The days after her anniversary surprise Rosalie was still blissfully happy. She wandered around with a huge grin on her face everywhere she went, which when added to her already astounding beauty only made people stare more. Finally, after seeing yet another guy walk into a stationary wall Jasper, apparently, had finally decided to deliver some kind of bad news in order to stop his sister from blinding any more poor unsuspecting pedestrians with her perfect smile.

"So I think I might go away for April fool's day this year," he said casually as we walked towards the dining hall.

Alice, Rosalie and Edward stopped dead in their tracks, wide eyed and clearly spooked. I looked at the three of them with confused looks, "Am I missing something?"

"No no no no no…" Alice chanted in a low, frightened voice.

Edward brought his face into his hands and shook his head.

Rosalie's face was contorted into a look of pure terror with her eyebrows furrowed in concentration, obviously doing some kind of math in her head. "Today is the 28th … Oh. My. Gosh. But that only gives us four days!" She slapped her hand to her forehead with worry.

"OK, don't panic. No panicking!" Alice sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

"What's the big deal? It's just a joke holiday. It's not like anyone takes it seriously." I pointed out resuming our walk. My friends followed in a skeptic silence. "Will someone please explain the sudden 'world-is-ending" attitude because I'm beginning to think I may have to have you all committed!"

Edward closed his eyes and spoke with a pained look on his beautiful face. "Emmett."

"What about Emmett?"

But Rosalie didn't seem to be able to continue so Alice did it for her. "April Fool's day is only four days away. It just snuck up on us. How did I not prepare?"

"Prepare for what?"

"For Emmett!"

"What about Emmett?!" My frustration at not being able to piece together what they were telling me had taken over.

"Bella," Jasper spoke, his voice was calm, "We've known Emmett for a long time. April fool's day is like… his Christmas."

I furrowed my eyebrows, "I still don't understand. So what? He acknowledges the holiday. What's the big deal? It's just a few practical jokes."

All four of them snorted humorlessly. "That's what you'd like to think."

"Oh, come on!" I laughed at their thoroughly unhappy faces, "What's the worst he could do?"

Alice's hands balled into fists at her side and she muttered a few unintelligible sounds under her breath before finally speaking out loud, "Well let's see… when I was in eighth grade Emmett replaced my bike with an identical one. Except this replica had one fatal flaw… It was cut in half! Unfortunately for me, he welded it back together so it would come apart while I was riding it. So here I am, riding along my neighborhood to go meet some friends… downhill, might I add, when suddenly the front half of my bike separates itself from the back. Still not knowing exactly what was happening, I stupidly pedal faster, making the back half of my bike move forward, catching up to the front, but of course, my arms push the front further away. After another minute, the two halves have separated as far as my body would allow with my hands grasping the damn handlebars as I was stretched across trying to hold on to both halves, screaming at the top of my lungs as the two parts sped downhill!"

I coughed back a laugh at her story and the sudden image in my mind of tiny Alice stretched out across splitting halves of a bicycle.

"Oh, you think that's funny?" Alice snapped at me.

I cleared my throat, "No, of course not. That's …" cough, "terrible."

Alice didn't buy it for a second, "Well you might not think it was so funny if you had to deal with being seen by everyone carrying two halves of a bike all the way back home."

Edward coughed this time. "I have to admit, though, that sight was pretty funn— Ow!" He stopped talking as soon as Alice's tiny yet powerful fist met his arm. "Okay, okay, it wasn't funny. Not funny at all."

"Last year was the worst that I can remember," Rosalie began.

"Yea, whatever, at least all you had to do was sweet talk some kid into giving you back your underwear," Jasper rolled his eyes at her, "I was cleaning duck sauce out of my hair for hours! You know he takes it easy on you because you're his girlfriend."

Rosalie's nose flared, "It took a lot more than sweet talking to get that pimple faced boy to give me back my underwear." She turned to me to explain, "Emmett fed-exed some kid who had a crush on me all my most intimate undergarments with a note forged note from me telling him that I was in love with him and that I had sent all this to him as a sign of my undying devotion to him."

I couldn't hold my laughter back anymore. "Did you ever get it back?" I choked out between laughs.

