Prank Wars (15 page)

I glanced meaningfully over at
Holly.
“Marriage is your destiny.”

“Would you say my destiny stinks of some weird-smelling perfume?”

I froze. Good tactic. Flirting. And he had me completely flustered. Why was everyone accusing me of ulterior motives lately? “You don’t have to worry, Byron. There’s no love in this hate relationship.” I bit my lip and did the unthinkable. “Besides, I don’t practice polygamy.”

Byron broke away from his latest girlfriend and threw his foot in my door before I could escape. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked under his breath. “Do you think every guy is like your ex? Is that your problem?”

I hesitated and looked at him, really looked at him and detected some hurt in those blue eyes of his. I didn’t have that kind of power, did I? I always worked so hard to be strong, and that meant lashing out at everything I considered a threat, but what if Byron never was a threat? What if I was wrong? I glanced over at Holly for confirmation, but she seemed distracted by her cell phone.

“Let’s talk like real people every once in a while,” he said. “Okay? That’s what friends do. Think about it.” He glanced over at his texting girlfriend. “And why are you calling
her
Holly anyway?”

That wasn’t Holly? How many girls was he dating? After a last fleeting glance at his uncharacteristically open expression, I pushed open the door and escaped into my apartment before he could get the better of me again…because he had. My eyes were still stinging, I stunk, and to top it off, Byron had done the impossible—he had pricked my conscience. I leaned against the door, seeing that Kali and Sandra had continued their fight at our new location. This time they were fighting over the ward directory. Tory stood in the middle of the room, looking battle worn. Lizzie nudged me. “Let me get this straight. You know everything that goes on around here and you didn’t notice that there was someone living next door to us?”

“Well, you know the old saying,” Sandra said in her most sarcastic voice. “You’re so busy with the enemy away from home; you don’t notice the enemy living under your own roof.”

“That is
not
an old saying!” Kali argued.

I collapsed onto our couch, trying to catch my breath. Our neighbor was a stealthy one. If we ever caught up to her, we’d ask her to be on our team…if I wasn’t already considering giving up this prank war. Maybe Byron was right. I was taking everything too far. Sure, I had fun while it lasted, but if I had turned into such a social basket case that I assumed every guy was like my ex, maybe it was time to get my head examined.

“She’s not in here!” Kali threw the directory aside. “Useless.”

Lizzie had our landlord on her cell. “Uh hi, Mike!” She always started phone conversations like she was startled the person on the other line picked up. “Hey, we were just wondering about our neighbor next to us. What? Her name’s Thing? Really. Thing?”

“Oh great,” Kali looked scared. “Her name’s
Thing
. Not only is she lurking in the attic above her closet, her name is
Thing
!” What? Lurking in closets? What had they been talking about while I was gone? “Who would name their kid
Thing
anyway!” Kali shrieked out.

“Thanh,” Lizzie quickly corrected us. “Her name’s Thanh.”

But it was too late. Kali was officially scared. “Where is she then?” she exploded. “Think about it. We haven’t seen her since she moved in. She’s not in the ward directory. No one knows she exists. She could be a ghost for all we know!”

Sandra sighed heavily and left for the sanctuary of her room...which she shared with Kali. It would be a long night.

“We were just in her apartment,” Kali said. “You don’t just go into
the
apartment. No one gets out! Now we’ll have the curse on us. We’re going to die like she did!” Kali was clearly a victim of horror movies. Lizzie rolled her eyes.

“Nobody’s dead,” I reassured her. “Nobody in the whole world...I promise.” I gave Kali a smile, pretending that none of this bothered me, even though thinking about it made me go cold. Sure, it was speculation now, but wait until the lights went out in a few minutes. Then we’d all freak out. We shuffled back into our rooms, brushing teeth, washing faces, getting into ridiculous pajamas. It was all a blur to me—literally. My conscience burned at Byron’s words. Sandra was giving us the silent treatment, and even worse, Kali wouldn’t stop talking about our brush with death. I tuned her out with my own thoughts.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Byron had said. Had Cameron broken me so much that I was seriously incapable of positive human emotion? If so, I was in trouble. The girl I was now would never be healthy enough for any relationship, let alone a friendship. I had ruined everything with my obsession, but could I even bring myself to care? Byron could be messing with my emotions like Cameron had. And if Byron was being genuine? Well, it didn’t matter. Whatever could have been between us was gone now anyway. Already, he was hanging out with nameless girl. Maybe he wasn’t playing her this time. He could be sincerely interested in her. That didn’t make me feel any better. Why couldn’t Byron take this new girl outside
his
door, instead of making me feel guilty and full of regrets? And why was he acting so strange lately anyway?

