The Prank

by Jeffrey Pratt

  Well, as of today, she was officially done with wasted opportunities. She grabbed her car keys and drove to the supermarket.

  When Rachel finally saw Audrey, her face looked puzzled for a second before she looked away to return to her work. It was lucky for Audrey that Rachel usually worked as a cashier on the weekends. This conversation needed to be face to face, and Rachel couldn’t run away if Audrey caught her at work. Audrey stood in line, three people back. Waiting. Eventually, she was up.

  “What are you doing here?” Rachel asked, swiping through the random assortment of candy Audrey had grabbed while waiting in line.

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Audrey said.

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “How nice. Buying anything else?”

  Audrey grabbed another pack of gum and laid it on the belt. “So, are you okay?” she asked.

  Rachel scanned the new items, but didn’t respond.

  “Well, I just wanted to tell you that if you needed anything, or anyone to talk to, know that . . . I hope you can still talk to me. I know you’re probably mad at me. Or don’t trust me or whatever. But you’re one of my best friends.”

  Rachel started to argue but Audrey held up a hand to stop her. “You can yell at me later. I just wanted to say I’m here. And, also, that I’m really sorry.”

  “For what?” Rachel sighed. “We all did it.” She looked back at the line growing behind Audrey. “I really need to get back to work.”

  “Sure, I understand,” Audrey said. “Sorry to—”

  “Eleven forty.” Rachel gave the total cost of the all the junk Audrey had laid on the belt. Her face softened. “Do you really want all this?”

  “No.” Audrey handed her a twenty. “But maybe someday I’ll be able to share some of it with Mel or something.”

  “Yeah,” Rachel smiled sadly. “Hey, listen, Audrey—”

  “We’ll talk later,” Audrey said, smiled back, and then took her change.

  “Sure,” Rachel agreed, but Audrey could tell neither one of them fully believed this.

  After she left the supermarket she swung by Bryant’s house to apologize to him too. And then she made her way to the coffee shop where she knew Melicia sometimes hung out on the weekend. She didn’t expect anything from them, but she knew she needed to at least make the effort.

  It wasn’t perfect. But it was a start.

  As she pulled back up in front of her home, Audrey felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She waited until she was safely in her room before checking the message.

  Today was all about her dealing with the fallout from her decisions over the last few weeks. And here, on her phone, was more fallout.

  Library tonight at 10:00. Bring $200.

  14

  Audrey got there at 9:30.

  She knew the library closed at 9:00 and wanted to arrive after the last workers had left but before 10:00.

  By 9:40, the parking lot was already completely empty except for her.

  She sat alone in the car, waiting. She was tense, constantly shifting in her seat and looking around at the slightest sound or movement. Every minute felt like an hour.

  Audrey had brought the $200 as told. Birthday gifts and money she made by writing for the local paper. Turned into hush money. Exactly what she deserved. Whether that would turn into weekly payments or stay a one-time thing, she didn’t know. There were a dozen options on how this might play out. But unless one of the options included going back in time again and having never done the post in the first place—which didn’t seem likely—none of her choices looked good.

  At 10:00, a car pulled into the library lot. It circled around behind her car and then parked across the parking lot. She couldn’t see the driver through the bright headlights blazing directly in her face. Then the headlights went dark.

  The driver was sitting with a sweatshirt hood over their head, his or her face lost in the shadows. Then the driver got out of the car.

  Her heart pounding way too loudly, Audrey stepped out too.

  It was a guy. He moved in front of his car and then slid onto its hood. “I won’t get any closer,” he promised. “I didn’t think through how scary this part would be for you.”

  Audrey was shaking, but somehow kept her voice steady. Mostly.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  He pulled back the hood on his Clara Barton baseball hoodie.

  It was the guy who had looked at her funny when she and Melicia had gone to the library to take down the blog post. She recognized his face from school but couldn’t remember his name.

  “Nick Schaeffer,” he said. “I’m the one who sent you the messages.”

