Life with the Jo Bros

Pranks

My smile only grows as I approach Nick. His eyes are red and I can tell he was crying during the show. "Hey, how'd you like the show?" I asked as I approached him. "You were absolutely phenomenal! I recorded your entire song. I have to show it to my brothers they are going to be blown away." He says handing me the flowers. "Thank you so much! I was so anxious before I went on. Tonight was the first night I was actually able to use the blood in my mouth." I say. Nick reaches over and takes my hat off my head. I stop him before he puts it on his head. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. It's really sweaty." I say shaking out my braids that have been tucked up into my hat for the past 2 hours. "All good. I don't really care. Joe wears hats all the time when we perform and I sometimes steal them off his head just to piss him off. Also, how did you add blood to your mouth? You didn't start the song with it." He asks putting my hat on his head. "Also you have a big head. This is too big on me." He says adjusting it so he can see out from over the brim. "It's from always having to tuck my hair up into it. It wasn't that big when I first got it. And to answer your other question, I'll show you." I say as I take his hand and lead him back into the theatre and backstage. I show him the prop table and stop when we get to the blood capsules. "This is how I do it. These are filled with mouth safe blood. They are absolutely disgusting. Anyway, when Alex, Snyder, comes on stage he has one of them in his hand to give to me after he beats me up. That's why I face away from the audience during that part of the song." I say. I see Nick nod in understanding. I then lead him through backstage into the dressing room so that I can change into my regular clothes and out of my boots and ankle brace. I take them off and slip my slip ones back on before taking a couple of ibuprofen. I also wipe off my eye makeup just in case I get pulled over or anything. He hands me my hat as I put my costumes where they go. "We're good to go." I say tucking my boots under the table.  We start walking and I can feel myself limping. I didn't even notice, but my ankle is killing me, like worse than usual even with the ibuprofen. I don't know what I did. I think it happened during the fight in Seize the Day. I remember falling on it a little weirdly tonight when Jack and Riley pushed me over before dragging me off stage. Nick notices this but just thinks I'm still in character. "You know the show's over. You don't have to limp anymore." He says. "Actually, the limp I use on stage is only exaggerated. I actually do have natural limp. I had ankle surgery a few months ago and it still hurts sometimes and forces me to limp." I say stopping and pulling up my pants leg to show my scars that are still slightly pink. "Oh, what happened?" He asks stopping beside me.  "I'll tell you when we get home. It's kind of a long story." I respond, pulling my pants leg down and starting to walk again. "Actually can I possibly catch a ride home with you. I drove here but Kevin called me during intermission that he needed the keys." Nick says. "No. You have to sleep here tonight." I say with a chuckle while unlocking my car. I get in the driver seat and Nick climbs in the passenger side also laughing. I tell him about my ankle while we drive home. When we reach home, I unlock the door. Nick enters and I lock the door behind him. We both hear what seems to be a horror movie going on upstairs. Nick and I just look at each other for a second before Nick breaks the silence. "Abby, want to help me prank my brothers?" He asks with a mischievous smile. "Of course. Being the younger sibling I was always the one being pranked and was never the one pulling the pranks." I say setting my keys and wallet on the counter. I always leave them in the same place of the counter so that I don't misplace them. Nick tells me the plan and I love it. I go up the front stairs leading to my room and the double doors into the media room. I slowly push the doors open as quietly as possible. I giggle quietly as the door squeaks causing Joe and Kevin to look over in its direction, clearly confused. I quickly hid behind them so that I'm not seen. I start filming as I see Nick coming up behind Joe and Kevin. I try my hardest not to laugh as he creeps up behind them. Nick makes it over to the couch, reaches up and grabs both of his brothers by the shoulder before dropping behind the couch to hide as his brothers turn around freaked out. I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. After a few moments, they turn their attention back to the movie. After giving them a few minutes to get back into the movie, Nick pops up from behind the couch once again. "Hey guys, how's it going?" He says grabbing both of their shoulders once again. They both scream and turn around, their faces completely white. "NICK! WHAT THE HELL!!!" Joe yells placing a hand on his heart. "That was not cool man." Kevin says. "Sorry you guys, I couldn't resist." Nick says starting to laugh. I also start laughing and enter the room, stopping the recording and slipping my phone back in my pocket. Both brothers turn to me and I just wave. "Abby, you were in on this?" Kevin asks. "Sure was. You should've seen your faces, they were priceless." I respond crossing over to the couch and sitting down next to Joe, still laughing. Joe playfully hits my shoulder. I stick my tongue out at him and smile. He shakes his head and chuckles . "I have to hand it to you guys.  That was pretty good." Joe says as Nick climbs over the back of the couch to sit next to me. I give Nick a high five. "Well, I'll let you finish your movie. I'm gonna go shower. I'm all sweaty and gross." I say starting to unbutton the shirt I wore home and slipping it off, still facing the boys. It's blue and has flowers on the front of it. "Woah! I don't need to see that!" Joe says shutting his eyes. Kevin, Nick, and I just laugh because it's clear that I'm wearing my "blood" stained tank top from the show under my shirt. I didn't feel like taking it off before I left. I need to add a little more blood and dirt to it anyway. "Joe, you can look. I'm wearing a tank top." I say throwing my shirt at him. He opens his eyes and catches it. "Hey! How was I supposed to know!" Joe exclaims throwing my shirt back to me. "Uh, Abby? Why are you covered in blood and bruises? Do we need to take you to the ER?" Kevin asks. "No, I'm ok. It's fake. It's from the show I'm in." I just now realized that I never wiped off the fake blood or bruises off my arm before changing back into my shirt for the finale, so I have a red streak going down my arm due to sweat dripping down my arms during bows. "Oh ok." Kevin responds, still clearly not believing it's fake. I just laugh as I go into my bathroom and close the door. I start taking my remaining makeup off before pulling the rest of my clothes off and urwrapping my chest. I put on my theatre playlist and hop in the shower getting lost in the music.

