Partners in Pranks

Bwaaaaaaaap! The sound of the air horn filled the classroom just as Mr Clark, our math teacher, sat down on his chair, setting the whole class off. Mr Clark turned beet red, whether it was from embarrassment or anger, I didn’t know. I bit down hard on my hand, trying to hold in my laughter, but failing miserably. Some of the kids were rolling on the floor, laughing hysterically. “Shut up!” Mr Clark roared after getting over his initial shock, “Be quiet or every one of you will get a week worth of detention.” That made the whole class shut up immediately.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Now, can someone tell me who did this?” He asked calmly, gesturing to the air horn that was attached to his chair. “Was it you, Mr Wright, by any chance?” He stared at me with a raised eyebrow (This may or may not be my first time to prank him.) Of course, it was me, but I wasn’t going to tell him, was I? “No, it wasn’t me, Mr Clark.” I lied smoothly while trying to keep a straight face and stop myself from laughing. “Are you sure?” Mr Clark asked again, not believing a word that I said. But before I could answer, Wendy Brooks, a nerd and a teacher’s pet interjected. “It was him, sir. I saw him attaching the air horn, I asked him to stop but he wouldn’t listen to me,” Wendy blurted out and I rolled my eyes, annoyed that she had ratted me out. “Thank you, Wendy. Is that true Mr Wright?”

I didn’t answer because I knew that no matter what I said he wouldn’t believe me since Wendy was his favourite student. He took my lack of reply as a yes and sent me to the principal’s office. I shouldered my backpack and stalked out of the room. “Spoilsport,” I muttered and stuck my tongue out at Brooks when Mr Clark’s back was turned.

I walked along the deserted hallways to the principal’s office. The hallways were pretty quiet since everyone was in class. When I reached the office I knocked on the door. “Come in,” Ms Olson, the principal’s assistant, called from inside. “Hello, Carter. What did you do this time?” Ms Olson looked up from her desk and asked.

“What makes you think I did something?”

“When have you not?”

“Fair enough,” I shrugged.

“So who was the unlucky one today, teacher or student?” She sighed.

“Teacher,” I smirked as the previous event replayed in my brain, “Mr Clark, to be exact.”

“You’ve got to stop messing around if you don’t want to get kicked out, Carter.” She stopped working and turned to face me.

“I know, I will try,” I said, knowing that she was right. Not even a month have passed since school started and I have already been here thrice.

“Just do your best,” she stood up, “anyways, I gotta go. The principal is going to have a meeting and I need to be there. Also, the meeting won’t end until noon, so you might have to wait a bit.”

“It’s fine, I’ve got nothing better to do.” I turned to open the door that led to the waiting room which was a room in between Ms Olson’s office and the principal’s office.

The waiting room was a plain white rectangular room with a bunch of plastic chairs lined against the wall on one side of the room and a dusty bookshelf on the other. I walked into the room to find a younger dark-haired boy already in there. He was wearing some black jeans and a red t-shirt along with a leather jacket. He was probably in a grade below me. He was sitting on one of the chairs and had his head in his hands. He looked up with a frown when I walked in. “Why so glum man?” I asked him as I plopped down on the chair next to him. I looked towards him, waiting for an answer. “Got caught for pranking one of my classmates,” he said with a bored voice.

“Ooohhh nice,” I exclaimed, “What did you do?”

“Filled some water balloons with lemonade and stuffed it into my classmate’s locker.”

“Did it work?”

“Yeah, she was pelted with lemonade when she opened her locker this morning,” he answered proudly and then burst out laughing.

“Nice j—ob,” I managed to choke out while laughing.

“What’s your name? Mine’s Dylan” He asked after we calmed down and wiped the tears from our eyes.

“Carter.”

“Cool, so why are you here?”

“I attached an air horn to my math teacher’s chair,” I grinned at him.

“Oh my god,” he laughed, “I have never prank a teacher before.”

“It’s really fun, you should try it sometime.”

“Yeah, I will definitely try it,” he beamed, “there are a few teachers that I would love to get back at for giving me detention.”

“As a matter of fact, do you wanna try it now?” An idea suddenly popped into my mind.

“Now?” He asked, shocked by my suggestion, “But all the teachers are in class.”

“Yeah, but we are in the principal’s office,” I said hoping that he could catch on.

“You wanted to prank the principal?” He stared at me with disbelief.

“Yeah and I’ve got just the thing to do it.” I rummaged through my bag and took out two rolls of tin foils, a screwdriver and a pack of blue tack.

“Do you always carry all this stuff with you?” He looked at me weirdly.

“Yeah,” I smiled, “the teachers always say we have to be prepared right?”

“True, though I am not sure that this is what they meant when they say it,” he laughed, gesturing at my tools.

“Minor details,” I waved him off.

“But won’t we get caught?”

“Well, from what I’ve heard and seen the principal has never installed cameras in here nor in his office, so we should be fine. Also, according to Ms Olson, they won’t be back until noon which should give us at least 2 hours to complete everything.” I looked down at my watch and saw that it was only 9:45 am.

“Alright then, count me in.”

“Perfect.”

“So how do we do this?”

“Simple,” I began to explain my idea, “ever heard of the tin foil prank?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “So we just have to wrap everything we can find in his office with tin foil?”

“That’s the first part,” I continued, “the next part is to unscrew all the unnecessary screws around his office and stick them everywhere with blue tack.”

“Okay, simple enough,” he said, “but we might have a slight problem. His office door is locked.” He pointed at the doorknob.

“Can’t you pick a lock? I thought you picked a locker lock for your prank this morning.”

“Well yeah, but the mechanism of a locker lock is a lot simpler. But don’t worry, I think I can do it, though it might take me some time.”

“If you can’t do it then I will try,” I said, trying to recall my skills on picking a lock, “I have picked a lock before but I am a bit rusty.”

“Okay, so after this, will we lock everything up and pretend nothing happened or will we run?”

“I think we better run,” I suggested, “since today is Friday, we can let it cool down for the weekend before coming back on Monday.”

“Good idea,” he shuddered, “I don’t want to be here when the principal finds out.”

“Me too. Should we get started?”

“Yeah let’s do it.”

“Partners in pranks?” I held my hand out for him to shake.

“Partners in pranks,” He agreed and shook my hand.