Pranked (6 page)

Reb stood up and looked out the screen door at the rain. Then she looked at us with a sly grin. “I know what we can do. Let's short-sheet Melissa.”

Jennifer actually squealed when Reb said that. “Why didn't we think of that a long time ago?”

Great. I'd barely recovered from the book-throwing incident. Jennifer and Reb rushed over to Melissa's bed. I picked up Reb's annual and put it back on the shelf. It'd been such a relief—somehow I'd been the one to make things right again. Maybe because Reb was always making jokes. I'd managed to make her laugh, and everything was fine.

But now this. It'd been days since we'd joked about the bed-wetting. We'd just left Melissa alone. What was short-sheeting, anyway? When Reb had mentioned it before, she'd just assumed I knew what she was talking about. But no way could I ask them.

“Hold on. Somebody ought to be lookout,” Reb said.

“I'll do it.” Hey, this was my chance. I could be lookout but still watch them.

Reb plopped down on Melissa's bunk like it was her own. It made me feel weird, because there's, like, this unwritten rule that nobody ever sits on anybody else's bed unless they ask you to, like to play cards or something. Reb was looking at all of Melissa's stuff on the wooden shelf by her bed. “Oh, how precious.” She held up a stack of paper. “It says ‘Melissa.' ” Somebody, probably her dad, had made a border and printed up a bunch of blank sheets with her name on it. “Should say ‘Dweeb.' ” Then Reb stood up and smoothed out the wrinkles she'd left on Melissa's blanket.

“I can't believe we've been here a week, and we're just now short-sheeting Melissa. How inefficient of us!” Reb said with a smile.

She rolled back Melissa's blanket from the foot of the bed and then stopped all of a sudden. “I just thought of something,” she said, all dramatic, looking at Jennifer. “What if she wet the bed last night?”

She and Jennifer both shrieked and clutched each other and then broke up laughing.

“Hey, c'mon,” I called from the doorway. “Hurry up before someone catches us.” I kept glancing out the door. Melissa might show up. Or Rachel. Then what would happen?

Reb and Jennifer got serious. They were unfolding, refolding, and tucking in Melissa's sheets. While I watched them, it hit me. Oh,
short
-sheeting! At the foot of Melissa's bunk, they folded her top sheet so it made a kind of pocket under the blanket. When Melissa got in, her feet would only go halfway to the end of the bed. Was that all there was to it? I thought it was something really bad.

I felt like an idiot for not figuring it out on my own. Well, at least now I knew.

When they got the bed made, they stepped back to admire their work.

“Now let's get out of here!” Reb shouted.

We grabbed rain jackets and ponchos, then took off running down the line. At least we were out of there. And we hadn't been caught. And it wasn't
that
bad.

It was still raining pretty steadily, and we had to jump over all the puddles because Middler Line is just a dirt path, but now it was a muddy, wet mess. We ran down the hill in the slippery, wet grass and stopped under some tall shade trees for cover.

“Where is everybody?” I asked. The whole camp felt deserted. But everything was beautiful in the rain. The grass and leaves were green, and the tree trunks were black, and the whole camp was misty and wet. It made me shiver.

All of a sudden I jumped up and grabbed one of the branches hanging right over our heads and shook it as hard as I could. All the raindrops on the branch came showering down on us. It was like our own little private rain shower. Reb and Jennifer just stood there, frozen. I had no idea what would happen next. Then Reb snapped out of it.

“You are gonna die!” Thank God she had a huge smile on her face. She dove right at me, and I screamed and ran out from under the tree. She chased me all the way down the hill, with me screaming the whole way. Jennifer was still standing under the tree.

“Jennifer, help! Help!” I yelled.

“I'm not gonna help you! I'm gonna kill you too!” Then they both caught me, and Reb dragged me toward this huge mud puddle. I was trying to get away, but the grass was so slippery. Plus I was laughing so hard I could barely stand up.

Reb pushed me right smack down into that mud puddle, and I felt the water seep all the way through to my skin. The whole seat of my jeans was absolutely soaked. I tried to stand up, but Reb had both her hands on my shoulders, holding me down.

“Ah, revenge is sweet!” She laughed evilly. “I AM your worst nightmare!”

“My butt's freezing! Let me up!” I shouted.

Reb looked over her shoulder at Jennifer. “Look who's amazingly dry,” she whispered to me. “On the count of three—one, two . . .”

On three I jumped up and we both lunged at Jennifer and dragged her to the mud puddle. After Jennifer got dunked, we both turned on Reb, and by then we'd pulled off our jackets and ponchos, and we started puddle-hopping. When we got tired of splashing, we scooped the mud out of the bottom of the puddles and threw it at each other. It was amazing!

At first none of us aimed that well because we were laughing so hard. But then it was like we were psychic, and Reb and I wouldn't even have to say anything, we'd just look at each other and bombard Jennifer. Then they'd look at each other and trash me! Then Jennifer and I got Reb, and we got her good. The only part of her face not covered in mud was her eyes.

“I have never been this dirty in my
life
!” Jennifer yelled. “Is it in my hair?”

“In your hair, your ears, your nose . . . ,” I said.

“Whose idea was this?” asked Reb, then threw one last mud pie in my direction but missed.

Now it had pretty much stopped raining, and people were coming out of hiding. Everybody stared at us and shook their heads like they couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it either. Every inch of us was covered in mud. I was shivering like crazy. My wet, muddy clothes felt like they weighed a ton.

