Lincoln and Johnny fought a lot but they were also close, every poke, slap, and insult a sign of affection (or aggravation, one of the two). They hung out constantly and whenever you saw one, you could rest assured that the other wasn't far behind.
Being so tight, each one's habits, tastes, and dislikes sometimes rubbed off on the other. For instance, Johnny took up drawing and every once in a while, Lincoln enjoyed rattling around the kitchen and trying to make something from scratch. He wasn't very good, but every so often, he somehow crapped out something edible. Johnny loved that Lincoln was interested in the chef life - even if his interest was only tepid - and recruited him to help cook elaborate meals and artery-clogging snacks. Johnny's favorite dishes were fried macaroni bites and king-sized, batter-fried hamburgers on sticks - he got the idea for that episode of Spongebob where some fish orders the same thing and Squidward seethes over how disgusting it is. For added flavor, Johnny added two pretzel bun chili dogs stacked on top of each other.
In other words, he wanted to have a heart attack and die.
Lincoln, on the other hand, liked slow cooked cocktail sausages. You put them in a crock pot with BBQ sauce and grape jelly, and when they came out, they were so good they made you want to slap your grandma. Which wasn't a good idea if your grandma's an old school black woman from Georgia like Lincoln's. She will make you cut a switch, and if you don't know what that means, consider yourself lucky.
His white grandmother didn't play either, come to think of it. She'd only go upside your head, though.
Anyway, it was a cool, rainy Friday afternoon and Lincoln and Johnny were in the kitchen waiting for their latest batch of macaroni bites to come out of the oven. Mom dragged Dad to the indoor flea market in Elk Park and they had the house of themselves. Lincoln stood at the sink, washing dishes and humming to himself, and Johnny scrolled through his phone looking for dessert recipes; they had a bar of semi-sweet baker's chocolate and he wanted to get the most out of it. Occasionally, Lincoln would mutter snatches of song and Johnny would shoot him daggers.
"If you ever take a trip down to Cobb County, Georgia.
You better read the signs
Respect the law and order.
You'll serve hard times."
Johnny sat his phone on the table. "Alright, dude, we need to talk about this."
"About what?" Lincoln asked, perplexed.
"About -"
Johnny cut off when a loud bang came at the door. Lincoln glanced over his shoulder and Johnny tensed. "Who could that be?" Lincoln asked.
Bang, bang, bang.
"I don't know," Johnny said and got to his feet, "sounds like the cops." He peeked around the corner, then ducked into the living room, crossing the distance low and fast, Lincoln following with a wooden spoon just in case they needed to fight. Johnny took up position by the door and Lincoln pulled the curtain back from the front window to peer outside.
The Loud family was huddled on the front porch, their expressions ranging from horror to terror. They shot worried looks over their shoulders, and Lisa pounded on the door, panic in her eyes.
Something was wrong.
"It's the Louds," Lincoln said.
Johnny unlocked the handle, and the door burst open as the Louds streamed in, yelling excitedly and talking over one another. Lynn Sr. slammed the door, locked it, and threw himself against it, his chest rising and falling. Lana, Lynn Jr., and Luna jockeyed for a place in front of the window. Lana pulled the curtain back, and Lucy yanked her away. "Stop," she said, "she might see you."
Leni sat on the floor, hugging herself and rocking back and forth, and Lisa sat on the coffee table and stared into space like a shell shocked grunt who had just watched her entire platoon cut to ribbons by insurgents.
"Hey!" Johnny called, and everyone fell silent. "What happened?"
Everyone started talking at once, and Lincoln slapped the spoon hard against the window sill to quiet them. "Mr. Loud," he said and jabbed the spoon at Mr. Loud. Mr. Loud jumped and let out a traumatized moan. "What happened?"
"It's Luan," he fumbled. "S-She's gone crazy."
"She's been pranking us non-stop for days," Luna explained. "She replaced my drumsticks with chicken legs, man. Chicken legs!"