Lizzie brushed out her long dark hair and tied it into a ponytail at the back of her head. She had had enough of me, but—unfortunately for her—she was the only one I could talk to. “Hey.” I pulled my BYU sweats up to my knees and flopped onto my bed, looking at her with bloodshot puppy dog eyes.

She sighed. “What do you want?”

There was so much to ask. “If Thanh lives next door, maybe that letter we found was really meant for her?”

Lizzie’s pajamas fluttered over her dark legs as she made her way to her bed. She shook her head. “Thanh’s not around enough to be involved in our silly prank war.”

I ignored the insult to injury. “I’m not saying that she is. What if that letter on her door had nothing to do with us?”

She stilled for a moment. “Oh c’mon, Mad, you’re just as bad as Kali. Look, I’m tired. I have to wake up really early for school tomorrow, okay?” I let her turn off the light and she jumped on her bed. Her mattress squeaked as she readjusted her blankets.

“Because,” I continued as if she hadn’t shot me down, “it doesn’t make sense that Byron would want a letter back that he wrote himself. Do you remember what he said on the phone when we were hiding behind the drums?”

“Goodnight,” Lizzie said firmly.

I rolled over on my bed, punching my pillow a couple of times. I closed my poor aching eyes. It was actually a relief. Maybe Lizzie was right. I was just like Kali with an overactive imagination. I yawned, hoping that I wouldn’t have weird dreams about all of this. “Goodnight, Lizzie.”

“Goodnight.” My eyes fluttered open. Lizzie didn’t sound like Lizzie.

“Lizzie?” I asked.

“I’m not Lizzie.”

I jerked upright just as Lizzie screamed. She reached over and turned on her lamp. Light flooded through the room over a grinning Tory. She sat between our two beds, laughing, her red hair in pigtails. How long had she been hiding under one of our beds? I held my heart. My reflexes would be as sharp as a paper cut once she was through with me…if I survived the shock, of course.

Lizzie pointed to the door. “Out!”

Day 107

0800 hours

“
It was moments before waking. The only distinction between sleep and death…were the light snores coming from our barracks as we ignorantly awaited the cruelties of morning to befall us.”

—Madeleine’s War Journal Entry (Wednesday, May 30th).

I tripped from my bed and landed on the ground on all fours. The sound of a dozen or so alarm clocks went off all around me.

“Madeleine!” Lizzie shouted. “Turn off your alarm clock!”

“I’m trying!”

I dove under the bed, finding one then two. I clicked them off, but still there were more. I couldn’t find them all. Lizzie hopped off her bed beside me, but there was nothing she could do to stop the incessant wailing. It was literally the sound that accompanied our worst nightmares.

It had the evil twins’ signatures all over it. Only they would have the nerve to con—must I say it—girls, with no sense of dignity, to sneak behind enemy lines and booby trap our bedrooms with horrid alarm clocks. Now I knew why Byron stood watch outside our front door last night. The deed was probably done while we were busy fighting over perfume at our former headquarters. And he had the audacity to make
me
feel guilty? It was all part of his distraction and I fell for it. I could kick myself.

Our roommates screamed outside in the hallway and Lizzie’s head perked up at the latest sounds of war. I tried to ignore the panic welling into my throat. “I’ll find the rest of these,” Lizzie shouted over the din. Her long legs kicked out from under the bed. “Go find out why they’re screaming!”

