Pranks

Beep. Beep-Beep. Beep. Beep-Beep. Beep. Beep-Beep.

Addy groaned and rubbed her eyes. Her alarm was annoying, why was it even on? Wasn’t it the weekend? She didn’t have school on the weekend.

Wait.

Addy nearly bumped her head falling out of bed, but she scrambled undeterred to the kitchen where, sure enough, the calendar said the date was April 1.

“It’s April Fools,” she whispered giddily to herself. “I gotta prank momma.”

She almost turned to the fridge before remembering James. She had to show her new little brother the ropes of pranking!

She quickly ran to his room and poked him until he blinked sleepily at her.

Luckily, he wasn’t a crier, and he didn’t make a noise, just stared up at her with baby blue eyes to match his baby blue room.

“You want to prank momma?” Addy asked quietly. Hopefully he would understand their mission was hush-hush. James nodded and held up his arms, and Addy picked him up. “We gotta find some whipped cream,” she explained as she opened the fridge.

James held out his arm and pointed, and Addy followed the line from his pudgy finger right to the whipped cream. “Good job!” she said approvingly.

James babbled and Addy handed him the whipped cream to hold. He clasped it to his chest and Addy closed the fridge and turned back to the other room.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jean asked, grabbing Addy’s arm as she walked past her up the stairs.

“James ‘n I are gonna prank momma,” Addy said matter-of-factly. “It’s a tradition! I do it every year; but now I got help.”

Jean squinted and for a second Addy briefly wondered if her new sister was going to get her in trouble.

Then Jean sighed and let go of her arm, saying, “Just don’t rope me into anything. If she asks, I didn’t know. I don’t want to get in trouble ‘cause you guys made a mess or something.”

Addy beamed and started back up the stairs, and James cooed happily.

“I’m gonna put some whipped cream in her hand,” Addy told him, “and then you’re gonna tickle her face, okay?”

James squeaked excitedly and Addy set him down on the bed.

“Wait,” Addy said suddenly. “Do you want some of the whipped cream?”

James nodded and opened his mouth. Addy squirted some of the whipped cream into his mouth, and then into her own. 

Then Addy grabbed her momma’s hand and squirted a big dollop of whipped cream into it too.

“Quick, tickle her,” Addy whispered.

James didn’t seem to get the memo, so Addy helped him out. Her momma reached to her face and got the whipped cream all over herself.

“April Fools!” Addy cheered. James mimicked her and babbled his own version of the phrase.

Their momma blinked, still waking up and registering the situation, then laughed. “You guys got me good,” she said. “Let’s go find your ma and pa, though, so I can clean up, okay?”

“Mkay!” Addy agreed. She let her momma grab her hand, and James held his arms out to be picked up again.

“Can we prank them too?” Addy asked.

Her momma pursed her lips like she was thinking. “What sort of prank?” she asked.

Addy frowned like she hadn’t thought of that. “Don’t know.”

“What about some sticky notes on da’s car?” her momma suggested.

Addy nodded quickly and pulled on her momma’s hand. “Could we please? I wanna put the pretty orange ones on it!”

Her momma chuckled and nodded. “Let’s go grab some orange sticky notes, then,” she said.

Addy jumped excitedly and practically dragged her momma through the house to the office where the sticky notes were.

She grabbed a few notepads for herself and handed one to James, who immediately put it in his mouth.

“Don’t eat it,” Addy scolded. She pulled it out of his mouth and he clasped it back to his chest. “Good job! Mkay, momma, we’re ready!“

Their momma shifted James on her hip and helped them both outside to their pa’s car.

“Can you pick me up so I can put some on the windows?” Addy asked.

Her momma nodded and picked her up, and Addy started sticking the bright orange notes to the windows of the car. “All done,” she said, and her momma set her back on the ground.

“James, you gotta make sure they stick! They’re just falling off the tires!”

James babbled and Addy started picking up the sticky notes that had fallen to the ground and sticking them back onto the tires and door. “You gotta stick them like this,” she said, taking the rest of the pad from him. James grabbed a sticky note off the side of the car and squeezed his pudgy fist around it.

“You wrinkled it,” Addy said when he tried to hand it back to her, “and it won’t stick anymore, ‘cause it lost its sticky.”

James pulled it back to himself and continued to fidget and fumble with it.

”Momma, we ran out of sticky notes,” Addy said. “Do we have any more?”

Her momma shook her head. “That’s all we’ve got, honey,” she said. “I think the car’s plenty pranked, though, don’t you?”

“I guess,” Addy conceded, pouting. 

“C’mon, lets go inside and you can wake your ma and pa and show them what all you did,” her momma suggested. “And I can get this whipped cream off my face.”

Addy perked up at that. “Mkay!” she said. She picked up James and toddled back inside the house.

Her momma watched them disappear in through the front door, and heard the squeals and giggles that came from the guest bedroom, where her ex-husband and his new wife were staying for the time being.

She pursed her lips and remembered when she worried Addy wouldn’t like her new little step-brother- how silly that fear had been! 

As chaos seemed to erupt inside the house, and the pitter patter of tiny feet echoed throughout the house, she chuckled to herself and headed back inside the home they all shared.

She couldn’t help but think that, sometimes, change really could be good.