  “I figured that part out,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “I asked you here because I wanted to apologize in person,” he paused. “This was a horrible idea.”

  “Wait.” Audrey blinked, then crossed her arms over her chest protectively. “What are you saying?”

  “I wanted to teach you a lesson or something,” Nick said. “All of you. And it went too far. This, this here, is nuts. If you wanna call the police on me or something, I don’t blame you.”

  Wait, what? “I’m not going to call the police,” she said. She stepped closer. “Why me?”

  “I don’t know.” Nick shrugged. “I was going to mess with Bryant first, but . . . I mean, you wrote the original article. That was easy to tell.”

  Despite herself, Audrey edged a little closer still. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve read your articles in the school paper and a couple of the ones you wrote about my baseball games last year. You have a pretty distinct style. Plus . . . I’ve seen the four of you here. I mean at the library. I literally watched you and Melicia take down the post.”

  “You were spying on us?” Audrey said.

  He laughed, and the sound wasn’t creepy at all. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was doing homework. I come here all the time, and I’ve seen you guys here before. I kept meaning to come over and say hi to you all sometime, but you’re always pretty focused. That’s how a lot of people are at the library. I like that it’s quiet here but still has lots of people, you know.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I do.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t like what happened to Dean Barcomb.”

  She sighed. “Me either.”

  “I kinda suspected that too. But, I don’t know, I guess I wanted to give you all a taste of your own medicine.”

  Audrey nodded slowly. “If you follow the blog you know we don’t normally put stuff like that up.” Audrey felt the need to explain herself. “It was supposed to be a fake piece but it got way out of hand.”

  Nick sighed. “Yeah, I guessed that. Some parts were sort of funny. But it was still a pretty crappy thing to do. I mean, what did Dean Barcomb ever do to you?”

  Audrey looked down at her shoes.

  “But like I said, I didn’t think it all through—the anonymous texts.” Nick continued, “I thought about just not showing up tonight. Or, I suppose, I could have called it off by text. But I wanted to tell you in person. It just seemed, I don’t know, like the right thing to do.” He shrugged. “Sounds stupid, huh?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Audrey said. She knew exactly how Nick felt. “So you don’t really want—” she patted her hip pocket, the money practically burning a hole in her jeans.

  “The two hundred? Oh no!” Nick waved his hands, chasing away the idea. “That was . . . I thought it was good payback for you saying Dean Barcomb took bribes. Like ironic or something. I never actually wanted—”

  “Well, I understand,” Audrey said.

  “I’m really sorry I sent you those text messages,” he said.

  Audrey shook her head, brushing off the apology. “Let’s move on,” she said. “It’s been a weird couple of weeks anyway. What’s another crazy text or two?”

  Then she had an idea and forced a casual laugh. “Oh, yeah, what’d the first one say again?” she asked. “Crazy stuff.” She
was almost certain Nick had nothing to do with the do-over, but she knew that this was her chance to find out.

  “It was ‘I know you wrote it. Was it fun to mess with someone’s life like that? Hope so . . .’ ” Nick sighed. “Stupid, huh? I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  Audrey held up her hand to stop him. “Seriously, forget it.” So she still didn’t know where the do-over had come from. A mystery to be solved another day, maybe. Though she seriously doubted it. There was something about a message from no number that seemed to suggest the mystery could last a lifetime.

  She refocused on simpler answers. “Why are you so protective of Barcomb?” she asked. “Are you friends with Hope?”

  “No, not really. She’s kinda a jerk sometimes, actually. But I know what it’s like to be harassed online.”

  Audrey blushed. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She had written an article about internet trolls a few months ago. But Audrey hadn’t realized until now that she had sort of become one herself. “It really was a stupid thing to do—the blog post. Dean Barcomb isn’t a bad guy.”

  “No, he’s not,” Nick agreed.

  “Yeah. You know his credentials weren’t that fudged,” Audrey continued. “Minor dates and stuff. One certificate, and he’s working with the university to sort that out.”

  “Yeah? Where’d you hear that?” Nick asked.

