Chapter 3: The Prank War
Matt slowly snuck down the stairs, careful not to wake Lizzie or his parents. It was still early and the sun had just beginning to light the horizon. Matt slowly walked across the floor and out the back door. As he approached the tool shed he could make out the outlines of his two friends, Lanny and Melina, waiting for him.
Lanny stretched his arms and opened his mouth as if he were letting out a great big yawn, but as usual no sounds came from his mouth.
Lanny was Matt's best friend. The two were always thinking of the craziest things to do, most of which ended up getting them in trouble. The one true downfall of Lanny was that he is unable to speak to most people. To many, his silent gestures are meaningless, but to Matt and Melina, his gestures speak clearly for him.
"I know its early Lanny," Matt replied to Lanny's yawn, "but if we want to do this we are going to need time to set up."
"What are we doing," Melina demanded.
She was Matt's unusual girlfriend. Instead of going out on dates the two got each other into trouble, which is the way they liked it.
"Cone on, I will tell you on the way," Matt replied with an evil smile on his face.
Matt opened the door to the tool shed. The three grabbed some bags that were laying on the floor, and began their journey. As soon as the group had traveled a distance from the house Matt reviled his plan.
"I overheard my mom talking to the principal on the phone last week. Turns out that we are going to have a new teacher," Matt said. "My mom was concerned that I would 'do something,' when I found out."
Lanny looked over and smiled at Matt.
"I don't know Lanny," Matt responded to Lanny. "Where WOULD my mom get an idea like that?"
Matt and Melina laughed, while Lanny just kept walking with a huge grin on his face.
"So what's the plan?" Melina finally asked bringing an abrupt end to the laughter.
"Well lets just say that he thinks he is ready to get his feet wet," Matt said with his usual sinister voice, "lets see what happens when we get his head wet."
"That's you ingenious plan?" Melina yelled. "We were doing things like that two years ago."
The trio had stopped walking as Melina continued her scolding. "I would have expected more from you, last year you were making such progress. I am embarrassed to call you my boyfriend."
"Sorry," Matt replied, "I spent so much time working on the rest of the plan, that I just went for the default punch. But wait until you see the rest, you will understand."
"I doubt it," Melina said under her breath. With that the trio walked the rest of the way to school without saying a word.
The three arrived at Main Steer School just as the sun had broken the horizon. The shadows that were cast upon the school along with the empty parking lot gave the school an eerie feeling that was starting to scare Lanny and Matt. The three creped up to the empty school. When they approached the doors Matt reached out to open them.
"There locked," Matt exclaimed as he tried to pull on the door.
A look of pure aggravation fell upon Melina's face. "You thought that we were going to be able to just walk into the school this early?"
"Well I.... ah..... ah."
Lanny too was waving his arms and shaking his head in discuss.
"Sorry Lanny, I didn't know that the school doors even had locks."
"That's it, I have had enough of this," Melina barked at Matt. "I am taking over, come on."
The trio walked around the corner, and Melina picked up a stick on their way. Once they were behind the wall, they waited until the janitor arrived at the school. He walked up to the doors, and unlocked one using a key from his huge key ring. As soon as he entered the building, Melina ran around the corner, and was able to slide the stick in front of the door jam, thus preventing the door from closing.
"Come on," Melina ordered, taking her new role as leader very seriously.
The two boys soon followed, and were now inside the building. The halls were unfamiliarly quiet as the group headed towards their new classroom. The three slowly walked down the dark hallways. After taking a few wrong turns in the dark, they finally found their new classroom. Matt slowly walked to the door and grabbed the handle and turned it. To his surprise it opened.
"See I figured out some things," Matt scoffed at Melina while looking proud, and hiding his astonishment.
"Looks more like dumb luck to me," Melina replied as she walked into the room.
Lanny and Matt followed Melina into the room and began their work using flashlights instead of turning on the lights. Lanny was positioned as lookout, which came in handy when the janitor came and cleaned the trashcans. Matt and Melina stacked some desks forming a latter allowing the two to access the aria above the suspended ceiling tiles. An hour later the three emerged from the room. They snuck out one of the back doors and waited for the rest of the kids to arrive on the playground.
When they reentered the room they were able to see the room for the first time with the lights on. It was decorated like most with cheesy posters on the wall. As they continued to explore the room, Lanny became fascinate with one of the posters. He signaled the others over to it. When they arrived they noticed that it was not like any of the "inspirational" posters they had seen in other classroom. It showed a quarterback wearing a crimson and cream uniform getting tackled by another football player wearing orange and white just when he was about to throw the ball, thus causing a fumble. Underneath the picture the caption read: "FAILURE-When your best just isn't good enough." This caused the three to brake out in laughter. They soon found that all the posters were just as strange, they were all hilarious, and none of them were actually useful.
