Lights Up

This Is War

"What can I do?"

"Wait, you're going to help us?"

"Last year Mr. Novitski snuck in here and replaced all our sheet music with copies of the Bee Movie script. If I can get any sort of revenge on Donny, I'll do it."

"Well, we've been flipping the pranks back on to the people who set them, and we heard that the newspaper snuck into the band hall and wrapped all the chairs in copies of The World. We want to use lunch to switch the wrapped chairs with the ones in the journalism room."

"And Mr. Wiesel's room is right down the hall, so we won't have to go far."

"Sounds good. I'll help. And I've got the perfect prank for the band while we're at it."

So in an unlikely turn of events, five minutes later I'm spending my lunch period moving chairs with Jesse and my orchestra director. Once we finished that, Miss Taylor set her prank. We got like five metronomes, turned them onto the sixteenth note setting, and hid them in various places around the room.Soon, the band hall was filled with the sound of a bunch of metronomes going tick tick tick tick tick from unknown places. It was great.

"Alright, I think we're done here. Let's go finish up in the journalism room."

Back in the journalism room, all the chairs had been switched out for one's wrapped in the school newspaper. We finished up the last few chairs, then we went back to the orchestra room. We had already technically pranked Theatre by spraying Phillip in the face with glitter, so the only group left was the mathletes. We had a few minutes left of lunch, so Jesse and I walked over to Ms. Norbury's room. As we looked around the room, I got an idea.

"Jesse! Change the language settings!"

Five minutes of frantic typing later and the language settings on every computer and calculator had been switched to Chinese. Then the bell rang, so we ran out of the room to avoid getting caught by Ms. Norbury.

Time Skip

During last period, I got a text from Phillip.

PipThePoet: War council. Auditorium. After the last bell. See you there.
So now, I'm sitting next to Jesse around one of the round cafeteria tables we use during Status Quo. Representing Theatre are Phillip, Frances, and Damien, though the rest of the group are sitting in the back watching. Phillip still has glitter in his hair. Next to them are the band kids, Race, Zoe Murphy, and some kid named Hugo Jackson that I'd never met. Out of the newspaper staff, Katherine and Davey were here. Kevin G. and Theo were here from the Mathletes. Soon enough, Katherine started talking.

"Alright. We are here today to discuss the outcome of the annual Extracurricular Prank War. We will start with each group reading out loud the pranks that they fell for. The group that was responsible will raise their hands. I will keep a tally, and the group that fell for the least amount of pranks will win this year. We will start."

Davey started reading the list of pranks the newspaper staff fell for. There were only three which was impressive. Ours was last on the list.

"Switching all the chairs in Mr. Wiesel's classroom with the chairs from the band hall, which we had previously wrapped in copies of The World in an attempted prank on the band."

Jesse raised his hand, which seemed to surprise everyone.

"That would be us."

"Wait, really? We thought it was band."

"Nope. We heard Darcy talking about it in orchestra today."

Next it was theatre's turn. Phillip read down their list, which had five pranks on it. Ours was last again.

"Lastly, I already know who did this, coughDiaandJessecough, but tricking me into opening a locker that Frances had rigged with a glitter bomb, causing me to be covered in pink glitter all day."

He kind of grumbled the last part, which made everyone laugh. Next it was band's turn. Race was reading their list. We were last, again.

"Hiding metronomes around the band hall so that there was this constant ticking noise that was REALLY ANNOYING but we couldn't turn it off because we didn't know where it was coming from."

"That would be orchestra."

"Thanks a LOT, guys."
Then it was the mathletes turn. Theo read their list, and we were last again. This is starting to feel like ours was last again for dramatic effect.

"And finally, changing all of the language settings on the devices in Ms. Norbury's room to Chinese."

"That would be orchestra again."

"Alright, since you guys managed to prank all of us, how many did you fall for?"

"None."

"What?"

That surprised everyone.

"No one pranked us. I guess even though you knew we were participating, you didn't think we'd have enough time to get any pranks together ourselves. So you just didn't bother."

"Well I guess that means orchestra wins, since they didn't fall for any. Congrats, and we'll do this again next year. War council adjourned."

Everyone got up and gathered their stuff to go home. I ended up next to Phillip as we all walked out of the auditorium.

"Nice job."

"Oh, um, thanks. And sorry about the glitter."

"Nah, it's no big deal. My little sister Lizzy will get a kick out of it when I get home."

"You've got siblings?"

"Six of them. My house is like the freaking Brady Bunch without the laugh track."

"Wow."

"Yeah. You should meet them some time, they'd like you. Anyways, see you tomorrow."

He walked off. Was he asking me to come over? Was that some indirect way of asking me out? Am I overthinking this? I'm overthinking this. I'm just going to not think about that now, walk home, and replay this conversation twenty times in my head while analyzing every word instead of going to sleep tonight. But I can't help but notice that Phillip still looks good walking down the street with hot pink glitter falling out of his hair.

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