April Fool’s Day. The only day of the year Joey willingly woke up before 7am. He was the prankster in the family. No matter how many times Tristan tried to out do him, Joey always came out ahead.
This April Fool’s Day happened to land on a monday so everyone in the house had work or school. Joey had to set his alarm for 4:30am so he would have enough time to set his pranks before everyone woke up. The alarm only had to buzz once, this was also a once a year thing for Joey, before he turned it off and got out of bed.
Maria had married James in December, therefore this was the first April in this house with everyone living together. This meant a couple new elements for Joey to deal with. First, a bigger space. This one didn’t bug him at all, he just came up with a few extra pranks. The second element though had to be thought out a little bit more. With this being James’s first April Fool’s Day he had to decide the extent he could take his pranks.
Sure, he hadn’t really liked him when he first met him, but that was over two years ago. By now Joey had realized James was actually pretty nice, and usually pretty relaxed. He didn’t want to be the first one to anger him. So, he came to the decision to hold back on the pranks that would involve James… at least for this year.
Joey started digging the supplies he had been gathering for this day out of his closet and from under his bed. Due to the size of this house it was going to take him longer to set up but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about the creaky floorboards and doors.
In years past he had woken up Roy, who was the lightest sleeper of them all. Not that it really mattered to Roy. He would come out of his room, observe Joey for a bit, and then go back to bed with a mental note of what to avoid in the morning.
Leah on the other hand, was less calm about the situation. Not only had it been 5am on a day she didn’t have to attend her first morning class, but he woke her up whilst stealing Violet, her chameleon. He had been planning on return her that night but regardless, Leah didn’t appreciate it.
He ended up first getting beamed in the head with a water bottle, then in the back with an alarm clock. Fortunately for him, he moved quickly, because the next projectile was a picture frame. Needless to say, he never tried another prank inside of Leah’s room.
The first pranks he set up were the ones on the top floor. There weren’t as many of them as the only rooms up there were the bedrooms, which we all now know he avoids, and two bathrooms. He set up the ones in the bathrooms before throwing the rest of the supplies in a backpack and heading downstairs. Between the basement and the main floor there were pranks placed in the kitchen, bathrooms, rec room, office, and garage.
Once Joey had everything ready he returned to his room, very carefully might I add. He reached his room and instantly frowned. His door was shut. Why would he have shut his door before he left? He never shut his door Fool’s Day morning. It was an unnecessary noise.
Cautiously, he pushed the door open just enough to stick his head in.
Instant yelling. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Who cared if it was only 5:30 in the morning, he sure didn’t. “Twist, did you do this?!”
Joey flung Tristan’s door open, if the yelling hadn’t been enough the anger was certainly evident by his expression. Tristan was still rolled up in bed though and wasn’t paying much attention to his expression. “What are you yelling about?” He grumbled, still half asleep.
“My room. My computers. That’s not funny.” He wasn’t yelling anymore but his tone was enough to tell he hadn’t dropped his rage.
Half a second and Tristan was up from his bed. “Wait! What?! You mean someone got you this year?!” He went running out of his room and right into Leah who was coming out of her room in fury.
Thanks to having just woke up, her usual alertness was not present. She tumbled to the ground which just anger her more. “Why are you two yelling and running around AT 5AM?!” While Joey’s voice dropped and turned into a hiss as he became more upset, Leah’s did the exact opposite.
“Joey got pranked!” Tristan still yelled. However, his voice displayed excitement. He stepped over Leah and straight to Joey’s room, throwing open the door.
“Twist! Wait!” Joey yelled in desperation but it was too late. At least ten full cups of water were now spilt on his carpet.
The door was now wide open. Both Tristan and Leah’s eyes went wide and then they bursted out in laughter. Covering every inch of flat surface in Joey’s room were plastic cups full of water. Where his computer equipment used to be now sat cups, not a single electronic item to be seen. Not even his phone. On his wall there was taped a single piece of paper. It read ‘April Fool’s Day!’ typed out in big black letters.
Joey turned to go bang down Roy’s door as he was the only one not out there but Roy was already in his doorway, and looking quite amused.
“About time somebody got you back.” Roy said. The pranks never really bothered him too much. Especially after Joey had stopped putting as much effort into getting him a few years back. Roy failed to give the big reactions like Twist or Leah so he was less entertaining.
“Who did this?” Joey asked, looking back and forth between all of them.
They all shrugged in response.
“Joey, do you really think that someone is going to answer that honestly?” Leah gave him the ‘Seriously, are you that stupid?’ look she had perfected around the age of 7.
“Oh, whatever. I’ll figure it out later.” Joey glared at them all before heading down the stairs, or more like stomping down the stairs. He needed to find his electronics.
Too distracted by trying to figure out who had pranked him, it wasn’t after he made it through all of the top and main floor and was headed for the garage that he realized the house was void of his pranks. He looked around the garage and frowned. Each car but his own had originally been set up with an annoyance of some sort.
After checking each car he found that the brakes no longer triggered the horn in the twins’s car, that the confetti no longer filled the defrosters of his mom’s, and that loose change no longer sat in every cup holder of James’s.
His frustration was obvious as he stormed back into the house with his jaw set and fists clenched. He gave off a rather frightening aura when he was angry for those who were not used to it. Nevertheless, despite his bad boy acts, he was really rather harmless.
