Chapter Four: Punk'd

The guys began standing up, and Zigzag punched Lauren lightly in the shoulder. "Yo, shorty, you coming?"

"Um, yeah sure," Lauren responded, following the other guys out of the dining hall. They walked back to the tent, and before she walked in, Lauren surveyed the camp. There was no sign of Alexis.

***

Alexis checked behind her back as she entered the shed. No one was around. Grinning, she picked up the nearest shovel and examined it. It was her exact height. "Well if it's a war they want, it's a war they're going to get," she smirked playfully and exited the shed. The sun was settling so she figured it would be dark within an hour. Taking in a deep breath, she headed out across the desert.

***

It was roughly 9:00 when Alexis got back to the tent. She peeked inconspicuously through the flap and nodded to Lauren who winked knowingly.

"Hey man, shouldn't Alexis be back by now?" she heard Caveman call out.

"Yeah… if the warden catches her out at night she'd be a dead-girl-walking," Squid quickly agreed.

"Maybe we should go look for her?" she heard Zero contribute.

"Hey everyone!" Lauren quickly exclaimed, catching Alexis' stare through the flap of the tent. The boys all turned to look at her in confusion. "…look at me!" she shouted, starting to river dance on the spot.

Alexis quickly and quietly slipped inside and shoved what she had been carrying into her bag. Eventually, X-Ray and Zigzag looked up and saw her perched on her bed, reading "Smoke Screen" as though she had been there all along.

"Whoa!" they cried out in unison, caught completely off guard. This caused most of the attention to turn back to her.

"I can see where you got The Ghost from," Zigzag chucked. "How long have you been there?"

Alexis shrugged. "A while." Her attention turned to Lauren who had stopped dancing and was now looking slightly curious at her friend. "Well… it's getting late. I'm gonna go get changed," Alexis sighed, not oblivious to the fact that as soon as the words were out of her mouth their heads perked up excitedly. "Lauren, why don't you join me? I was meaning to talk to you about…" her voice trailed off, realizing she had no idea what her cover story had been. The guys raised their eyebrows as the girls met each other's gaze. Lauren frantically began pointing to the side of her head. "my…ear? No, my hair! Right!" Alexis saved horribly, picking up her bag. "My hair?" she muttered under her breath as exited the tent with her bag.

Lauren met her inside the apparent girls' bathroom, waiting for an explanation. Before she could say anything, Alexis reached into her bag and pulled out a dead, venom-drained, yellow-spotted lizard. Lauren gasped. "Don't ask how I killed it, but it took a while to make sure all the poison was out," Alexis summed up quickly, holding out the dead lizard. A piece of string was tied to each leg. "So what do you think?" she smirked after explaining her plan to sneak it into one of the boys' bunks and making it crawl along the bed. Then when they woke up, they would jump back into their own beds and pretend to wake up. It would be completely safe, it would just give them a good scare, as payback.

"Who should our victim be?" she added mischievously.

"Definitely Squid, for multiple reasons," Lauren explained. "First of all, this whole payback thing is his fault due to his little stunt at dinner." Alexis narrowed her eyes. "Secondly, his nickname is Squid. I don't like that. But the third reason, the last reason, is the most important. Squid was the first person to call me small."

Alexis nodded. "All of those points make excellent sense. Squid won't even know what hit him. Muahahaha!" she let out a burst of evil laughter.

Lauren waited patiently until she was done before asking, "So how are we going to set this up?"

"We need to wait until all the guys fall asleep first, and then we put the lizard into Squid's bed. Then we put a bunch of stuff in our own beds to make it look like we're still asleep, and then we wait for the morning," Alexis grinned in eager anticipation. "When he wakes up, we pull the strings a bit, make the lizard jump at people, and in the ensuing chaos we sneak back into our beds and 'wake up'. No one will suspect a thing!"

"Sweet!" Lauren summed up in one word.

"Oh yes," Alexis agreed.

The two PICs snuck back into the tent and peered inside. The guys were just lying down in their beds, and Alexis sighed. She sat down outside the tent just outside the entrance. "This may take a while…" Lauren sat down beside her and the two waited in silence as it got steadily darker in the camp. Finally, Alexis looked back into the tent. "Okay, let's go!"

