Balamb Garden's Yuletide Vacation
Chapter Seven
Thursday, December the Seventh
Morning dawned bright and clear, the sun's light causing the previous day's snow to sparkle like shattered glass on the side of a highway. The snowman judging committee, consisting of Thelma the lunch lady, Bruno the maintenance man, and Cid's secretary Constance walked out the main entrance of Garden to where the army of snow people awaited their inspection. Selphie and the rest of the entrants followed closely behind, each hoping that his or her snowman would win. First prize was a gift certificate to The Hampton, Timber's finest restaurant. It wasn't that any of them coveted the prize so much as the honor of winning the contest.
Silence fell over the group as it reached the site of the snowman contest. No one knew what to say or do as they all looked at the scene of vandalism.
"Oh dear Hyne," murmured Quistis, "Seifer's been here."
"Shut up Quistis!" snapped Selphie as she ran over to what had been her creation. Instead of a dancing snow moomba, Selphie's snow sculpture had been altered to appear to be doing something obscene with one of Rinoa's snowmen that resembled Zell right down to the hair and facial tattoo.
"Don't tell me to shut up, Selphie!" retorted Quistis. "It's not my fault none of you will recognize the truth."
Selphie turned to Quistis with her hands on her hips. "Right Quistis, Seifer is living in the walls of Garden. Next you'll be trying to convince us that the world is square!"
"You mean, it isn't?" asked Rinoa.
Quistis and Selphie both turned to the sorceress and yelled in unison, "Shut up!"
Rinoa glared at them for a moment, crossed her arms and gave her back to the entire group. She counted backwards from ten to one several times before becoming distracted by the glint of the sunlight on the snow. Oh how pretty, she thought.
Selphie and Quistis continued to bicker as the other entrants examined the lewd positions their snow people had been put into. A few of the girls, like Nicole, began to cry. Most of them however, began to snicker.
Matt's loud voice interrupted everyone when he said, "Well, at least my snowman is untouched!"
Quistis raised an eyebrow at him. From her position she could see what Matt couldn't. Pointing to the back of the snowman Quistis said, "Ummm… Matt, you'd better look at the back."
"Holy Shiva!" Matt cried out when he saw a very large carrot invading his snowman as no snowman should ever be invaded. "Why mine? Why? It was the best one here!"
"What?" screeched Selphie, scooping up a handful of snow. "How dare you!" The snowball Selphie had made hit Matt squarely on the side of the head.
From there things only deteriorated further. Matt threw a snowball at Selphie who ducked, and it instead hit Rinoa. Rinoa retaliated, but having terrible aim, hit another person. Before anyone else knew what was happening the ruined contest was forgotten and the group spent the next hour laughing and pelting each other with snowballs.
"Damn it," said Seifer angrily as he walked away from the scene. The prank hadn't the outcome he'd been hoping for. He was going to have to come up with a new plan soon.
~*~
"What you got there, ya know?" Raijin asked.
Seifer, who was standing with his comrade-in arms down in the MD level, was holding a large paper cup that used to hold a quart of a popular soda. He didn't answer but instead he partially opened it and held it up under his large friend's nose.
"Ewww!" Raijin complained. "That smells like sh-."
"RAGE!" protested Fujin.
"Bingo!" Seifer grinned. After the failure of the morning's prank, Seifer needed something to cheer himself up.
"What are you gonna do with that, Seifer? That stinks, ya know?" questioned Raijin, sitting down on the table they'd pilfered from the cafeteria.
"It's an early solstice gift for one Chicken Wuss," said Seifer cheerfully.
"WHY?" asked Fujin, a worried expression crossing her face.
"Well, you know what they say," said Seifer. "Sweets for the sweet. Mwahaha!"
"Ya know, Seifer," Raijin declared, "I'm beginning to worry about you, ya know."
Fujin kicked Raijin sharply in the shin. "Ow! What'd you do that for? It hurt, ya know!" Raijin whined, rubbing his leg.
"Ha ha!" Seifer boomed out. "Don't waste your time worrying about me when you better worry about yourself. I'm going upstairs to deliver my highest accolade to one young Chicken Wuss."
Seifer began the long trip up to the surface of the Garden by climbing up a ladder. If he had glanced back, he would have seen Fujin and Raijin talking quietly, concern evident on their faces.
Seifer emerged from the secret passage located in the dormitory wing where Zell's room lay. To help hide his true identity he was appareled in a maintenance worker's uniform. A long dark wig hung down around his face, and dark glasses further disguised him. The young man would have liked to have worn a pair of glasses attached to a large nose and mustache but was saving that particular disguise for a future prank.
