Thank you for reviewing! Here's chapter 4, right on time!
After the three boys had successfully managed to prevent Ash from throwing up, they were on the rooftop after school, pondering about the prank.
"You guys are thinking what I'm thinking, right?" Drew whirled around to face the others.
"Yup," Ash groaned. "Never eat cafeteria food again."
Drew paused. "Well, that does count, but that's not what I meant!"
"You mean to get the girls back for what they did?" Paul asked from his position.
"Yea, exactly!" Drew pointed a finger at Paul.
"Well, it was to get us back for the bugs…" Gary spoke up.
"Whose side are you on, Gary?" Ash shot back.
"Our side, Ash. Plus, it was our fault in the first place, so…" Gary trailed off.
"No, it wasn't," Drew retorted back. "It was their fault for not showing up to detention!"
"But why did they have detention in the first place?" Paul asked.
"Because we trashed the school…" Ash answered slowly.
The four boys paused.
"It is our fault…" Drew frowned. "But we won't admit it to anyone! Back to the topic at hand, how are we gonna get them back?"
"Easy. Prank them again, but with a different tactic," Gary smirked.
"Like…." Drew waved his hand for Gary to continue.
"Well, let's say that we'll need a huge crapload of newspapers and some time inside their house," Gary's smirk widened. "A lot of time."
And so began Mission Newspaper. Being as lazy as they are, S.H.O.K wasn't bothered coming up with a more creative name, even with Drew being a Coordinator. They tended to focus on the more important things, such as the pressing issue of having almost no newspapers lying around their houses.
"Well?" Gary asked the others when they returned to school.
"Nope."
"Nothing?" Gary dropped his head onto the wall behind him.
"Nothing. No. Zero. Zilch. Nil. Nought. Zi-" Ash was cut off by Gary's "I get it!"
Gary sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Well, then, what are we gonna do?"
"Well, I've got an idea, but we'll need to wait till Sunday," Paul spoke up.
"Urgh, that's ages away," Ash groaned.
"Well, I've got another idea," Gary said.
"Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's go get those newspapers!" Drew whooped as he started to slide down the handrails of the stairs leading to the ground.
"Door-knocking, right?" Ash whispered to Gary.
"Yea, Drew's not gonna be as excited when he finds out…"
"Door-knocking?" Are you crazy?" Drew was furiously screaming in poor Gary's ear.
"Well-" Gary was cut off by the shaking.
"Drew, you might wanna stop now," Paul watched the green-haired male turn around, still grasping Gary on his collar. "Gary looks sort of sick."
Drew instantly let go of Gary's collar, backing up a few steps to add extra distance between the two boys. Gary collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
"Come on, as long as we get the girls back for their prank, our reputations will sky-rocket!" Ash cheered.
"I'm OK, thanks for asking," Gary wheezed sarcastically.
"Good to know you can still be sarcastic when you're out of breath," Drew smirked, all anger gone.
Gary rolled his eyes and stood up. He waved the boys over and S.H.O.K trudged up the steps of a random house. Paul gave a glance at the others, before reaching up and pressing the doorbell.
"Coming!" A distinctive voice called out. The boys frowned at each other, trying to place the words to a voice.
The door flew open, and Leaf stood there in her all her glory. She looked at the four frozen boys standing st her front door, and blinked.
"What are you guys doing here?" Leaf crossed her arms and tilted her head to the left slightly. When there was no answer, she raised her left eyebrow and shook her head slightly.
"Well?"
"What are you doing here?" Gary spluttered.
Leaf's eyebrow raised higher as she answered. "This is my mother's house, idiot. Didn't you know?"
"Uhh, no."
"Leaf! Who is it?" a voice called from the kitchen, Leaf's mother presumably.
"No one, mum! Go back to work!" Leaf called back, then turned to the four boys.
"Well? What do you want?"
"Uhh, nothing! Nothing at all," All four backtracked quickly and ran away.
"That's strange…" Leaf murmured to herself. "They didn't mention a thing about the prank we played on them…" She shrugged. "Oh well."