Joey checked the rest of the house and found that everything was back how it was supposed to be. The orange juice was actually orange juice, not mac and cheese water. The furniture of the living spaces were all in their correct placement instead of to the right an inch or two. The door handles were no longer sticky or slimy. There wasn’t an air horn to be set off behind the bathroom door. The toothbrushes had been washed clean of salt… he checked this one by looking closely to the brush… The bubble wrap set under the toilet seat was missing. The list went on and on.
The search for his computers went on for awhile before he realized he had to get ready for his classes.
His siblings had finished getting ready and were now in the kitchen eating breakfast, along with Maria and James. All immensely enjoying their peaceful April Fool’s Day morning.
Joey brought a tote up and dropped it at the entrance of his room. Time to clean the water up so he could maneuver in his room. He filled up the tote with water four times as he emptied his room of cups. Also filling two garbage sacks with the red plastic cups.
Once everything was cleaned, he started getting ready for school. Beginning with a shower, only to find out his shower stuff had been stolen. Now he had to use Tristan’s… which wouldn’t have been an issue is Tristan hadn’t used up the rest of the shampoo that morning. Joey ended up just using regular soap as shampoo and finished his shower. Thankfully, whoever was pulling these pranks hadn’t decided to steal all the towels as he had once done. Nor had they done anything with his clothes.
Although from there, things went downhill. Brushing his teeth was a disaster. Someone had added a drop of food coloring to his toothbrush which turned his teeth green. It took a few minutes to scrub it off, and even then it seemed his teeth were slightly stained.
Then went down to eat breakfast. The place had cleared out as everyone went to school or work. He thought he’d be fine, but apparently that was an incorrect assumption. His fruity pebbles were replaced with literal pebbles, as were his cocoa pebbles. He then made himself a piece of toast… and as it turned out someone had just used the last of the butter, which hadn’t actually been a purposed prank. Just a coincidence.
At that point he decided to just skip breakfast and go to school. There was no one at the school that would prank him. At least not this bad.
He got in his car and started towards his school, only as he did he started hearing clunking. After Roy, Joey was the most patient of the family. Not necessarily the best behaved or least hyper, but patient, yeah.
You wouldn’t have guessed that now as he pulled over to the side of the road,throwing somewhat of a temper tantrum. In the past everyone had been too busy dealing with the pranks dealt by him. No one had ever fooled him so he had no clue what being assaulted by pranks felt like.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for him to figure out what was wrong with the car. Someone had put rocks in his hub caps. The entire time he was trying to take them out he was swearing under his breath and chucking them into the ditch.
He return to the driver’s seat with a very loud huff as he started his car back up and finished his trek to school. From then on he had a calm day. A little annoying that he didn’t have his phone or any other electronic but he survived. At least he didn’t run into any more practical jokes.
Joey did, however, ponder most of the day on who the culprit was. Tristan couldn’t have been sneaky enough alone, and he doubted Roy cared enough to do it. Leah was probably capable but would she want to waste the time? And how did she get back into her room after setting things up without being spotted? Maybe it was more than one of them. No matter how it had happened, he just wanted his computers back in one piece.
After his classes for the day he decided to go get some fast food for dinner and then go to a friend’s house. When he arrived home it was at least midnight. Perfect timing, no more practical jokes now that the day was over. At least he hoped so.
He walked in through the front door on full alert. Everything seemed safe in the foyer so he continued into the house. Since it was a week night everyone was already in bed or at least in their rooms, which Joey was thankful for as he snuck to his own oh so carefully.
After making it to his room without incident he still opened his door with the utmost caution. For the second time that day he peaked just his head into the room.
“Hallelujah! Yes!” He dropped all his worry as he entered the room. There on his desk, were his computers, sitting neatly, just the way he had had them.
First things first, he made sure everything was there and nothing was damaged physically. Hard drives in place, no wires cut, stuff like that. Then he sat at the desk and turned them on.
He had two computers and three screens, not to mention his laptop and phone which he turn on as well. His Windows machine was connected to two screens and also ran Ubuntu. While he also had a Mac, which, of course, ran apple.
He logged in and was completely surprised. His previous desktop backgrounds were all replaced by what seemed to be a screenshot of a text document. It read:
“April Fool’s Day, Joey. Your mother was warning me about your fool’s day antics a few days ago and I decided to display a few of my own. With two older brothers I learned how to fend for myself on this day of pranks. Hope you enjoyed the surprise and hopefully you’ll go easier on everyone else in years to come.”
…it was signed with James’s name.
Joey’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?!” Unbelievable. Who knew their step-dad was capable of so much. Joey scoffed, unable to settle with the fact he had been annihilated on April Fool’s Day by James. That couldn’t be possible.
This was the guy who pretty much always was in a suit, and if he wasn’t, he still dressed well enough to be going to a formal something or rather.
His personality was much more laid back than he appeared but still. Practical jokes? Not to mention the fact he had found every single one of Joey’s and fixed them.
Joey shook his head and quickly composed an email. “I have a different proposal. Instead of me going easy on everyone next year, why don’t join forces on the assault?” He sent it off with a smirk. He may have gotten beaten down a bit this year but next year was going to be grand.
He checked a few more things on his computers to make sure nothing else had been messed with before heading to bed. As he laid down he was already thinking about a way to play defense. Never again would he be the one pranked…
“Dude. Really?!” He jumped up from bed and pulled the blankets off, sending salt flying.
Ok, so ‘never again’ restarted as he replaced his sheets.
echoinkk 