I stumbled slightly on unfamiliar skates, allowing Alison Biers to dodge past me and take an easy shot. As the ball spun across the rough concrete surface, I stepped back and apologised to the others. But Harper came up and patted me on the back, thanking me for being there even if I could barely play. She didn't quite put it like that, but that's how it sounded in my mind. I knew I was probably the only one thinking like that; I was just more practised on inline skates, used to a faster game with different tactics.
It was only practice; and if the girls from the quad skating team trained on their own, there wouldn't be enough for two teams. Being able to play an actual game among themselves was useful, so I was being useful in a way. But I didn't like not winning. Still, with three interlopers from the inline team to fill up the numbers, it meant that Harper could check that everyone was working on the areas she'd said that she needed to improve.
The game was going well until the captain rapped me across the shins with her stick in retribution for an admittedly over-aggressive body check. I said I was sorry, but the referee told us both to take some time off the field. Well, that suited me fine.
"So what's all that about?" she asked, sitting on the park bench that we had nominated as the penalty box while I grabbed a coke from the vending machine.
"Sorry. Different habits, you know? Different rules." I took a swig of my drink, and I could tell from the silence that she knew there was more. "Okay, I was feeling frustrated. Sorry, I shouldn't take it out on you."
"And?"
"Just frustrated. Feeling like I'm not playing my best. Letting the team down. I just need a break to clear my head. I mean... I wanted to talk to you anyway, but not during practice."
"Yeah. Mad at me for testing your sister's gullibility?"
"Something..." I started, before my brain processed what she'd actually said. "Wait, what? She said you were helping her. Please, you have to tell me what's going on."
"Sure. I just... Well, I thought she needed to know she's not always in charge, you know? Tell me Willow didn't get too mad."
"Huh?" I said, then realised how dumb I must sound. Harper's parents were into this weird new-age thing, where they said it would build more trust to use names or whatever. All of Harper and Hugo's friends were expected to call their parents Greg and Chel, not just Mr and Mrs Eisen. That seemed kind of weird to me, and I'd often forget. But it was doubly weird when my friend called Mum by her first name. I knew it, of course, it just felt strange. "Wait, should Mum have found out? It didn't work like Lindy intended, I think. But I wouldn't tell Mum."
"Okay, maybe I better start at the beginning then. Remember we had a bunch of you over when I made captain? And of course there were pranks. It wouldn't be a party otherwise. No hard feelings, right?"
"Yeah. You put my hand in a bowl of water. But that's not the whole prank, is it? Because kids have been doing that since the dawn of time, and almost all of them found that it's not that simple."
"Right. Complete nonsense, your brain doesn't work like that. Even Mythbusters did a thing on it. Busted. The water's just a decoy."
"I thought so," I nodded. I didn't want to mention my own research into that prank. "But Lindy said you told her where to get drugs or something. That has me worried, because everything has side effects. That's not a good idea."
"Right," she smiled. "You saw through that one too. But let's start with the truth, right?"
She went on to explain. At a party, quite some time ago now. Before Dad was even diagnosed; it was hard for me to remember now what life had been like. But Harper had always acted older than her years would suggest, and she was a genius at certain kinds of research. I'd kind of looked up to her then, despite the age difference. And the amount of thought she'd put into pranking everybody at her party was incredible.
She'd heard of this thing where you could make somebody wet the bed by putting their hand in a bowl of water. Everybody had. Some of our friends had even tried it, with no success. And Harper knew for sure that it couldn't happen. I didn't correct her. But she'd found things that she thought might make it work. Like a little potion; a bunch of different herbs. Some things that might make you need to pee, and some things that the herbalists in her family recommended for curing sleepless nights. Milk thistle, chamomile, dandelion root extract, caffeine, and a few other things. But Harper didn't like to keep a prank simple; she'd taken it to the next level. She'd told everybody she had this herbal potion, but not what was in it. And then she'd made a backup plan, almost certain that a herbal tonic wouldn't have the effects she wanted. When she confessed it, I smirked to myself, because I'd guessed it and never been sure.
Just in case a herbal sleeping tablet didn't have enough effect, even coupled with something that was supposed to make me thirsty so I'd drink more before bed, she resorted to the bowl of water trick that everybody had heard of. And a cup close at hand, so that she could take some water from the bowl and pour it on the sleeping person when nobody else was looking. Everybody would believe she had perfected the "impossible" prank, and she would be laughing at everyone who had been so gullible, not just at me.
"So is that the same potion Lindy made?" I asked.
"Not quite. But I told her about it. It's funny, she went from trying to tell us that you were a bedwetter, to asking about pranks that could make somebody pee in their sleep. It's pretty obvious she's the one with the problem, even before she admitted it. And she wanted a chance to make you join her. Well, I should have told her that's dumb, but you know me. Never miss a chance to laugh at anybody."
"So you told her?"
No. Harper hadn't told Lindy everything; she hadn't even mentioned the second trick with a bowl of water. Lindy knew that rumours said somebody had made me wet the bed by some prank, and she'd guessed it was drugs because she knew Harper was learning herbalism from her crazy great-aunt. So Harper obligingly told her there was a drug that could make that happen; she just happened to add a dozen extra ingredients to the recipe, including things she was sure Lindy wouldn't be able to obtain without landing herself in some kind of trouble. The expected outcome was that Mum would catch her trying to make a concoction that looked like she was aiming to become a mad scientist. It wasn't a real prank, but to Harper's mindset, getting a naïve wannabe prankster to land herself in trouble with parents was the next best thing.
