Lockwood and Co: Truth or Dare

Chapter 5:

Disclaimer: I do not own Lockwood and Co and all the characters in it. All the credit goes to Jonathan Stroud, I'm just the humble writer borrowing them for my fanfiction :) 

Chapter 5:

"Soo..." I said once the laughter had died down, "What now?"

"Carry on playing, of course." Lockwood replied.

We all sat down on the wooden floor- only to stand up again when the phone rang. We stared at it as if it were some foreign object- and then at each other.

"You don't think..?" Holly didn't need to finish her question, we were all wondering the same thing ourselves.

"Well, only one way to find out." Lockwood said. He strolled towards the phone and picked it up.

"Hello, this is Anthony Lockwood of Lockwood and Co. speaking. How may I help you?" he asked politely.

"Oh, hello, Barnes." he looked at us, "How may we be of assistance?"

"Damn it, I knew it would be him." George said, and took a bite out of a cookie.

"What are we going to do?" Holly asked, eyes wide. "Oh, we are going to be in such big trouble if he finds out we were pranking him!"

Meanwhile, Lockwood was still on the phone.

"Okay, will do. Have a good evening, Barnes. Don't worry, we'll take care of this client." he paused, listening to Barnes' reply.

"What do you mean, 'don't burn his house down'?" he asked, fake astonished. "That was only once!"

He laughed and said his goodbyes. When he put down the phone, he stood and looked at us with a small smile on his face.

"That," he said, "was Barnes, as you would have guessed. He wanted to give us a case. As you guys know, Mr Flowerbottom does not exist, so we'll have to pretend we did the case. We'll write it up in our case book as usual, but the events will be completely made up. That way, Barnes will never have to know that Mr Flowerbottom was actually four teenagers playing a prank on him. Okay?"

We nodded.

"Good." Lockwood seemed satisfied. "Now, let's carry on with the game."

We all sat cross legged on the floor again.

"Lockwood, you can pick the person to go next." Holly said.

"Okayyy, I nominate..." Lockwood looked at us, thinking. Then his eyes rested on me and he smiled. Uh oh. "Lucy, you can go next."

I glared at him,  but he only responded with an irritating smile.

"Truth or dare, Lucy?" Holly asked me.

"Dare."

"Does anyone have any dares?" Holly asked, looking round at us.

"I do."

I rolled my eyes. Of course he does.

"Please share."

"Wait a sec." Lockwood leaned in and whispered: "Luce, there's flour in the kitchen cupboard. I dare you to stick your hand in it and slap George around the face. Not hard, mind, just a friendly smack."

I smiled, this was a good one. "Okay."

I got up and without a word to the others, went to the kitchen and closed the door.

"Where's Lucy going?" I could hear Holly asking. "What's the dare?"

"You'll see." Lockwood said. I could tell from his tone of voice that he was enjoying being mysterious and smug.

In the kitchen I opened the cupboards until I found the one that the flour was being kept in. Gently, I lifted it onto the kitchen table and carefully placed my hand in it. It felt so weird, but satisfying too. I stood there, bewitched, scooping up flour and watching it fall through my hands like water. Then a shout from the other room brought me back to Earth.

I scooped up a decent amount of flour in my hands and rushed eagerly into the room. I glanced at my friends sitting expectantly on the floor and zoomed in onto my target. George was too busy eating a jam biscuit to notice me fly towards him, and by the time he realised it was too late.

"Lucy, what are-"

S M A C K!

My hand made contact with his cheek and the impact sent flour flying everywhere. When I had recovered, I was pleased to see there was a nice, floury hand shape imprinted neatly on his left cheek.

Holly, who had been watching, gobsmacked, as the scene unfurled before her, was finally able to gasp out. "George... are you okay?"

She turned to me. "What the hell was that for, Lucy? Have you lost your mind?"

Holly had more to say- I could tell. But when George stood up expressionlessly and walked out of the room she got distracted.

"George, where are you going?" she called. George didn't answer. Lockwood and I exchanged worried looks.

A second later George reappeared with what looked like a bag of flour in his hands. Uh oh... He advanced towards me and I scooted back desperately.

"George... that was just a dare, okay? Don't take it personally. Keep calm. Drop that bag of flour..." I gabbled, holding my hands out in surrender.

George didn't reply. His face remained expressionless as he took two more steps towards me and-

Dumped the entire contents of the flour onto Lockwood's head.

It was so unexpected to all of us that for a moment the rest of us just froze with the shock of it. The silence was broken when a squeal of laughter escaped George. He slowly took off his glasses and began to wipe them on his jumper. The floury smack mark was still on his face. George turned to Lockwood and yelled:
"Ha, bet you weren't expecting that, Lockwood!"
We all turned to our leader, who had just had a whole bag of flour dumped on him. There was flour in his hair, flour on his clothes... He looked surprised. Slowly, he shook his head; a snowfall of flour fell onto the carpet.

"Well..." Lockwood said finally, standing up and dusting flour off his clothes. "That was unexpected."

And then he laughed, and that set us off too. Holly stood there, arms folded, eyes narrowed.

"I guess I'm going to be the poor soul who has to clean up this mess." she sighed and went to fetch the hoover.

As soon as she left the room, George leaned in.

"Guys..." he said, eyes glinting wickedly. "I have the perfect prank to play on Holly."

He told us his plan, and for once even Lockwood looked unsure.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked, scratching his chin.

"Oh, come on, Lockwood!" I said, "Don't be a spoilsport! Anyway, it won't do her any harm. It'll be fun!"

Lockwood relented.

"Fine," he decided, "but when we get caught, you can't say I didn't warn you."

We crept upstairs and set to work.

So that's the end of  this chapter of 'Truth or Dare'! I hope you guys are liking it so far!  I know I have been absolutely rubbish at posting chapters regularly, and I am genuinely so sorry! :( I'm trying! If you guys want me to write more Lockwood and Co fanfiction then definitely let me know! ;)