Um, uh, be careful not to let that moose get too close... (???)

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The Prank War
Chapter 4: Fun With Toilet Paper

"Think this is enough?" Alan asked.

"Nah," Gwen answered, taking more from the shelf. "We need more."

"More?" Bob took an armful of toilet paper packages, which, of course, was the rest of the paper on the shelf. "That enough?"

"Yeah!" Gwen exclaimed. "All right guys, um, who's paying?"

"We're all in on this, remember?" Alan reminded her.

"Oh yeah. So, Louis, how much?" Gwen asked the stunned shopkeeper.

"Um let me calculate that" Louis entered the price of one package of toilet paper and multiplied it by "How many packages are you getting?"

"Uh, hold on," Bob was counting, "Thirty-three."

Louis calculated it. "That will be 3630G."

"Great, I've got 900G." Gwen slapped her money on the counter. "Bob?"

"1200." Bob put his money on the counter.

"Heh, um, Alan, you have the rest?"

"Man, you guys are gonna run me dry" Alan moaned as he searched his pockets.

"I have another 300, I just didn't want to use it," Gwen sighed. She pulled some more gold coins from her pocket. "That leaves you with how much more do we need, Louis?"

"1230," he answered. "Um, mind if I ask?"

"Don't," Gwen snapped. "It's none of your beeswax."

"1230G, yeah, I've got it." Alan managed to scrape together enough money. "Here you go, Louis."

"Th-thank you," Louis put all the money in the register, knowing that he'd have an interesting story to tell Lyla when he got home. How often was it that three young people enter the store and buy every single roll of toilet paper?

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Lyla had the day off, and was walking around, gathering nuts and berries and other things to use in her cooking at home. She prefered to gather her own rather than buying them from the supermarket.

"Hey, Lyla!!" Katie waved to her friend when she neared the café. "Taking a walk?"

"No, gathering berries and such. How are you Katie? Feeling better?"

"Better than ever!" Katie noticed some red plants in Lyla's basket. "Ew, why are you gathering those?"

"These?" Lyla picked up one of the red plants. "This is a medicinal herb. Louis taught me how to make medicine from it, so I've been practicing. It doesn't taste that great, but I want to try mixing it with berry juice. That ought to make it taste better, or worse, it depends"

"There's a lot of good berries and herbs over at the villa," Katie told her. "Ever tried going there?"

"Well, no, I prefer to stick to this forest."

"Ah, I'd suggest to go try it out! I just saw a very good veryberry patch there yesterday."

Lyla bit her lip. "But what if Miss Clove doesn't want me there?"

"Just tell her you're a friend of mine," Katie suggested. "I have to go to work now. See you later, Lyla!"

Lyla waved to her, and Katie went into the café.

Well, there was no harm in going to the villa

Lyla walked past the supermarket, past her own shop and Louis' shop, past Brownie Ranch. Clove's Villa was not only the largest and most splendid house in the whole village, it was also the most isolated.

Lyla could quickly see that Katie had been right about the veryberry patch. It was huge! Lyla picked as many berries as her basket could hold, then began to leave. She turned around to look at the house

"Oh, dear lord" Lyla dropped her basket in surprise.

The house was covered in toilet paper!!

Gina was pacing about outside the house, trying to clean things up. Lyla left her basket there and ran to her.

"Oh dear, oh dear, Miss Dia is going to be very angry," Gina fretted. "I do not know who did this, but she is not going to be pleased. I must clean it!"

Lyla helped her pull off some of the longer stands of paper. "You don't know who did this?" she asked.

"I never saw anyone, ma'am." Gina had a trashcan with her and was stuffing paper into it.

Lyla suddenly recalled something Louis had mentioned to her the other night, after he'd gotten home from work. "Oh, no"

"What is it, ma'am?"

"Hold on. I must hurry home for a moment." Lyla ran back to her basket, picked it up, and went to her husband's shop.