Appearing to literally step out of the wall, Seifer moved down the corridor and stopped in front of the door to Zell's room. Two doors down stood three upperclassmen surrounding Nicole and a girlfriend of hers, but they were deeply absorbed in a discussion so no one paid Seifer any attention. Recognizing Nicole as Zell's girlfriend, Seifer realized the pretty librarian must have been waiting for Zell. Perfect! he thought.
The ex-knight was carrying two small orange construction cones and a battered gray toolbox. He set one cone on each side of the dorm door and knelt down and opened his toolbox as if he was preparing to fix something. Glancing from the corner of his eye, Seifer assured himself that no one was watching. He took out the paper cup from the toolbox and tilted the contents to the middle of it. Seifer then opened it and slid the open part under the door. He realized he needed to hurry because Zell could come out at any time and ruin the whole thing.
Seifer stood up and stomped extremely hard on the end of the container shooting the contents into the interior.
"ARGH!" Zell screamed from inside the room. The supposed maintenance worker hurried away down the corridor and then waited where he had entered. He wanted a good look at the results of his handiwork.
Zell's door flew open and he stumbled out cursing, covered from head to toe with the contents of the cup. He tripped on the unexpected orange cones in front of his door and as he attempted to right himself he continued teetering down the hallway toward the group of people Nicole was standing with.
Everyone jumped from his way and Zell eventually crashed into the wall and slid down to the floor leaving a brown streak. Hearing people laughing at him, he looked up. Everything took on a surrealistic quality to Zell as he gazed upon the entire group laughing at his expense and holding their noses. Zell felt especially humiliated when he noticed Nicole was laughing the hardest of all.
Take that, Chicken Wuss! Seifer thought gleefully as he stepped into the wall. At least one prank brought him some satisfaction that day.
~*~
Headmaster Cid, Quistis, Xu, and a continuing very green Squall sat at a long conference table in Cid's office. Cid had called an emergency staff meeting to deal with the pranks that were abounding all over the Garden. He had also asked Quistis to sit in because it would seem that she had some insight into the situation as she had witnessed one of the very first pranks.
As the meeting began everyone was attempting to ignore that Squall was green. They kept glancing away from him with suppressed grins on their faces, which was calling it all the more to Squall's attention. The commander already appeared aggravated with the entire situation.
Cid began, "I would like to thank everyone for assembling so quickly. We appear to be under some sort of prankish attack. I would also like to thank Quistis for agreeing to sit in with us, because she was fortunate enough to witness one of the attacks."
"You're welcome," she murmured while attempting to keep her attention focused on the Headmaster.
Cid continued, "And you're looking green, Squall...I'm sorry, I meant you're looking good, Squall, considering all the pressure that you have been under lately."
Xu and Quistis did their best to hide their smiles at Cid's faux pas. Squall thought, What pressure? You mean being turned green by my crazy sorceress girlfriend, who currently is not speaking with me?
Cid began to speak but was interrupted by Nida announcing over the intercom, "Jack Meoff, please report to the clinic. I repeat, Jack Meoff, please report to the clinic."
Again Quistis and Xu attempted to hide their giggles. Even Squall was hard pressed not to smile at that malapropism. I really need to speak with Nida about screening through these messages before just reading them out the way he does, thought the Headmaster.
"Okay, I'm throwing it open to the floor. Who thinks they have any idea at all what is going on here or who is behind it?"
Quistis spoke up quickly. "I don't think. I know. It's Seifer."
"I don't think you know either, Quistis. Everything is Seifer with you. Seifer is long gone, even if he is alive," said Squall acridly.
Quistis retorted, "Squall, I know you're green with envy – I mean...uh...you're seeing red because of your frustration with Rinoa, but it is Seifer. I saw him!"
As Squall did indeed appear to be somehow turning bright red with anger underneath his presently green skin. Cid immediately spoke, hoping to defuse the situation. "Squall, I realize it's not easy being green – I mean, easy being commander."
With that latest verbal slip, Squall snarled, "I'm outta here." Quickly rising up from his chair, he stalked from the room. With Quistis hiding her laughter behind her gloved hand, Cid declared, "Well, that is certainly most unfortunate, but maybe it will help us be able to better concentrate on the task at hand a little more."
After further discussion, it was agreed that Xu and Quistis would investigate the entire situation as to who was actually responsible for the pranks and report back to the Headmaster as soon as possible.