Lisa let out a humorless laugh. "She replaced my apple juice with Sodium Pyruvate-C17, which induces hallucinogenic effects. I "tripped" for hours."
That made Lincoln wince.
"It's been awful," Mrs. Loud said.
Lincoln and Johnny looked at each other. It was March 31 and tomorrow was April Fools Day, when Luan Loud cut loose and pranked her family up one side and down the other. In the days leading up to it, she gave them a taste of what was to come that was sometimes just as strong as the main event.
"Have you pranked her back?" Johnny asked.
The Louds looked confused.
No, apparently, they hadn't.
"We keep telling you," Lincoln said, "you have to give her a taste of her own medicine."
Johnny nodded. "Yeah, see how she likes it."
"We don't know the first thing about pranking," Mr. Loud said.
A wicked grin spread across Johnny's face. "Leave that to us."
Luan Loud sat on her bean bag chair with her fingers steepled and shadows pooled in the recesses of her face. The hour of prankening was close at hand and she was giddy with anticipation. She had waited all year for this and she would relish every second of tomorrow. Her family and her friends would fall one by one until none were left unpranked and she would cackle laughter over their prostrate forms.
Her mother called out to her from downstairs, and getting up, she went to the head of the stairs. "What?"
When Mom didn't reply, she went down the steps and into the living room.
Empty.
Huh.
"Mom?"
"In the kitchen."
She went into the sun washed kitchen.
No one.
She looked around, her confusion deepening. Overhead, the vent grate moved soundlessly aside and Lana's face appeared. She removed a black tarantula from her pocket and brushed her index finger lovingly between its eyes. On the other side of the grate, Johnny gagged. He'd never know why Lana kept stuff like snakes and spiders as pets. Lizards and frogs he could get, but creepy crawlies? Ugh.
He and Lana looked at each other, and Lana nodded. Johnny stuck his face in the grate and did his best impression of Mrs. Loud...which was shockingly good. "Up here, honey.'
Moving quickly aside, Lana took his place and dropped the spider just as Luan looked up. It landed on her face, hairy legs splayed, and her eyes crossed. It took her a moment to realize what it was, and when she did, she let out an ear piercing shriek and jumped. The spider dropped off and scuttled away, and Luan ran out of the kitchen, arms flailing and sobs bursting from her throat. Lana and Johnny high fived. "That was awesome," Lana said.
"Told you."
Elsewhere in the house, Luan staggered into her room and went to her knees. Shudders racked her body and she panted heavily for air. She could still feel the tickle of spidery legs on her cheeks, and a shiver went down her spine. She got to her feet, went to the bean bag chair, and sat down, her arms crossing over her chest. She rubbed her arms for warmth and got herself under control. Lana was going to be in a world of prank induced hurt when Luan got her hands on her.
She tried to stand up, but her butt stuck fast to her seat. She pulled, tugged, and yanked, and finally she came loose and spilled to her hands and knees with a rip of tearing fabric. She got to her feet and felt her butt: There was a hole in her pants through which you could see her underwear. What the�
Bending over, she hovered her face over the bean bag and took a deep whiff.
Super glue.
Her eyes creaked to narrow slits.
This wasn't the work of Lana. It wasn't even the work of her entire family in cahoots. Only two people on earth would be foolish - and cunning - enough to prank her.
Lincoln and Johnny.
She grinned evilly.
It was so on.
Johnny came slowly and languidly awake on the morning of April 1, his mind gradually rising from the depths of sleep and his senses switching on for the day. He fluttered his eyes open, smacked his lips, and squinted at the clock on the nightstand. 7am. Since it was Saturday, he didn't have to get up yet, but he was rested and refreshed and wanted to surf the web for cat videos - he loved cat videos, especially the ones where they squeeze themselves into places too small for them. LOL. Legendary.
He sat up, threw the blanket off, and screamed.