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"Heh, Silver Fishing Rod, you are almost as good as mine!" Joe held the silver rod in his hands, admiring it. "4500G, right, Louis?"

"Yeah, that's right." Louis was writing some sort of report.

"I need 500G," Joe sighed. "Then I can take this thing home."

"Anything in particular you need?" Louis asked.

"Nah, not really, just came here to admi— Whoah! Hey, man, what happened to all the toilet paper?" Joe's jaw dropped when he saw the empty shelf.

"Some people bought all of it a couple of days ago. Pretty weird, if you ask me," Louis responded.

"Who?"

Before Louis could answer, Lyla burst into the shop. "Louis, didn't you say you sold all the toilet paper in the shop the other day?"

"Yeah," Louis answered, giving her a worried look. "What's wrong?"

"Someone toilet papered Clove's Villa!"

"Shoot!!!" Joe exclaimed. "Louis, who did you sell it to?!"

"Bob, Gwen, and Alan."

"Oh man," Joe moaned, "Great. Looks like they did a number on the villa!"

Lyla shook her head. "That is going to be such a mess to clean up Louis, I'm going to help, so I'm afraid I won't come home until the evening."

Louis nodded. "I understand."

"See you later!" Lyla waved to both guys and left.

"Wait!" Joe stopped her at the door. "Did you tell Katie?"

"No, I didn't."

"I'll go then."

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"They did WHAT to Clove's Villa?!" Katie was wide-eyed.

"You heard me. Toilet papered it!" Joe shook his head. "We need to get them back"

"I'm out of ideas, though," Katie moaned. "Let's go to the villa and help clean it."

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Joe, Kurt, Katie, Lyla, Gina, Dia, and, later on, Louis, did their best to clean up the outside of the villa. Martha stayed inside to keep the house clean and also to cook for everyone.

"This shall take more than one day." Dia's clothes were a bit dishevled and her hair was almost as messy as Louis', but she didn't care. "We cannot let them get away with this."

"Yeah," Katie agreed, "They're going to that stupid karaoke party tomorrow night at the bar, and we have to clean up the mess they made"

"Karaoke party? Ha ha, Alan can't sing worth squat," Joe laughed. "And remember the last party, Katie? Jason and Bob were so drunk that they started singing children's songs to the tune of modern pop songs!"

Katie laughed. "Yeah, I remember! You were pretty drunk too, Joe. I'm surprised you even remember that!"

Joe blushed. "Er, well, at least I didn't make a fool out of myself"

"Not that time anyway." Katie stuffed more paper into the trashcan at her side.

"Children's songs?" Lyla seemed to be thinking of something. "I have a tape of karaoke versions of many children's songs, something I got when I was little."

"Heh, man, we should play that at the party," Joe joked.

"Maybe you should," Lyla suggested. "I'm serious."

"I'm in charge of the music!" Katie exclaimed. "Let's do that, Joe!"

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So that's just what they decided to do. Play popular children's songs when Alan and his brothers and cousin were supposed to sing.

"Ew, I think that the kiddy songs are better." Katie was looking over the CDs and tapes she was supposed to play for them. "Look at some of these songs!"

"We're doing them a favor!" Joe laughed. "Yo, Katie, would you mind getting me a—"

"No alcohol," Katie said firmly. "We can't have you getting drunk this time, Joe."

"Aw But Alan's gonna suspect something right away if I don't have a beer with me," Joe pressed.

Katie shook her head. "Please, Joe? Promise me you'll stay sober just this one time. Please?" Katie did her best puppy dog look.

Joe sighed, and slowly nodded. "All right," he finally said. "I promise. No alcohol tonight."

"Yay!" Katie hugged him, something that startled him. She rarely went for any type of physical contact with anyone, not even her grandpa. "Thank you!"

"Uh, no problem," he blushed, glad no one else was watching.

Katie suddenly pulled away. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Don't you know that you generally hug a person back when they hug you?"

"Uh, I was startled, was all," Joe sheepishly answered.

