April fooled!

Ugh. Thought Mr. Willsby as he pushed through his front door and took a step into the day. The fresh air hit him full on and the heavy breeze took a hit on his posture. Frowning heavily, he stood by his doorway, only one thought on his mind. April fools, the most horrible day of the year.

He looked around to his neighbours, and saw their two kids fiddling with a fishing line to trip people up on the sidewalk, and his frown sank even more. This was going to be a long day.

He sighed and trudged up to his yellowing garden fence, his boots staining from the mud of the grass he had recently watered. Wait a minute. Had he?

Now Edward wasn't the friendliest person in the community, but he always made an effort to stay up to date with everything that they were doing and although he never joined in, he always donated a generous amount for the food and catering, in honour of his wife Minnie. She was an optimist  and had been thought of as the whole community's grandmother, as she never had her own children. After her death, it had taken a few months for things to return to normal, except there was one person that was never quite the same again; Mr. Willsby. His loss had made him angry, at every noise and every bright colour. He did not enjoy talking to the kids anymore or watering his garden and in fact, he hadn’t even checked in on his plants since, well, forever.

So why was the floor muddy? Well he was about to find out. As he reached his fence through the squelching mud, he gasped as his foot slipped and he landed in the mud with a loud ‘plonk’! The last thing he saw before his vision blurred with rage was the sight of two little children running off while giggling and gasping. He stood up and bellowed “YOU LITTLE RATS- YOU-” but never got to finish his sentence because he proceeded to slip down again as soon as he tried to go after them. As he pulled himself up while muttering curses, he thought to himself, That's it. That was the first and last straw. I will never leave my house ever again and if I do I will hunt down those scoundrels and call the police on them! 

He looked around to see if anyone had witnessed the little scene, and to his misfortune he saw a young couple walking up to him, tutting and whispering. They reached him and began to blabber about how rude he had been to those children, and how they had no respect for him, and neither would anyone in their whole gated community when they heard about it. Edward just rolled his eyes and grunted before walking away into his house while the couple began to fight between themselves.

After a thorough wash, he sat down and decided to be rational about the situation, and as he watched yet another child get tripped up by the fishing hook prank, a thought struck him. He sipped his tea, and smiled a crooked smile, for what he would do would be a most sweet thing, although the reasons he would do it for made his plan seem like a sugar coated plum, but if the plum was mouldy. He looked at his clock, the only modern thing in his house. 16:45 - April 2nd. 

Another reason not to trust all these modern things, he thought. They can’t even get the date right!

 He set to work and began to pull out ingredients from his shelves. He would make some delicious cookies to earn back the love of his community, yet when all seemed great, his plan would begin to unfold. 

Around two hours later when all the children had finished playing and their laughs and screams had faded, they smelt the most delicious smell, it smelled of something creamy and buttery, like cookies. A few seconds later the smell was matched with the sight of Mr. Willsby holding a bag of freshly baked cookies; sugar-coated or with big chunks of chocolate in them. The children all gathered around the old man with pleading faces “Oh please could we try your cookies Mr. Willsby?”

He smiled a crooked smile and he placed the cookies on the table where all the children had gathered around to share their tales of glee. The older kids came first, picking off the best looking ones, and offering the worse looking ones to the younger kids. 

When the children had finished eating, he walked up to the little stub that resembled a podium, and began to speak. “You have all eaten my cookies, and I assume you enjoyed them for there are none left, except for one little March has taken for her parents.” 

The little children murmured in agreement. 

“So now I have a request for you all. It isn’t that big of a request but if you follow, every 1st of April I will bake you all a big batch of cookies. But in exchange for this, you must promise not to prank me ever again, do you understand? If you do decide to play your silly tricks on me, I shall tell all of your parents that you ate my cookies.”

The oldest and most mature of the children then gathered them all up, and there they stayed for a minute, whispering amongst themselves with the occasional snort of laughter. 

After a while, the children broke up and the oldest stepped forth.  

“Alright. We don’t understand why you're telling us this today but alright.” 

Mr. Willsby glanced at the boy, a confused smile creeping up his face.

“And why would that be? What is it that you don’t understand?”

“Well you see, Mr. Willsby, it will be a year before April fools comes back. It’s not like we were going to trick you today, we only put up a prank for you yesterday and you happened to come across it today. Why didn’t you give us the cookies and everything yesterday?”

Mr. Willsby looked around, confused, and said “Why would I have done this yesterday?”

The kid giggled and said “Today is April 2nd!”

Oh see the look on Edward Willsby’s face.