Daydream Believer

xxxvii. coffee cups and pulling pranks

xxxvii. coffee cups and pulling pranks

"Do you know what day it is?" Aaron asked me on the bus.

I stared out the window. "No," I said. All of the snow had melted and I missed it already. It wasn't quite warm enough to play outside for very long and it rained a lot. We had already had to stay inside for recess for three days that week.

"It's April Fool's Day!" Aaron shouted.

"Oh okay," I said. "Where are you going with this?"

"Don't you want to pull some pranks?"

"Not really. I don't want to get in trouble."

"You can't get in trouble if you say April Fool's after you do it."

"If you say so," I said. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. I brought a bunch of stuff though." Aaron opened his backpack. Inside was some duct tape, a lot of paper, some glue, mustard, a salt shaker, a paintbrush, a Sharpie, and some soap.

"What are you going to do with all of that?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Aaron said. "But it's going to be awesome!"

I shrugged. Hopefully Aaron wouldn't get in too much trouble. Aaron zipped up his backpack and we got off the bus.

Noah caught up to us. "Can you walk me to class again?"

"Sure," I said. Noah knew exactly where his class was, but he still liked me to walk him to class. I walked him to Mrs. Stumph's classroom and then headed to class. Unfortunately, the bell rung before I could make it.

"McKenna Gregory!" Mrs. Brown shouted. "Why are you late?"

"I had to walk my brother to class," I said.

"Likely excuse," Mrs. Brown said. "Sit down. I'll let you go this time, but if you're late again, I'll have to send you down to the principal's office."

I sat down. I couldn't go to the principal's. Mom would kill me. She was still mad about my fight with Aaron back in kindergarten. Going to the principal's would be so much worse.

Mrs. Brown started explaining multiplication or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention. Justin would probably explain it to me later. He seemed to get all of this.

I watched the clock move slowly until it reached lunchtime. "It's time for lunch," Mrs. Brown said. We all lined up and Mrs. Brown led us to the cafeteria. Aaron and I stayed at the back of the line. Aaron was holding the salt shaker.

"Are you going to do the prank?" I asked.

"Yes," Aaron whispered. "I'm going to put some of this salt in Mrs. Brown's coffee."

We waited until our classmates had left the room. Aaron ran over to Mrs. Brown's desk and practically dumped the entire container of salt into the cup. He laughed and ran back to me. "Now for the best part," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"Watching her drink it."

Mrs. Brown walked right past us and entered the classroom. She moved around some papers on her desk and then took a sip. She immediately spit it out. "WHO PUT THIS SALT IN MY COFFEE?!?" she screamed.

Aaron and I laughed and ran off to the lunch room. Our revenge on Mrs. Brown did feel kind of good, but I hoped that Aaron wouldn't do anything else. I couldn't afford to get into more trouble.