Katie giggled. "You men are weird."

"No," Joe motioned to the door. "Weird is here."

Alan, JC, Jason, and Bob had just entered.

"Hey!" Katie called to them. "Guess we forgot to put the No Jerks Allowed' sign on the door, eh, Joe?"

"Then we would have had to throw you two out," Alan answered.

"Ha ha, very funny." Katie stuck her tongue out at them. Joe had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Katie was fairly mature, but she had her moments

"Who all will be singing tonight?" JC asked.

Katie looked over the list. "First oh dear lord, it's Ronald!" Everyone groaned. "Then Grandpa?? I don't know why, but he asked then, Gwen, where is she?"

"Coming," Joe answered. "She said she had to get ready' first."

"Well, she acts like a girl once in a while. Finally, it's you four."

"Oh yeah, the Boy Band Wannabes!" Jason grinned.

"You have a name for us now?" Alan asked.

"Yeah, a lame name," Joe laughed.

Katie shook her head. "Well, everything's ready, now we just need to wait for Ronald, Grandpa, and Gwen."

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Ronald and Gwen finally arrived, and Katie's grandfather came from the kitchen.

Ronald sung some older songs, terribly off key, and the only reason that he got an applause was because it was over, and no one would have to hear him sing again until next time.

Wallace sung some really old songs back from when he was young, which, to Katie's surprise, she really enjoyed. Gwen was good, too, singing some modern stuff.

Then it came to the "Boy Band Wannabes"

"All right, we're gonna blow you away! Katie, get the music started." JC pointed to her.

"Or else," Alan added.

Katie nodded. "Got that tape from Lyla?" Joe whispered to her. He was with her behind the counter.

"Yup, I'm putting it in." Katie put the tape into the player, then she and Joe sat back to listen to the "awesome" singing of the guys

"This'll be interesting," Joe whispered as he put an arm around the back of Katie's chair. She nodded and smiled.

No words could describe the look on the guys' faces when, instead of the song they expected, they heard "Mary Had a Little Lamb" playing! The whole bar erupted into laughter.

The guys played along, though Alan swore to himself that he'd get Joe and Katie back REALLY good for this one! The next song was "Row Your Boat", and Alan was actually able to adapt it to the situation

"Row, row, row your boat
In the piranha-invested stream!
Throw Joe overboard
And listen to him scream!"

The bar erupted into laughter again, while Joe and Katie looked, shocked, at each other. "Oh man, I'd bet he'd do it," Joe muttered.

Bob got the hang of it, too. To the tune of "London Bridge if Falling Down"

"I wanna hurt you now, hurt you now, torture you now,
So if you know what's good for you,
Run, Joe and Katie!"

The torture only lasted a few minutes more, as their turn was up. As soon as the music was over, Alan, JC, Jason, and Bob marched straight to Katie and Joe and demanded an explaination.

"Does toilet paper' ring a bell?" Joe asked.

"Yeah," Katie agreed, "That's what happens when you trash the villa!"

"We are gonna get you for that. Really good!" Alan crossed his arms. "We'll make you two sorry you were ever born!"

"Oh, I'm so scared," Joe mocked.

"You will be!"

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"Ugh, almost there"

Tim was climbing the pile of rocks he'd seen at the villa the other day, a couple of days before it was toilet papered. There was something at the other end, he just had to find it.

"There!" Tim scrambled down on the other side. There was another area here, surrounded by stone walls on all sides. There was a plot of bare earth in the center, a well, and a large stone slab.

Excited, Tim ran to the slab. There was writing on it!

"Plant the crops so that the gold will appear Huh?"

Tim examined the stone slab and the bare earth a little more closely, then figured it out. The earth was marked with hearts, squares, musical notes, and stars. That was a guide for what he should plant, and where.

"Cool! The Sacred Land! I wonder what the gold is?"

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Credit to my sister for coming up with that weird version of "London Bridge is Falling Down." =P