We went back to the cabin, with people staring at us all along the way. Jennifer got to the door first, and she was walking in when Rachel saw us. “Hold it right there!” She came to the door with Erin and Brittany, and the three of them stared at us with their mouths open.

Rachel shook her head. “You all can't come inside like that.”

“What are we supposed to do?” yelled Jennifer.

“Go straight to the showers.” Rachel made Brittany and Erin get us towels and dry clothes from our trunks. “And I would suggest showering with your clothes
on
first.” Rachel handed us our stuff, trying not to touch us.

We laughed, but it was a pretty good idea, so we did what she said. We got into the showers with all our clothes on and washed the mud off; then we undressed and finished showering. My wet clothes felt like they weighed about twenty pounds when I took them off and hung them over the shower door.

We kept laughing and talking across the shower stalls. The water was so hot that it burned. I wanted to stand there in the water and steam forever.

We were friends. We really were. I'd been holding my breath all week, waiting for Reb and Jennifer to find out I wasn't really cool. But maybe I
was
cool.

That night after evening program, we were leaving the lodge when Reb whispered to us, “We're not going to the cabin yet. Keep quiet and follow me.”

We could barely see because none of us had flashlights. Crickets were chirping like crazy. The grass was still wet from the rain, and pretty soon my sneakers were soaked. The air was a lot cooler now, and it was really damp. I could smell the wet grass.

“Reb, what's up?” Jennifer sounded annoyed since Reb wouldn't tell us anything.

“We're going to the dining hall for seconds on dessert.”

“You mean we're raiding the kitchen?” Jennifer asked. Even in the dark I could hear the nervousness in her voice. Reb would be brave enough to try it, but I was with Jennifer. I was afraid we'd get caught.

“Of course not. Alex is doing it for us.”

The kitchen was always open to the counselors. They could go in and help themselves to leftovers whenever they wanted. But they never gave us anything. How had Reb talked Alex into this?

“We're supposed to be in the cabin by now,” Jennifer said. I was glad she'd said it because it's what I was thinking.

“Calm down. Rachel has line duty tonight, so she won't even miss us.”

At the dining hall we went around back to a screen door. We could hear counselors talking inside. Pretty soon a shadow came out of the kitchen door.

“Reb?” came a loud whisper.

“Alex, over here,” Reb whispered back.

Alex clicked on a flashlight and walked toward us. She was balancing two plastic bowls of chocolate pudding in one hand.

“You only brought two?” asked Reb.

Alex looked at me, then back at Reb. “Don't complain. You're lucky to get anything.”

Reb gave Jennifer and me the pudding. “You all eat it. I'm not that hungry.”

“No, Reb, that's okay.” I tried to hand my bowl back to her. Obviously Alex hadn't been expecting me to come along. Reb and Jennifer were her favorite campers from last summer, and she still gave her twins lots of attention.

“Don't be a goof.” Reb sounded annoyed. “Go ahead and take it, I don't care.”

“We could at least split it.”

“So I heard the Evil Twins were out making mud pies in the rain this afternoon.”

Jennifer laughed. “Making mud pies of ourselves, you mean.”

“Yeah,” Reb said around a mouthful of pudding. “Kelly was there too. You know Kelly.” Reb said it like Alex and I just needed to be reintroduced. “She's the one who started it all.”

“Me?” I acted all innocent. “
You
were the one who threw me into the mud puddle.”

“Which I never would have done if you hadn't shaken that branch and gotten us all soaked when we were
trying
to stay dry.” She looked at Alex. “Talk about evil! This girl is the worst!”

Alex gave me a look that was a little friendlier. “Too bad I missed it.”

“Yeah. We need a new name. We're triplets now.” Reb winked at me and handed me the bowl. I took it like it was a prize.

“Evil Triplets?” asked Alex.

Reb looked thoughtful. “No. Terrible Triplets.”

I took a bite of pudding and handed the bowl back to Reb. I was glad it was dark. I had a stupid grin on my face.

“So—I haven't seen you guys in my Guard Start class.”

“I know,” Reb said. “I guess we're going to be lazy bums this summer.” The thing was, we'd talked about the class after Alex mentioned it, but Jennifer didn't want to do it because she wasn't a very good swimmer. Reb was a good friend, though, not letting Alex know that part. Reb gave Alex our empty bowls. “Thanks, Allie. You're the coolest counselor in camp.”

We rushed back to the cabin, since we were already late. “Oh my gosh!” Jennifer gasped. “We almost forgot! Melissa's bed!”

“Oh yeah!” said Reb. “We can't miss this!”

I'd actually completely forgotten about short-sheeting Melissa, after the whole mud fight. What if she was really upset? What if she thought I helped them? I didn't really. I just happened to be in the same room with them at the time.

“Where have you all been?” Tis asked when we came in the door.

Reb just shrugged. “We had places to go, people to see.”

Tis looked at us. “Really? Care to elaborate?”

“I left my jacket in the lodge, and they went back with me to find it,” I blurted out. Reb gave me a quick wink.

Molly looked over from Side B and called out, “Don't believe the Evil Twins, Tis! They were up to something devious.”

“Molly, the lifeboats are leaving without you,” yelled Reb. Molly drove us all crazy with her weird facts about the Titanic. “Oh, and Evil Twins? That is so last year. Nobody calls us that anymore.”