Prank War

Prank War [10]

    I stared at the floor as I made my way to the detention room (which I had no idea where it was). The floor was oddly attractive today.

    The first thing that popped to my mind was Caden again. What was I going to do? Ignoring him was my best option. It’s stupid, really, but what else can I do?

    I took my eyes off the floor and looked up just in time to see someone that made me stop dead.

    Max.

    Great, that’s all I needed. I crossed my fingers and hoped he didn’t remember me. If he did, this day was definitely not going to be one of the best days of my life.

    He stopped too when he saw me. Please don’t recognize me, I prayed, please don’t notice me. Please disappear. Please evaporate to turtle land of something. You know, actually, it would be cool if I evaporated to turtle land. Then I would always win in races because turtles were slow. Then I would become their king – wait no, queen, since I’m not a guy. No duh. Anyways, I can’t even evaporate. It’s not naturally possible.

    And now I’m talking to myself again, when I should be trying to find a way to get away from Max.

    I’m such a smart child.

    “Hey,” he said as he slowly made his way towards me. I held my breath as I tried to look innocent. No, I don’t know you, I told him in my head. That didn’t do any good. It’s not like he could hear me.

    Sometimes I worry about myself.

    Not really, but you get the point. I think. I don’t really get it either, but let’s just pretend we all do.

    Yeah, that makes so much sense.

    “You’re the new girl, aren’t you?” Max finally said. Wait, so he didn’t recognize me? He didn’t remember me? Well … that’s good.

    “I am. What’s it to you?” I asked. I was actually curious of why he would stop to talk to me.

    “I’m guessing you’re heading to detention?” he raised an eyebrow. I don’t think that was an answer to my question.

    “How did you know?” I decided to keep it light. I shouldn’t get on his bad side, since Mackenzie had said that he was one of the main players in this war. I’m still greedy for my money. Hey, that rhymes! Kind of.

    “It’s this thing called magical powers,” Max smirked, and ran his hand through his dirty blond hair, “Well, we should go, or else Mrs. Jenkins will give us double detention. She’s probably going to give use another detention for being late anyways. You’re late, you know.”

    Mrs. Jenkins … that name sounded familiar. Oh right, she was the lady who gave me detention in the first place.

    “You’re late too,” I pointed out as we made our way down the hall. It turns out I was walking in the opposite direction. What a surprise.

    “I was setting a few more … traps. For the Prank War, you know,” he told me, “What’s your excuse?”

    An image of last night immediately popped into my head. The look on Caden’s face before he … I quickly blocked it away. I felt my cheeks start to burn, and quickly said, “I slept late and didn’t wake up until now.”

    “Right,” he said with a nod after he registered the expression on my face.

    Ugh. This was going well.

    It felt awkward standing (or rather, walking) next to him. That humiliating day started to creep into my thoughts, but I made sure to push it away. It didn’t matter anymore. I couldn’t change the past, no matter how much I wanted to.

    Like how much I wanted to change last night.

    Oh great, I’m thinking about it again.

    “So, I see you’re still in,” I suddenly heard Max say.

    “Huh?”

    “You’re still in,” he repeated, motioning to my bracelet. I look at it and saw the red light stare back at me. Well, no, not stare, since it didn’t have eyes.

    “Right,” I replied, playing around with the bracelet by moving it to the right, then back to its original position, “I got lucky, I guess. You?”

    “I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m the master at pranks,” he half-joked, “At least I finally get a reward this year.”

    “No way,” I told him, “That one million dollar prize is mine.”

    “Really? Well, let’s see your skills. I have some, ah, slime left, and you can help me get rid of it after detention.”

    “You’ll be surprised at my awesome ninja skills,” I joked. We turned at a corner and walked down yet another hallway.

    “I’m sure I will,” Max replied, and I didn’t know if it was sarcastic or not. A second of silence passed by before he stopped in front of room and said, “here it is.”

    I followed him inside to find about twelve other students sitting behind a different desk. I noticed Kristen and her group of friends sitting in a corner in the back. Kristen had one earphone in her ear and was talking to Bree. She smiled when she saw me.

    I saw Mackenzie sitting in the second to last row. She was bending over, writing something on her notebook. I caught Max watching her, and saw his gaze focus on where her bracelet was hanging around her wrist. He was probably checking to see if she was still in the competition or not.

    “You two are late. I’ll need your names,” a teacher said as he walked towards us. Right away, I could tell he was a substitute teacher, and he was probably new to the whole teaching program thing mabober.

    Which also meant I could have a little fun with that.

    “My name is George but you can call me,” I quickly tried to think of a random name and came up with, “Leonardo. You can call me Leonardo.” I gave him my innocent smile.

    I heard Max trying to hide a laugh besides me. The teacher had a confused look on his face, and I was pretty sure he was going to send me to the principal’s office.

    To my surprise, he just let it go and said, “Well, take a seat then, Leonardo. Don’t be late next time.”

    Max burst out laughing, and the teacher turned to look at him, “What’s your excuse, young man?”

    “I uh, I was helping Leonardo find the classroom, cause he – I mean, she got, uh, lost,” Max quickly tried to look more serious, but couldn’t erase the smile from his face.

    The teacher looked at us like we were annoying mosquitoes just trying to cause trouble, which was probably what we were. Except he didn’t do anything, and told Max to take a seat too.

    “No talking from either of you,” he told us.

    Max and I stifled a laugh as we sat down next to Mackenzie and tried to look innocent. I smiled sweetly at the teacher and saw Mackenzie smile as she kept her head low, still writing in her notebook.

    That was probably the smartest thing to do, but hey, no one said I was smart.