“Whatever.” I roll my eyes and scowl at her and take the empty seat, dumping my bag in the aisle so she’ll have to climb over it if she wants to go anywhere.
Mrs. Beecham takes attendance then holds out her arm towards the new girl. “Class, we have a new student today. Kait—”
“It’s KC,” the girl interrupts her.
Mrs. Beecham’s smile falters a bit, but she recovers. “Sure. Fine. KC Smith, everyone. Please make her feel welcome.”
Everyone turns to stare at her, making instant judgements with one glance, which probably makes her feel the opposite of welcome. She plays it cool, though, and looks around the room returning their stares. Got to hand it to her, she’s pretty tough.
Mrs. Beecham starts in on her history lesson, and I strain to keep from nodding off as my earlier excitement level plummets to zero. When the kid behind me props his feet up on the legs of my chair, my attention is diverted, and I slouch down in my seat so I can reach them. I spend the next few minutes surreptitiously tying his shoelaces to my desk.
The new girl sees what I’m doing, and she looks at me like I’m a childish loser, but she doesn’t alert my victim, probably because she doesn’t know his name and she’s too far away from him to tap him on the shoulder. When the bell rings, I hop out of my desk and whirl around so I can watch the show, and sure enough, the kid tumbles out of his chair and face-plants.
Me and the rest of the class start laughing while the kid turns red and tries to untangle himself. “April Fools, Mikey!”
“What’s your name?” Goth girl asks me.
“Jake Matthews,” I answer, grinning.
“Way to be an asshole, Jake.” She pushes past me and helps the kid untie his shoelaces.
I don’t know what her big problem is; it was just a silly prank. It’s not like he got hurt, or anything. I roll my eyes at her and head to second period.
The teacher isn’t in the room when I get there, so I take the opportunity to stick some fake barf on her chair. I spit on it a couple times and rub it in so it looks realistically slimy and squirt some stink spray on it.
When Ms. Lebo comes in and pulls out her chair, she gasps, and throws a hand over her mouth, and her face turns green. She grabs the phone on her desk and punches a couple numbers.
“This is Ms. Lebo in room 202. I need a janitor down here immediately! Someone vomited. I’m going to need a new chair, too.”
I think about telling her it’s fake, but I figure I might as well see if I can trick the janitor, too, so I hide my busting grin behind my book and peek over the top of it.
Ms. Lebo is too grossed out to focus on her lesson, so she tells us to read the next chapter while she waits for the cleanup crew. Most of the students are whispering and giggling instead of reading, especially those who saw me put it there, but Ms. Lebo is too distracted to yell at them. When Dan the Can Man, as we like to call him, shows up with his squeaky cart, he takes one look at the vomit and starts chuckling.
“What are you laughing at? It’s not funny; it’s disgusting!” Ms. Lebo screeches.
The janitor picks up the plastic barf and dangles it in front of her. “Easiest clean up ever.”
Ms. Lebo huffs and scans the room, her hands on her hips and her face twisted. “Who did this? Who does this belong to?”
I can’t resist taking the credit. I saunter up to the janitor, take the fake puke from his hand, and shove it in my pocket. Might want that for later. “Oops. My bad. I was looking for that. Guess I musta dropped it.”
Ms. Lebo looks like she wants to explode. “Jake Matthews, that was not funny! You can march yourself straight to the office.”
“Uh, what for?” Technically, I didn’t break any rules, so I don’t think I can get in trouble for it.
“For disturbing class, that’s what for!”
Okay, she got me there.
I grab my stuff and shuffle out to the hallway, still chuckling. The bell is gonna ring in a few minutes, so I don’t bother going to the office. Instead, I go to my locker and dig in my bag for my next prank — a bright red For Sale sign with the vice principal’s personal cell phone number on it and a price of $200.
I sneak out to the parking lot and find his brand new Mazda then snap a picture of it with the For Sale sign stuck to the front window. A few taps on my phone later, and the car is listed on Letgo.
I wish I could be there to see his face when he gets the first call. I grin as another idea hits me. Maybe I can’t do that, but I can at least hear his reaction. I dial the number on the sign (how I got that was an earlier work of genius that involved making a pass at the 50-year-old secretary and a convoluted story), and tap my fingers excitedly as I wait for it to ring.
“Bob Dillard,” he answers, and I force myself to stop laughing and sound serious.
“Uh yeah, I’m calling about the Mazda for sale. Does it run? Why is the price so low?” I use the deepest voice I can pull off without sounding like I’m faking.
“What are you talking about?”
“The red Mazda 6 you listed for $200. If it runs, I’ll take it. When can I pick it up?”
Mr. Dillard gives a stilted laugh. “I own a Mazda, but it’s not for sale, and certainly not for $200. Where did you get this number?”
“Your ad on Letgo. You posted it this morning. There’s a Yankee Candle air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror and a hula dancer on the dashboard.” Saying that with a straight face takes some serious effort.
“That’s my car! You say there’s a picture of it on the internet?”
“Yeah, man. So when can I come buy it?”
I hear Mr. Dillard rustling around then the clang of the metal doors leading out to the parking lot, so I take off in the other direction and peek around the corner of the building. Mr. Dillard comes barreling out and gasps when he sees the For Sale sign.
“I don’t know who did this, but my car is not for sale!” He hangs up and grabs the sign off his window, but his phone starts ringing again. Mr. Dillard should stay busy fielding calls from potential buyers the rest of the day.