His X-Station lay between his legs, smashed into a million pieces. Broken bits of plastic, motherboard, and other techno innards littered the sheet, and the controller stared up at him, its cord cut.
"What?" Lincoln asked from his bed. He was sitting up, dazed and puffy with sleep.
Johnny squeezed his eyes shut against the gruesome image before him and shook his head from side to side in denial of what he was seeing. Tears oozed down his cheeks and a mournful moan trembled past his quivering lips. Lincoln came over, saw the pitiful remains of their game system, and let out a broken gasp. "It's horrible," Johnny moaned. "It's awful, it's inhuman." His voice broke. "Linc -"
Lincoln slapped him. "Get a grip."
Sniffing, Johnny rubbed his stinging cheek. "Luan did this," he said.
"I know," Lincoln said grimly. "And we're gonna pay her back."
Sitting on Johnny's bed, they came up with a game plan. Lincoln produced a piece of paper and laid it out, revealing the blueprints for the Loud house. "We'll go in here," he said and tapped the storm door accessing the cellar. "We go in fast and we go hard, no mercy. Once inside, we engage."
They dressed in black tactical gear - pants, boots, vests, and gloves - and each filled a bag with supplies. Johnny sat at the desk and assembled a dozen homemade stink bombs while Lincoln filled two Super Soakers with water and blue food coloring. Mom and Dad were still asleep when they slipped out the back door, Johnny in the lead; hopefully they'd be back before their parents woke up and discovered they were missing. Mom and Dad both slept late on Sundays and didn't crawl out of bed until noon; the attack, God willing, should be over by then.
Clutching their Super Soakers to their chests like commandos darting through the brush, Lincoln and Johnny dashed to the other side of the street, hunched to make smaller targets of themselves. They angled across the front lawn, hit the side yard, and pressed their backs against the siding. Johnny pointed to his eyes, then nodded back toward their house. Watch my back. Lincoln nodded, slipped his finger around the trigger, and turned to face the street. He walked backwards, keeping his back to Johnny's, that way he knew when to stop and where to go. At the corner, Johnny halted, and Lincoln crouched down. The storm door was just on the other side, beneath the dining room window. They'd have to be quick to avoid being seen.
"Alright," Johnny said, "on three. One. Two. Three."
He ducked around the corner and Lincoln followed. The backyard stood empty in the amber morning sun. So big. So open. Lincoln swallowed hard and looked around, expecting Luan to rush out from hiding like a hungry shark at the scent of blood. Johnny pulled open the hatch and hurried down the steps. Lincoln swept the backyard one final time with his Super Soaker, then went after, closing the door behind them.
Shafts of dusty sunlight falling through narrow windows revealed a cramped space with concrete floors and rough stone walls. Bare pipes and wires crisscrossed the ceiling and a hot water heater occupied a corner. Lincoln and Johnny flipped on the flashlights attached to the barrels of their Super Soakers; dust motes danced and swirled in the beams like snow. The air was hot, close, and sweat dampened the neck and underarms of Lincoln's shirt.
They moved carefully for fear of booby traps but none presented themselves. At the bottom of the steps, they stopped. "Okay," Johnny whispered, "the others are probably in Lisa's bunker already, so we won't have to worry about them getting in the way. Luan probably isn't expecting us to come so early, which gives us the element of surprise. Stick close and keep your eyes open."
Lincoln started to reply but a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye stopped him. He turned just as the door at the top of the stairs opened and something tumbled down the stairs. Johnny saw it and went pale. "Hit the deck!"
They dove aside and moments later, the device went off with a quiet poof. Dense white smoke filled the air. Lincoln crawled beneath the stairs for shelter, and Johnny threw himself behind a wooden trunk. Lincoln unshouldered his pack, undid the buckles, and yanked out a gas mask. He quickly pulled it on and across the way, Johnny did the same. The smoke touched Lincoln's bare flesh and it began to itch.
Itching powder.
