the handle and opened it.

“Oh, hey Alex,” I muttered quietly, before scratching the back of my head and gesturing inside. “Uh, come in.”

“Hey, so everybody else is waiting in the parking lot. Rider and Aaron are riding together, so you’re riding with me. Easier that way,” he explained with a grin, reaching out to give me a rough pat on the back. “Need help gettin’ your stuff?”

Alex was one of the tallest of the group. He was on the football team in highschool, and was on the weight team. He was pretty buff, with neat, cropped brown hair and brown eyes. Out of the three of the others I could somewhat stand him. He looked like a total jerk, and sometimes he acted like one, but what nobody really knew about him was that he was a huge tech nerd. Computers, hard drives, blah blah blah. He loved that kind of stuff. But despite him being slightly more mature in the group, he liked to have fun just as much as the others. 

I thought about that for a moment. I didn’t have a whole lot of luggage, just a duffel, suitcase, and a backpack for the week with my things. But did I really want Alex getting his hands on my stuff? What if he swapped my things for someone else’s, or maybe he would hide them around the lake house as a prank. Deciding I’d play it safe, I shook my head.

“Nah, I got it. Go back down and wait with Rider and Aaron, I’ll be down in a sec,” I waved him off, hoping I looked assuring. 

I guess I was a decent actor because he didn’t seem to notice my nervousness. He nodded and agreed, turned, and then walked out of the door. I watched it close and turned to get my things. Heading down to the parking lot wasn’t so bad, but the stairs down to the building’s lobby made the trip a bit more difficult by myself.

Outside, Rider and Aaron were sitting in Aaron’s car with Rider in the front. He seemed to be talking Aaron’s ear off, while Aaron was staring at his phone. Alex was outside of his truck, leaned against the bed of it. After loading my things into the truck bed - carefully - and being harassed momentarily by Rider, we took off to the lake house.

I didn’t say much during the 2-3 hour trip. Alex played music through the bluetooth on his phone and I was either on mine or just looking through the window. My mind was filled with possibilities for this weekend. I couldn’t help but think of all of the things that could go wrong.

I found myself enjoying the beginning of the trip. Nothing bad happened as I had expected, but I was still on edge. When we all went up to our rooms for the first night I checked every inch of it for some possible prank. 

I closed the bedroom door behind me and scanned the room. The room was horizontally large and rustic themed. Across from where the door was a huge sliding door that seemed to lead out onto a deck. In the center of the room pushed up against the wall was a queen-sized bed, and across from the bed a mounted TV, some shelves, and other fancy modern decor that I’d never seen before in my life.

I set my things by the door and carefully checked the room. I checked each drawer, every surface, and the outside deck. I didn’t want to touch the bed in fear of something being wrong with it. Like sprayed down with something, or maybe there were bugs planted beneath the comforter. When everyone was asleep, I would go downstairs and sleep on the couch. I could tell them the bed wasn’t comfortable or something.

When night did fall and everyone was resigning to their rooms around 11:00, I took a spare blanket from one of the cabinets in the laundry room and laid on the couch. I couldn’t sleep for hours. The house would occasionally make noises, like a faint creak of the frame or maybe the plumbing. Outside it was quite windy, so the wind battered the windows and the house every so often. Every time I’d almost fallen asleep, a noise would wake me and I’d jolt up from where I was curled up on the couch and look swiftly around the room. I would probably look like a madman to anybody who was watching.

I did fall asleep eventually that night. And similarly to that night, I was woken up by something. Another noise. But this didn’t sound like some house noise, nor did it sound like the wind. I could hear footsteps coming right from behind the couch. I froze for a few seconds, and the steps kept getting closer and closer.

‘When they’re close enough, I’ll jump up and hit them,’ I thought.

When the steps did fall right behind the couch, I jolted upright, swung my body, and swung my arm in a strange motion to where I hit the person just with my arm right beneath their shoulders. I heard a cry, much higher pitched than any of my friends’ screams. I scrambled up from the couch and rounded it to get to the culprit. I half expected to see Rider, or one of the other guys, but instead beneath where I stood was a girl. She was clearly shocked, her eyes wide and her mouth forming an ‘O’ shape. Realization struck me. This girl was the maid for the house. And I’d just hit her for absolutely no reason.

“I am so, so sorry!” I began to apologize, horrified.

Alex came running when he heard the scream, and when he did, he watched the situation with an equally shocked and confused expression similar to the girl’s. And then, much to my surprise, he started bursting out laughing. The girl got up by herself, even though I tried to help her up. She didn’t say much. All of the commotion attracted Aaron and Rider into the room, and when Alex explained what had happened, they started cackling and jeering too.

Here I was, scared that these boys would make a complete fool of me, when in the end, I only made a fool of myself.