I couldn't fault the logic when she told me about it. She hadn't mentioned putting my hand in water, because Lindy hadn't asked about that. She'd asked if there were really drugs that could make somebody wet the bed, an hour or so after she'd try to convince Nadine that I already had an accident, so her intentions had been obvious. And Harper could promise me that there were no actual drugs in there, unless you counted caffeine. It makes you pee more, apparently. Harper had included detailed and over-complex instructions on how to extract caffeine from ginseng root, knowing that if Lindy tried it, she would end up with her room looking like a mad alchemist's lab. Very hard to do in secret. And salt makes you thirsty, so you end up drinking more without realising if it's not salty enough to notice. There were a couple of other herbs: black mint, liquorice root, chamomile, milk thistle extract, and others I'd never even heard of.
Then two with oriental-sounding names that Lindy probably wouldn't be able to pronounce, and which were almost certainly not available in this country. Harper said they were a traditional herbal remedy for sleeplessness. They make you sleepy and lethargic, both to counteract the caffeine and to make the victim less likely to wake up as their bladder filled. Harper was sure Lindy wouldn't be able to find them; she had used substitutes in her own version of the potion, but didn't want to give away her secrets even though it had proved ineffective. Giving Lindy the names of ingredients she couldn't find was the prankster's approach, and she was sure Lindy wouldn't know enough about herbs to fix the recipe.
"She found a substitute," I said, shaking my head. I could piece it all together in my mind's eye now, and I was sure I knew how it had happened. "Six months ago, she would have gotten herself in trouble trying to follow your recipe. But she's started growing up now, maybe she'll take after you. She couldn't get the weird herbs, but you told her that those two were to make the victim sleepy, so she crushed up sleeping pills instead. There's been some in the bathroom cabinet for ages, Dad had them prescribed when he couldn't sleep properly with... you know."
"Ouch. I never expected that. If she's trying to dose you with real stuff from a pharmacy, I hope she thought to check the recommended doses or whatever. That's carelessness that could turn into a real problem if she's not careful."
"Yeah... I need to talk to her about that. But then she looks at your too-complex instructions to extract caffeine from ginseng, and she thinks why bother? You can get caffeine pills from the supermarket, I think she decided that would be easier. She left the packet lying around where I could find it."
"Well, that would probably mess up your sleep pretty badly if you'd taken it. But I figured I should add a failsafe just in case she managed to put my recipe together. Something with a strong flavour so there's no chance you'd drink it without realising. Gave her a little tub of spice mix, our family's secret ingredient, and told her it was an important part of the recipe. Made up some spice names, I think I'd already given her enough truth to make her believe it, and she wouldn't look up stuff that I could give her. Think I said it was something that makes sleepwalking more likely, so in low doses it means your body's more likely to tense or relax some muscles without you actually waking. Smoked paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, a couple of other things. Bitter enough that you'd taste the acidity right away."
"Unless she put it in the premium lemonade," I said. "The one with the really strong flavour. And split it across two glasses, I assume." I could see the surprise on Harper's face; and I knew that this time she was telling me the truth. She really hadn't expected me to drink this concoction. But there was still one more thing I needed to tell her: "And Harper, you knew she was going to try this on me, right?"
"Yeah?"
"And you didn't tell her what's actually in that spice mix?"
"No, they're all cooking spices, I think she would have seen through that."
"And you know I'm allergic to paprika?"
"Wait, what? Are you okay?" She seemed genuinely scared.
"Not like a serious allergy. Like, intolerance they call it? I was running to the bathroom half the morning."
"Wow, I'm sorry, I don't think I knew that. I promise, I won't do that again. And I'll try to remember the allergy. I might... might have got carried away. It's just like a weird coincidence, isn't it? You and your sister both asked for help with the same prank, a few weeks apart. It seemed funny to me, giving you both what you asked for, and not saying it's useless. So did you try it in the end? I guess you didn't need to."
"Yeah, heh," I smiled, and I could laugh this time. "I asked about the bowl of water trick because I was curious what the theory is, and what you tried. I already guessed that you faked the results, but it's good for you to have confirmation. And you said about making sure it's close to body temperature... that was actually pretty useful, I would never have thought about that myself."
"Not that useful. The whole prank is a hoax, even with doing the herbs at the same time it doesn't really work. So–"
"Nope, it works. Getting the temperature just right was a step along the right path, but there's other things you need to get right as well. Maybe I'll show you sometime."
I grinned as I pushed away from the bench and went to rejoin the game. Making my sister wet the bed was a bit weird, and always brought all kinds of guilt and second thoughts. But telling the master prankster that her hoax actually worked, and her expression changing to pure surprise, was a simple triumph. Priceless.
Author's Note: I hope this chapter isn't too convoluted. Is it clear enough what's happened? And in case anyone was wondering... I've just written chapters that cover a few different things that people have been asking for in the comments. People backing me on Patreon ('kittyangel' if you want to see) can read those chapters right away; while the rest of you will have them in a couple of days. Thank you all for believing in me!