I wrenched the door open only to be shrieked back by Sandra, “Don’t move! They’ve got the whole place booby-trapped.” It seemed that we had had visitors last night. Tiny Dixie cups filled with water were set all over the hallway floor outside our bedrooms. It was a veritable minefield. There was nowhere to step without spilling them all onto the carpet. Sandra was not happy. The sleeves of her red silk pajamas flapped over her hands. “This is ridiculous!”

“I’ve got to go to school!” Kali whined.
I did too.
Kali tugged on her orange plaid capris, looking mournfully at the bathroom. I raked a hand through my hair and retreated to my room, thinking of our escape options. The back windows? No, too far up.

There was a sudden silence. The last of the alarm clocks had been dismantled. Lizzie set it down on the dresser. “What’s going on out there?”

We screamed out a warning, but it was too late. Lizzie stepped into the hall and tripped all over the Dixie cups. She landed face first into them, smashing them flat. “Problem solved,” Kali muttered.

I ran to Lizzie’s side. Normally Lizzie was extremely calm in tense situations, but now she was absolutely livid. She stood up, water dripping all over her face and down her lavender t-shirt. “Madeleine!” Her finger poked painfully into my shoulder. “You will get those boys back for this. And I mean now!”

Before I could calm her down, I sniffed. The smell of smoke lingered dreadfully in the air. Apparently the boys weren’t through with us yet. I hopped over the fallen Dixie cups and ran into the living room, tugging open the front door to see the damage outside. Fog left over from last night’s rainstorm obstructed my view. I could barely make out a skeletal silhouette on the lawn. With one leg of my sweats rolled up, I stumbled outside in my bare feet to get close enough to see what they had done
. No, they didn’t!
“The love tree!” It was on our lawn burnt to a crisp. A direct assault. They had left a note on our porch, ironically written on the back of the twins’ wedding invitations:
There go your dreams…in flames.
My eyes narrowed. Was Byron on something? What was that whole friends’ talk? Everything he did was insane: demanding the return of his threatening letter, acting concerned, playing with my emotions. And...and, I couldn’t believe he made me feel guilty. I was so stupid.

The clock read a quarter to eight. If I left now, I’d only be fashionably late for physics. I rummaged through my dirty laundry, finding some chocolate brown lounge pants and threw them on, rolling them up to the calf. I recycled my shirt from yesterday.

“Who’s going to clean this up!” Sandra’s angry voice in the hallway made me hurry. I slung my backpack over my shoulder.

“It’s water,” Kali snapped back. “It’ll dry.”

“I’ll get it when I get home.” Somewhere in my closet I found my brown camo Chucks and slipped them on. I ran outside into the cold and dismal fog, snatching up a hoody on my way out the door. “Don’t worry!”

It was all under control. It was all under…who was I kidding? I stopped short when I saw my car in the forlorn parking lot in the back. It was covered completely in diamond murals. That wasn’t the guy’s artwork. It was actually a deal I got on my car that made me into a driving advertisement. No, the real problem was that my car was propped up on cinder blocks.
Beginner.
The note was tucked under a lone windshield wiper, and I tugged it out before anyone else could see how bad Byron got me this time. I tore it up. How could I let him get away with making me feel guilty? Not just guilty, but broken! How dare he bring up my ex just to use as a stupid distraction?

What else could go wrong? Normally I loved running. Nothing was more liberating or a better way to get out my aggression, but now the way things were, I’d be missing at least half of class if I didn’t run. I threw on the other strap of my backpack and ran full sprint into the misty morning, startling a few students on my way.

If I wasn’t already struggling with physics, I’d just call it a day and stay home and watch chick flicks with my roommates to recuperate. Chick flicks would be a major regression though. Nobody had a cute-meet followed by a happy ending. Romance was something that had to be worked on with real healthy people. And to tack on my latest worry, I wasn’t even sure if I was healthy enough or emotionally ready for love. I used to be...when I was like everybody else. I had goals, dreams, aspirations. That was until I dropped them all and went back to the General Study classes. The only ironic thing was that my new major forced me to take all my hard classes with the men I despised—and worse, my hard classes for spring term were Byron and Cameron’s easy ones. So yeah, I could say I was a little bitter.