Ehhh... I'm lazy. Don't hold it against me. I need time off to have existential crises. Probably be uploading a bit more regularly soon.
"Water balloons?"
"Obviously."
"Fake moustaches?"
"Only the best."
"Even honky-honky horns?"
At this point, Alex paused, unsure how to answer Alice's question without seeming like he'd gone insane. He decided on the foolproof "What?"
"Honky-honky horns! Everyone knows about this! You know, horns that go honky-honky?"
"You mean bike horns?"
"Pretty sure they're called honky-honky horns."
"Whatever, just take the stuff, gimme my five bucks and please stop calling them honky-honky horns."
"Do you an offer on two out of three."
"Only if those two are the money and honky-honky horns. D'you have any idea how hard it was to smuggle this in?"
"Fine, I'll stop."
Silently, with a kind of mock-seriousness, the goods were exchanged from brother to sister. Something passed unspoken between the two, and they nodded to each other. It was very dramatic. Probably.
"Miss Miyazawa."
"Mr McLeod."
And the two parted. Whilst Alex went to give the hot chocolate he'd smuggled in to Clovis, Alice rummaged through the packet for a moment - withdrew the instruction booklet made redundant by the new owner - and found a bin to discard it in. "A true prankmaster needs no instructions, young grasshopper," she often said in what she considered her wise-old-mentor-voice to any of the new Hermes kids. Or anyone else who would listen, and they did come occasionally. They didn't stay long, and after a brief chat with Chiron they never seemed to trust her in quite the same way ever again. But she was grateful for what she got.
Alice inspected her surroundings. The obstacle course, yes! The new Hephaestus kid Harley had set up the course in an attempt to 'get to know people' as he claimed, but it had done a better job of giving Damien White a surprisingly messy case of Perpetual Irish Dancing. The course had quickly been abandoned after that, but so far, nobody had been brave enough to dismantle it. Only one lone Ares kid stood by it, smearing the monkey bars with butter in what he probably assumed was a discreet manner.
Alice felt her blood boil. How dare someone else play the exact same prank as she had been planning! Someone would pay.
"Hey, you look like a good strong kid!" Alice offered to the nearest kid, a rather dazed-looking Athena girl. "I bet you could do all those monkey bars in one go."
"I'm sorry?"
"Honestly, I bet you... Oh, I dunno, five bucks? Of course, if you're not brave enough..."
And it was at this point that the Athena girl, who up until now had not been paying much attention, felt so outraged by the insult to her courage, as kids like that often feel, that she decided she would win on the bet. It was at this point that the young girl slipped and fell onto the Ares kid, who hadn't bothered to look behind himself whilst smearing butter. And it was at this point that Alice Miyazawa walked away, five dollars richer, chortling. Was she good for punishing the boy for being mean, or bad for cheating the girl out of her money?
Who knew? Who was bothered? Who even really cared?