After carefully taking notes about which house was whose, S.H.O.K finally gathered enough newspapers to fill their arms. Now all they had to do was find a place to store it. Such a simple task, that it should be so easy for four boys to manage, right?
"Dude, I don't want newspapers filling up my room," Gary protested.
"Well, neither do I," Drew snapped back. "You're the one who had the idea of getting newspapers anyway!"
"So?"
"So, put it in your room!" Paul scowled at the two boys.
"What about your room, Paul?" Drew asked.
"My room's full."
"What about you, Ash?"
"My room's full too," Ash looked up from counting the newspapers.
"Well, we've got to put it somewhere!" Drew ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
The four boys fell silent, thinking about the possible places to hide the eighty or so newspapers they had collected. Paul was the first to speak.
"What about Max? He's helped us before."
Three pairs of eyes blinked at Paul, before widening with glee.
"Yeah! That'll work! I mean, he does live with the girls, so they'll be hit with something that would be in their house already! It'll be so ironic!" Drew pumped a fist into the air.
"But wouldn't he be in trouble? He's already helped us with the bugs, and the girls do have some scary techniques that they use from time to time," Ash shivered from those cold stares that he had experienced before.
"Well, we could try," Gary shrugged. "No harm in trying, right?"
The three boys muttered an agreement, before hauling up the newspapers and trudging to the girls' house.
"Wait a second, how are we gonna reach him? For all we know, the girls could answer the door instead of Max," Gary stopped just as they were about to ring the doorbell.
The four boys sagged and sat down on the porch. After five minutes of waiting for an idea, Ash straightened.
"I know! We could call the house number, then asked for Max, and then make him come outside or something," Ash said.
"That'll work, but first, how are we gonna get their number?" Drew asked. But Ash didn't answer.
Pulling out his phone, Ash dialed the number and waited for it to be picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hello, this is…" Ash trailed off, hoping for one of the boys to come to the rescue. Panicked, Gary quickly mouthed 'Colin, Max's friend?' and added a shrug. Ash repeated what Gary said.
"Colin? Never heard of you, and that's rare. Max isn't the type to have a lot of friends," May laughed through the phone, and Ash could hear an indignant 'Hey!'
May laughed, and passed the phone over to Max. "Hello?"
"Max, we need a favour!" Drew grabbed the phone from Ash.
"Oh man, you lost it?" Max said through the phone.
"What?"
"Wait, I'll go to my room and see if I can find it," Max replied.
"What?"
Drew could hear the thudding of feet up the stairs, and a slammed door. "Max?"
"Why are you calling and what do you want?"
"Well, first, I'd like to know why you just said all those things," Drew said into the phone, clearly perplexed.
"I needed to get away from May. Now answer my questions!"
"We need you to do us a favour," Gary snatched the phone from Drew.
"I already did you a favour with the bugs!" Max's voice was annoyed.
"Yes, but we need you to do another one for us," Gary said.
"What for?" Max's voice had turned sly.
"Uhh, a Pokemon?" Gary shrugged.
"Which one?"
"Ralts?"
"Deal! What do you want me to do?" Max asked.
"Store a whole load of newspapers in your house," Gary said.
"How many newspapers are there?"
"Uhh, about eighty or so," Gary replied.
Silence. Then a scream of 'What?' could be heard even from where the boys were sitting on the porch.
"Quiet!" Gary hissed into the phone.
A knock on the door silence him. May's voice called out to Max and Gary sighed, relieved.
"Nothing's wrong, May. Colin was telling me something, and I freaked," came Max's reply.
"Oh, ok then. Hurry up, I need to call Leaf, and my phone's out of battery."
"Ok, May. All right, Gary, I'll do this for you guys, so leave it under my window and I'll do the rest," Max's voice came back, and Gary grinned at his words.
"Thanks, man. We owe you a Ralts, right?"
"Right."
Gary hung up and called to the others. "Come on, we've got to leave these under Max's window. And tomorrow, we have to find a way to get the girls out of their house again for two, three hours so we can do the prank."
'Tomorrow's gonna be interesting,' thought Paul, trailing after the others, carrying his load of newspapers.
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