"Of course not. The idiot was convinced it was all true and decided to reciprocate by sending me a box of his underwear in return, with a note saying 'My love for you will never fade away'." She closed her eyes at the memory, "Apparently the skid mark stains on his tighty whities wouldn't fade away either."

We all cracked up at that. Edward was shaking uncontrollably and Alice and I were wiping tears from our eyes. After a minute or two, a smile broke through Rosalie's seemingly angry face and she laughed too.

As we reached the doors of the dining hall, our laughter was finally subsiding. "I don't want to deal with it again this year. I'm going away for a few days." Jasper held the door open for the rest of us as we entered.

"Won't work, Jazz." Alice told him, "He'll just get you when you come back."

Edward cut in as we made our way to the line, "We tried not being around for the day once when we were kids. Alice and I went on a camping trip with some friends in middle school just to make sure we were away for that day. He put itching powder in our sleeping bags, rock in our backpacks and salt water in our cantines."

I mulled over the odds of not being part of Emmett's April Fool's day targets as I got food and went to our usual table. I had to admit they weren't good. "Did you ever think of talking to him—"

"Tried it. Didn't work."

"Are you sure, maybe if we stage an intervention—"

"Nope. Did that too. Didn't work."

We chewed in silence for a while. "Did you ever try to retaliate?"

Alice shook her head. "Edward and I tried once when we were kids but he's always one step ahead. You don't understand, Bella, this isn't just a joke holiday. Emmett looks forward to this day more than most people look forward to birthdays. He's a master at it. There's no way of getting him."

I looked around at their faces in disbelief. "Are you seriously telling me that between the five of us we can't come up with one little plan to get at Emmett? I mean, come on, we've got the resources, you guys have all known him forever, so you know his fears, Edward, you live with him, so it's not like we don't have access to him or his stuff, and Rosalie you have ways of distracting him that are guaranteed to work."

"Ways?" she looked up with a confused look. I raised an eyebrow at her suggestively. She got the hint and laughed, nodding at me. "Oh ways. I see. Yes that is true."

My strong desire to avoid being one of Emmett's victims overpowered my common sense. First of all, I've never played a practical joke on anyone before, second of all I had other things on my mind these days. Soon my friends were nodding along. "Actually, Bella, that's a really good idea." Alice pointed out.

"Thank you. I can't believe it never occurred to you to fight back."

"It did… its just that the thought of him being harder on us because of it occurred to me too."

"So what do we do?" Rosalie asked. I shrugged in response.

"Well we can't have him thinking we're up to something," Edward furrowed his brows in concentration as he spoke, "We have to act like nothing is up. Rosalie, keep letting him think you're still all blissful over the anniversary thing, that should keep him satisfied. When we decide to put a plan into action you'll need to be the one who distracts him. It'll be a lot easier to convince him you're not up to something if he thinks you're still all ecstatic towards him."

"Sounds easy enough."

As we finished dinner we went through the possible ways to get at Emmett, occasionally cracking up at the more ridiculous ideas. When we finished, Alice and Rose went back to Jasper's apartment and Edward and I headed back to the dorms.

"So you girls might get actually an apartment in Jasper's building next year?" Edward said as we walked up to Mason Hall with our hands linked together.

"Yep. Why is it unlikely?"

"No, but it fills up quickly. Usually the way to get in there is to have someone turn the lease over to you."

"Melanie is doing that for us. I do like the idea of having my own room, that way Alice won't be able to pick out my outfits as often."

Edward chuckled, "Believe me, she'll still find a way to do it."

"I don't doubt that." I sighed.

"Is something wrong?"

"No…" but the look in his eyes told me he didn't believe me. "It's just that … I don't know. I got really used to having you live right upstairs. Its going to be weird not having that proximity anymore."

Edward let go of my hand and put his arm around my waist as we walked, "I know what you mean. But there may be a solution to that."

My eyes excitedly met his, "I'm all ears."

"We know quite a few people graduating who would be happy to sign their leases over to Emmett and me. So perhaps we'll have similar living arrangements next year also."

I couldn't stop a delighted smile from spreading across my face, "Seriously?"

"Of course." He smiled right back at me, obviously pleased by my reaction. We stopped in our tracks for a moment as he lifted a finger to my chin, bringing my face to his for a long, sweet, lingering kiss. After a what seemed like a blissful eternity, we broke apart and he smiled crookedly up at me.