The bell rings, so I head back in to third period. I have this class with Chloe, my friend Austin’s bitchy ex-girlfriend, and I have the perfect prank planned for her. Thankfully, she’s not there yet when I get to class, but I still have to be sneaky, because some of her friends are in here. The new girl, KC, is here, too, and I wonder if I’ll have any more classes with her.
I pull a bottle of red food coloring from my pocket and unscrew the lid. When I walk by her usual desk, I let my hand dangle over the back of the chair and tip the bottle upside down so a few drops land on the seat.
When Chloe comes in, I watch in anticipation as she walks over to the desk and slides into the chair without looking. Yes! Instant period stain. And she’s even wearing a pale pink skirt with a shirt barely long enough to cover her midriff, let alone her ass.
I have to wait almost the whole period for her to get up, but once I do, it’s totally worth it. Mr. Petrowski calls a volunteer up to the board to solve an equation, and show-off Chloe is the first one to stick her hand in the air.
Her seat is the last one in the middle aisle, so she has to walk the whole length of the classroom to get to the board, and her ass is clearly visible to everyone. When she passes by, some of the girls gasp, and the boys start chuckling, but Chloe doesn’t have a clue what they’re reacting to. By the time she gets to the board and starts working on the problem, the whole class is losing it.
Chloe grabs the dry erase marker and turns around to glare at them. “What is wrong with you people?”
Mr. Petrowski gulps and says, “Do you need to go to the restroom, Chloe?”
Chloe whips towards him with a confused look on her face.
“Change your clothes, maybe?” he suggests.
Chloe glances down at the front of her outfit in confusion then strains her neck to look at her back, but she can’t see the spot from that angle.
“Is it shark wee
k, Chloe?” some guy asks.
“What?” She scrunches her nose at him.
“You know, are you surfing the crimson wave?”
All of a sudden, it clicks, and Chloe gasps and slaps her hand over her ass. She dashes out of the room and down the hallway, leaving all her stuff behind, and the class explodes in laughter.
Mr. Petrowksi doesn’t even try to settle us down, he just releases us early, and we pile out into the hallway, still cackling.
I don’t get any credit for this one, everyone just assumes she really did start her period, but it was totally worth it to see the look of humiliation on her face.
Goth girl stalks up to me while I’m coming down from my euphoria and hisses at me. “Did you have something to do with that?”
I pull back and stare at her. “What, you think I control Mother Nature, or something?” I chuckle.
She jabs a finger in my chest. “No, but I think you get off on making a fool of other people. It’s not cool, Jake.”
She spins around and stomps off, and I feel a twinge of guilt, but not enough to stop me from chuckling all the way to my locker.
By lunchtime, I’m riding a high just thinking about the prank that’s yet to come, the one that will go down in infamy as my greatest prank ever, at least, until I come up with something even better for next year.
I dash out of my 4th period class the second the bell rings and race for the cafeteria. I want to witness every moment of this. I grab a tray of food, skipping the ketchup, and take a seat at my usual table, which just happens to have a great view of the rest of the cafeteria.
It doesn’t take long before people start pouring in, and almost all of them squirt ketchup on either their burger or their french fries. I can’t help the grin that stretches my face when I see goth girl pump out a big pile of it.
Within seconds, I hear the first yelp as someone gets a taste of the hot sauce.
“Holy shit, that’s hot! What’s in this?” a loud voice hollers. It’s echoed by a dozen others as people start coughing and spitting and jumping up to grab milk boxes.
Soon, the entire cafeteria is in pandemonium. People are yelling and swearing, girls are crying and screaming, and even the machoest guys have red faces and tears popping from their eyes as they chug down beverages.
The kitchen staff runs out into the cafeteria when they hear the commotion, and they scramble around trying to figure out what the problem is. A few people yell “ketchup,” and one of the cooks takes a sample of it and practically detonates.
Dylan and I are two of the few who aren’t in pain, and we’re laughing our heads off.
Suddenly, a loud voice echoes out above the chaos. “Oh my God, I think she’s dying!”
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Connor’s Pretzel Dogs
1 1/4 cups warm (110 to 115°F) water
1 Tbs sugar
2 tsp salt
1 package (7g) active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup butter, melted
2/3 cup baking soda
2 Tbs butter, melted
1 tsp kosher salt, for sprinkling
8 hot dogs or fully cooked sausages
Combine the warm water, sugar and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam.
Add the flour, salt, and butter. Combine with a spoon or the paddle until it start to come together, then switch to the dough hook. Mix with the dough hook on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes.
Transfer the dough to a lightly-oiled bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 450. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and lightly brush with vegetable oil. Set aside. In a large pot, bring 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil (the ratio is important.)
Meanwhile, turn the dough out onto a slightly floured work surface, and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a rope that’s about 18 inches long, depending on how big your hot dogs are. Starting at one end, wrap the dough around the hot dog, pinching each end so that it’s sealed. Place onto the pans and repeat with the remaining dough and hot dogs.
Place the pretzel dogs into the boiling water two at a time and boil for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large, flat, slotted spatula. Return the boiled pretzel dogs to the pans, leaving plenty of space between them so they'll brown evenly, then brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle with the kosher salt.
Bake until dark golden brown in color, 12 to 14 minutes.
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Kellie
I love to read, write, and watch fun, flirty, YA contemporary and paranormal romance stories with quirky, relatable characters and happily ever after endings. Probably because I’d like a do-over on my own, awkward teen experience.
I also like to guest judge on DWTS (from my living room), watch cat videos with my two kitties, and eat chocolate after every meal.
I live in North Carolina with my hubby and a teenage kiddo.
www.kelliemcallen.com
[email protected]
Good Luck Charm Page 18