When the two got in the tent, Alexis went to get the dead lizard and then headed straight for Squid's bed. Lauren crept over to their beds and was working on stuffing Alexis' stuff under her covers when she heard someone shift in their bed.

"Shorty? What are you doing?" Zigzag asked sleepily.

Lauren paused, but quickly her brain thought of a plan. "Ricky," she whispered, trying to sound mysterious and ghostly. "You're just having a strange dream. When you wake up, you will not remember this!"

"Alright," Zigzag sighed, turning over and going back to bed.

Alexis finished with the lizard and walked over to Lauren. "Nice one," she commented as she helped her friend plump Lauren's bed. The two stood back and admired their handiwork.

"Oh this is going to be so kickass!" Alexis giggled. "All that's left is…"

"To wait," Lauren finished her sentence.

The next morning, at precisely 4:00AM, the morning trumpet sounded, signaling the campers that it was time to get up. Squid stretched and his hand brushed against something. Confused, he grabbed it and his eyes widened. "LIZARD!!!" he screamed, jumping out of bed. The lizard jumped after him, landing on his head. He screamed again and brushed it off, right onto Caveman's bed.

The first thing Caveman saw when he woke up was a yellow-spotted lizard staring at him. He let out an ear-splitting shriek and threw it off. By now everyone in the room was awake, and when X-Ray stood up the lizard hit him in the face. He yelled in shock as it dropped to the ground and seemingly scurried away under Alexis' bed.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Squid yelled. "Did you see that?!"

"Dude, we could have been killed!" X-Ray exclaimed.

Zero was the first one to notice that the girls weren't awake yet. Then Armpit noticed.

"Guys! The girls aren't up!" he whispered fearfully. "What if the lizard bit 'em? What if they're—dead?"

The guys stared at the two beds. When neither Lauren or Alexis moved, Zero moved forwards and poked the lump that was on Alexis' bed. He jumped back when Alexis rolled over and yawned.

"Good morning, Zero!"

He looked startled. Alexis grinned and chucked her pillow at Lauren, who flinched as it made contact with her face.

Alexis got to her feet sleepily. "Sup guys?" she greeted cheerfully as she began walking towards the flap of the tent. She managed to get one foot on the ground when half a dozen "NOOOOO!!!!!"'s reached her ears and X-Ray and Squid were pushing her back, pinning her down on her bed. Zigzag was standing by Lauren now, holding her back.

"What the hell?!" Lauren's muffled yell was heard from behind his back.

"Yellow-spotted lizard!" Caveman whispered, frantically.

"Oh…" Alexis nodded slowly, winking at Lauren and shoving the two guys off of her. She quickly dodged towards the lizard, with its head poking out from the side of her bed, picked it up by the neck and tossed it to Lauren. She caught it with a grin, as though it was a football, and tossed it back to Alexis. There were several girlish wails from the boys. "Hey, Squid! Heads up!" she grinned and threw it towards him. He ducked and the lizard dropped to the floor.

"Are you fucking crazy?!" Armpit cried in frantic disbelief.

Lauren rolled her eyes with Alexis and clapped him behind the head. "It's fake!" she scolded him. The boys looked confused for a moment. The pause was broken as Zero slowly walked towards the lizard and examined it. It looked like he was fighting a laugh.

"Well… THAT was exhilarating," he mused after a moment, tossing it to Caveman. Caveman moved it around in his hands and chuckled.

"You could say that again."

X-Ray grinned and took the lizard, chucking it back and forth between himself and Zigzag.

"Fooled by girls. I feel so betrayed," he sighed playfully, elbowing Lauren.

Alexis and Lauren grinned and turned to Squid who still hadn't said anything yet. "Well?" Lauren raised an eyebrow. "What have you learned today…" Alexis drawled like an elementary school teacher.

"Don't mess with girls," he replied grudgingly, although he too was fighting off a grin.

Mr. Sir appeared in the doorway, looking angry. "Let's go, you girl scouts!" he shouted at them, spitting sunflower seeds all over the place. "Time to go dig a hole!"