Johnny motioned for him to follow, then came around the trunk and crept up the stairs. At the top, they knelt side by side. Johnny took one of the stink bombs from a bandolier around his chest, pulled the pin out, and rolled it into the kitchen. It detonated, and green fog spewed out, hanging heavy in the air. Johnny rushed out, and a beat later, Lincoln followed.
A few feet into the living room, Johnny walked into a tripwire and a pie shot out from nowhere, hitting him in the side of the face. "I'm hit!" he cried. Lincoln turned and caught a flash of movement on the stairs. He jerked the trigger and a stream of blue water splattered the wall. He ducked down, pulled Johnny to the floor, and commando crawled to the bottom of the stairs. He got to his knees and aimed up the stairs.
Nothing moved.
He got to his feet and started up the steps. Suddenly, a bag of flower on the end of a string swung toward his face. He ducked, but when he tried to get up, his hands stuck to the tread. He pulled and frowned.
The carpet had been replaced by fly paper.
He slipped his hands out of his gloves and waded up, his feet ripping from the paper with a tacky sound. He spotted another tripwire, motioned to Johnny, and stepped over it. In the second floor hall, he pressed himself against the wall and scoped the lay of the land. Jacks and Legos littered the floor.
Without warning, Luan's bedroom door opened and she darted out. Lincoln and Johnny both fired. She disappeared into Lori's room.
"Let's move,' Johnny said.
They rushed down the hall, things crunching underfoot, and threw open the door.
Luan was nowhere to be found.
"Where is she?" Lincoln asked.
Something dropped out of the vent overhead and landed on the floor. Before either Lincoln or Johnny could move, it exploded, and ketchup splattered them. Luan's mad laughter drifted from the grate.
"Give me a boost!" Johnny yelled.
Lincoln got on his hands and knees and Johnny stood on his back. He took one of the stink bombs and shoved it into the vent. It went off with a metallic bang, and Johnny jumped down. Somewhere in the duct work, Luan launched into a coughing fit. "I'm gonna flush her out," Johnny said, "help me back up."
He climbed onto Lincoln's back again and then into the vents. When he was gone, Lincoln followed the banging of his movements out into the hall, then into Lisa's room. He pushed the door open, and a can of paint perched on top tipped over, its contents spilling onto his head and shoulders. He jumped back and fell against Mr. and Mrs. Loud's door; it popped open and he went down, splashing into a baby pool filled with cold water. It soaked his sensitive parts, and he jumped to his feet with a shocked cry. He tripped another wire, and feathers rained down on him, sticking to the paint covering his mask and shoulders.
Back in the hall, he started toward Luan's room just as the door opened and she appeared. His heart jumped into his throat and he aimed the Super Soaker at her. She registered his presence and froze, the look on her face telling him she wasn't expecting him to be here. "Freeze!"
Behind her, Johnny dropped out of the vent and moved in, Super Soaker pointed at her back. Luan looked left and right like a cornered animal for escape. "The jig is up, Luan," Johnny said.
"Put your hands in the air," Lincoln said.
Luan took a deep breath. Grim resignation filled her eyes; she knew it was over and that she had lost. She was the master pranker and had been honing her craft since she was in elementary school, but she made a fatal misstep. She was so used to pranking the weak that she wasn't expecting someone to actually fight back. Her sisters cowered before her, her friends cowered before her, even her parents, but not Lincoln and Johnny.
"Alright," she said, "you got me."
With that, she began to unbutton her shirt.
"Freeze!" Lincoln commanded.
Beneath, she wore some kind of vest.
Suddenly, a denonator was in her hand. "But I got you too."
Lincoln screamed and Johnny fell back a step. Grinning evilly, she pressed the button, and thick purple goop exploded outward.
When the metaphorical smoke cleared, the fire alarm was going off, purple covered every surface, the walls were cracked, and Luan's door hung by one hinge.
That day Lincoln and Johnny learned that you can never outclass a prank master.