There was a cool breeze which made me shiver; it'd been nice out all day so I didn't think to take a jacket with me. Without hesitation, Edward shrugged off his jacket and placed it around my shoulders.

"Thank you." The scent of his warm jacket was delicious, it smelled just like him.

He smiled and led me towards the dormitory once again, "Anything for you."

I felt my face blush at his words and he grinned at my reaction. "So what is Emmett up to? Why didn't he meet us for dinner today?"

Edward rolled his eyes. "He says he has to study but I highly doubt that. Most likely he's readying his pranks for April Fool's day."

"Wow, it must be important. I've never seen Emmett miss a meal."

Edward chuckled. "You have no idea Bella. Trust me, this holiday is not to be taken lightly when you are friends with Emmett."

"How long has this been going on?"

Edward paused to think for a minute, "I think he started when he was around 8 years old. It was simple things back then; switching the salt and the sugar containers, whoopee cushions … that sort of thing. By the following year it was gum on the seats and stink bombs at school. By the time Alice and I were done middle school it had become a full-on elaborate plan of attack on everyone he knew. He even got the librarian one day when he sent her a fake love letter from the principal. Then he watched while the poor old dear invited him over her house for dinner and he went to her house to watch the drama unfold. The old lady sent her husband away, made a romantic dinner for two and dressed up for the occasion." Edward closed his eyes and shook his head at the memory.

"Aw, she dressed up for him? That's kind of cute."

"Not the way she did it," his tone full of implications.

I scrunched my nose in disgust as the image of an old librarian wearing weird old-lady lingerie popped into my head. "Ew! Gross mental picture!"

"Yea. Well that isn't the worst of it. The principal of our school shows up to this lady's house … with his family! He brought with him his wife and five year old son and she answers the door in nothing but a bathrobe and a cane."

I gasped… then laughed uncontrollably. "I'm sorry … I know its wrong but that's just too funny!"

Edward laughed too, "She quit the next day."

"Oh my gosh! Did Emmett get in trouble?"

"Nah. People suspected him but they couldn't prove he did it. He only admitted it to me and Alice and we weren't about to tell my parents. They would've killed him."

I was holding my sides from laughing so hard, "Poor old lady."

Edward shrugged, "Now do you see why we take it so seriously?" I just nodded my head. "So do you have any ideas as how to get him yet?"

I considered that for a moment before an idea finally struck me. "Actually … I may have one …"

--

That night I returned from Edward's room late and I had barely gotten my pajamas on when I noticed another parchment envelope on my desk. I squealed with excitement, my sleepiness melting away as I sprang forward to get it, hastily opening the envelope and pulling out the crisp parchment paper with familiar elegant black calligraphy.

Dear 'Bella', I chuckled as I read my name in quotes, remembering our last meet and laughing at their little joke.

How cunning are you?

Previous missions have required your wit and daring, as will another approaching assignment of ours. There is, however, one advantage you have always had, and may have taken for granted which will not be available to you during this particular undertaking. Can you guess what it is? We have always thrust upon you the importance of our anonymity and you have done well in protecting it. However, on an upcoming challenge doing so will not be so simple. Thus far you have always had the cover of night in which to hide. We wonder, can you be discreet in broad daylight?

As always, we have another item for you to discover. Clues as to what it is are below. We will contact you again in regards to the time and place of which it is to take place.

-

In the Past you were young

In the Future you'll be old

In the present you may question

That which you are told.

-

But there is one factor

Which forever is progressing.

Have you figured it out yet,

Or shall we keep you guessing?

-

It is that which moves forward

And always stays unchanged,

Nothing affects it

Yet it leaves nothing the same.

-

We all have it,

Some more, some less,

Never realizing how little of it

We actually possess.

--

Until we meet again, Bella.

Sincerely,

-ŤŁ-

--

And another riddle. Can you figure out what it is?

I'm not entirely happy with this but now that I've gotten these things out, I can focus on the rest of the stuff. These last couple of chapters were just one big hurdle I had to get over. Now I can get down to some more stuff I might be a bit more confident about. Sorry if it isn't great and, of course, thank you for reading :)