Joe's POV: I'm sitting on the couch with Nick talking with him when I hear one of the most beautiful voices coming from Abby's bathroom. Kevin went downstairs and few minutes ago to talk to Danelle. At first, I thought it was just the playlist she has on but then the song changes and I still hear the voice. I can hear the shower running so I know she's in the shower. I realize by the third song that the voice I'm hearing is Abby's. I shush Nick who is in the middle of a sentence so that I can hear her better. Once Nick catches on and hears her singing he just looks at me and smiles. He then pulls his phone out of his back pocket and opens the camera. "Nick, you know you can't record people in the shower right?" I ask with a chuckle. He just rolls his eyes and pulls up a video. "I know that. I just thought you'd want to her actually perform." He says hitting play on the video. We sit in silence while the video plays. By the end of it, I'm in tears. "That was amazing! That definetly explains the blood." I say wiping my eyes. "It was even more so in person. The entire audience was in tears by the end of it. Abby is so talented. I really think she'll make it to Broadway one day." Nick responds. "I definitely think she will." I say.!Nick and I sit there talking for a little while longer. Eventualy we get bored and just start scrolling on our phones. I hear the shower turn off. I decide to go change for bed so that I can talk with Abby for a little bit then go straight to sleep. When I get back from changing, Abby is just opening her bathroom door wearing what looks like a faternity shirt. She joins us on the couch and we sftart talking. Abby starts telling us a story about one time when her brother pranked her. About half way through, Nick and I have a silent conversation with one another confirming the plan you tomorrow. I can't wait for our performance for tomorrow. We're going to surprise Abby by asking her to perform some songs on stage with us. I can't wait to see her reaction. I can't help but smile, excited for the day ahead of me.

AN- So the story about having ankle surgery is true. It happened while I was at boarding school. I fell out of the cabin. I guess fell isn't technically the right way to phrase it. Basically what happened was I went to step out of a cabin but when I stepped, I lost my balance and completely rolled my ankle and landed with all my weight on it. So instead of taking me to the doctor that day when I physically couldn't walk on it and it's black and blue and swollen they waited an entire day to take me. So we go to the doctor and get an x-ray and it's not broken or anything, just a really bad sprain. However, due to the terrain of the boarding school with it being mostly rocks and gravel, I couldn't use crutches. So even though they gave me a brace, I still ended up injuring it more than if I had been able to use crutches. So I get home from boarding school and it's been about a year and a half now since the initial injury. My ankle still hurts. So I go to the orthopedic surgeon and they tell me based on the x-ray they don't know if I had a bone fragment that broke off or if the cartilage in my ankle had calcified. It turned out to be cartilage calcification. Basically instead of my bone in my ankle rubbing on cartilage, the cartilage had basically turned into bone and so I basically had bone rubbing bone going on my ankle so I had to have surgery and they had to go in and scrape all of the hardened cartilage out. I couldn't walk for like two months and then I spent another four in a boot before I was able to just wear an ankle brace and regular shoes again. I actually still have ankle problems to this day. In real life it was three years ago, but in the story it makes a little more sense for it to be fresher since when I actually did Newsies for the second time it had only been 6 months after my surgery.  I had been cleared for everything other than stomping and jumping. I miss this show so much. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I haven't actually gotten the chance to play Crutchie or Spot Colon yet, but would love to one day. Both of those characters are huge dream roles of mine.