  “I know some people at the local paper,” she said. “I think Mr. Barcomb can prove that the issues were minor, so I’m trying to convince them to do a follow-up article or something else to fix this.”

  “You could start a petition,” he said. “At school.”

  “We could.” She didn’t know why she said it, but of course, he picked up on the slip.

  “We?” He laughed. It really was a good sound.

  “Yeah. If you’d be interested, I’d love your help.”

  Nick nodded. “Absolutely,” he said. “That is, if you’re not sending me to jail for blackmail or for being a super creep.”

  “Nah.” She paused then, considered. “Are you a super creep?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “At least, not before this.” Now it was his turn to sigh. “You ever wish you could go back and do it all over?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  * * *

  When she got home, there was a new text message.

  This one wasn’t from Nick or her friends. It was sent from a contact with no number at all.

  Reply with yes if you would like to undo your do-over.

  Her whole heart filled with relief. She’d never even thought, or dared, to wish for such a message. She knew exactly what her answer should be.

  Yes.

  15

  “Hello,” said Audrey as brightly as she could manage.

  Nick Schaeffer looked up from his book. “Oh . . .” He seemed to be struggled to process what he was seeing. He looked around the rest of the library. “Hi.”

  “I’m Audrey Zimmer.” She held out a hand.

  He shook it. “Yeah, I know. I like your articles in the school paper. I’m Nick,” he said. “Nick Schaeffer.”

  “Nice to officially meet you,” she said. “I’ve seen you here before, but, um, I’ve never taken the time to come over and say hi. I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s no problem. I mean, you are now.” He smiled a little awkwardly, then looked around again. “Are you here with anyone?”

  “No. Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk with you about.”

  “Oh?”

  “See, my friends and I run this little blog on the side—The Espresso.”

  “I’ve seen it,” he said, eyes narrowing.

  “Right. So then you know we wrote this terrible article about Dean Barcomb. And . . . well, I talked to my friends last night and finally convinced them we needed to go into Kramer’s office together and admit what we did.”

  “Okay . . .” Nick was beyond confused. Having this conversation before any mysterious texts or burner phones or late-night apologies would do that to a person. Audrey figured this was probably a couple of days before Nick had even thought of doing something.

  “We’ll go into Kramer’s office first thing on Monday,” Audrey pressed on. “And then we’re all going to be suspended.”

  “Wow.” Nick sat up straighter, genuine concern on his face now, which really was sweet because he didn’t even really know her or any of them. “That sounds rough.”

  “No.” She shook her head, before she got completely derailed. “It’s fair. We almost ruined a guy’s life. But here’s where we need some help. People probably won’t really trust what we say about the matter after we turn ourselves in.”

  “Okay, sure,” he said.

  “And here’s the thing. I’ve got suspicions Barcomb’s credentials aren’t that forged. Like it was just small stuff he fibbed on. I think support from the students might help his case—maybe a petition of some kind saying what a great dean he’s been. Someone would need to collect all the signatures and then get it to the paper, the school board, that kind of thing.”

  Nick’s eyes lit up. “A petition! That’s a great idea.”

  Audrey smiled. “I thought you might be on board. And I was hoping you’d be able to carry the torch. After we come clean, we’ll need someone who can . . .” Audrey thought about her next words carefully, “set things right.”

  “You think?” Nick still seemed a little confused, but he was coming around to the idea even if she was still a random semistranger.

  “Sure,” he said. “I could do that. I’ve always like Dean Barcomb, and getting attacked online can be pretty hard.”

  Audrey nodded.

  “So first thing we need to do is write the petition,” Nick said, opening up his laptop. “So did you . . . I mean, did you wanna get started on that now?”

  “Yes,” Audrey said.

  About the Author

  Jeffrey Pratt studied music and English literature in college and has worked as a sports reporter, advertising copywriter, and high school English teacher. He’s played guitar and piano semiprofessionally for many years. He loves the ocean, dogs, French fries, and cryptozoology. Jeff and his family split their time between Ohio and Los Angeles.