The Seventh Grade Wars

CHAPTER 40: Cricket

The team was very shocked when I brought the diagrams to show them on Monday.

"Wow!" said Tess. "You drew this, Cricket?"

"No," I said. "I stole them from Hayley George. Told you guys she'd have a good prank."

"Jeez," said Marcus. "So you did some spying last weekend, huh, Cricket?"

"Yep," I said.

"This looks easy enough to follow," said Pete, studying the diagrams closely. "Yes, this should be fine."

"When should we do this?" asked Peyton.

"Tomorrow," he replied.

"That's way too soon," I said.

"No it isn't," he responded. "We only really need a bucket, some string, and by the looks of it, some duct tape. We could totally do this tomorrow, but we'd have to do it before school."

Asia groaned. "You know I hate waking up early."

"Nobody's asking you to come, Asia," I said coldly.

We glared at each other for a couple seconds before Pete jumped in. "Okay. Well, there's no other time to do it, so in the morning it is," he said.

"I can bring the buckets," said Harley.

"Okay," Alexa said, "and I'll bring the duct tape."

"I'll bring the rope," I said quickly. And you know what would make this even better? If we filled the buckets with ice water."

"Woah. That's good," said Marcus eagerly. "Who wants a cold shower in October? Nobody!"

"How are we going to get the ice, though?" Pete pointed out. "We definitely can't bring it from home, it'll melt by the time we get it here. Especially if we're walking."

We were quiet for a moment, then Marcus said, "We could sneak in to the nurse's office and get some," he said.

"Hey, not a bad idea," agreed Peyton.

"Why the nurse's office?" I said.

"Don't you know? The nurse is insane. She'll give you ice for anything, even if you have a migraine or something. She just stores them in little plastic bags in her freezer, and she'll just hand them out to anyone who comes in."

"Not a very good nurse, then, is she?" said Alexa.

"Who cares? Works for us!" said Harley.

I couldn't help but feel excited. It felt good to know that I'd contributed something major to the team.

And Pete.

The next morning, I woke up really early. I'd done this enough times that I didn't feel bad about it anymore. My parents never found out anyway.

I changed into jeans and a hoodie and grabbed the rope I'd shoved under my bed the night before. I'd known we had some in our garage, and it was more than easy to pretend I was taking out the garbage last night but sneak in to grab it. And I had promised Pete I'd bring some. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and tiptoed quietly down the hall. I saw under Alana's door, her lights were on. What was my sister doing up at five in the morning?

Suddenly, before I could register anything, I'd tripped over the carpeting and landed facedown right outside my sister's room. Great. Just my luck.

I tried to pick myself up, but before I could Alana swung open the door to face me.

"Cricket!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing up?"

"Keep it down, will you?" I got to my feet. "And what are you doing up?"