"Good morning people," Said a hurried voice as the new teacher entered the room.
Matt looked at him for a second before asking, "Hay don't I know you?"
The new teacher took a long look at Matt before he responded, "You do look quite familiar yourself. Oh well we can find out where we know each other from later, right now lets get started shall we?"
The class took their seats. As usual Matt, Melina, and Lanny sat at the back of the room. They knew that they would probable be punished and moved to the front of the room, but they always started in the back.
"First off I would like to tell you about myself," the teacher began. "I started acting about six years ago. While I was waiting for my big break, I started working as a substitute to pay the rent. I soon found that I loved teaching, and started working towards my education degree. I just finished my education, and so here I am."
The new teacher looked around at the class. Everyone had a blank expression on their face. After a few seconds Matt decided to speak up. "Name please?"
"Oh, I am sorry, got so excited I forgot the basics. My name is Mr. Dig." He answered.
"That is the crazy sub my sister is always talking about." Matt whispered to Melina and Lanny. "If he is half as good as she says, this should be a great year." A smile started growing across the faces of all three.
Before they new it they were returning from recess. "So when are you going to do it," Melina forcefully asked?
Lanny added his feelings of frustration towards Matt with a few nods of his head.
"Don't worry, I am going to do it when we get back into the room," Matt replied with a bit of concern in his voice.
The three entered the room and took their seats as the bell rung. Almost immediately Mr. Dig slipped through the door and without skipping a beat started his afternoon lecture.
Melina gave a Matt a look that said that she would take care of him if he did not start the gag. Matt took the hint and reached into his bag and pulled out a remote control. He pointed it to a spot on the ceiling where a small black sphere the size of a pea was hanging, and pressed the play button. He held his breath while he waited to see that his plan was working. All of a sudden the ceiling tile above Mr. Dig began to raise. "Just another second" Matt said to himself, but after a few seconds nothing had happened. He looked at Melina and then at Lanny. Lanny was waving his arms furiously and pointing towards the ceiling. Matt looked up just in time to see that the ceiling tiles above the three had also been removed, and water was falling towards each of them.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Matt yelled as the water approached his face. The water hit him directly on his face, but to his surprise it was only about half a cup worth. He suddenly stopped screaming and quickly became aware that he had just made such commotion about so little water.
It did not take him long to figure out what had happened. "Adam," Matt yelled as he stood up. "I thought we had settled this last year. I am the prankster of this school, or do you need another reminder?"
"Well this is a new year, and time for a new prankster," Adam replied.
"Settle down people," said Mr. Dig. "I was the one who rigged your prank."
"You!?" Melina, Matt, Lanny, and Adam replied together. This was the first time a teacher had been involved in a prank, other than being the person that got pranked.
"Yes. Now I have already called your parents, you three need to stay after school so I can talk to you and your parents. Now if you will take your seats so we can continue."
After that the three sat quietly in their seats and waited for their punishment. The looming punishment made the rest of the day creped by slowly. Finally it was 3:15 and the rest of the class left, leaving the trio and Mr. Dig alone.
Jo and Sam McGuire soon arrived at the school. They quietly got out and walked into the school. Jo was the first one to speak as they headed down the hall towards Matt's room. "One, just ONCE, I wish that we could get through the first day without being called to Matt's school!"
"At least he waited until after lunch this time," Sam replied trying to calm his wife down. Needles to say this was not helping.
"Ah, good to see you again Mr. and Mrs. McGuire," Mr. Dig said as he stood up to great the two.
Jo shook his hand and replied, "It's good to see you too. Congratulations on getting your first full time teaching job. I am sorry, however, that you will have to put up with these three all year." Jo peered over the top of her glasses at the trio giving Matt an especially evil look.
Matt was sitting on the edge of his chair with his mouth wide open. He was about to make another comment, but the look told him that his mom was in a bitter mood. He paused for a second, closed his mouth and slid to the back of his chair.
"Well, we certainly had fun today," Mr. Dig said with a smile.
Jo's eyes returned to Mr. Dig. "Well what did they do this time?" she asked.
Mr. Dig pulled out a latter, climbed to the top, and removed one of the ceiling tiles. From out of the hole he removed an old VCR. To the astonishment of the McGuire's he showed them how the three had removed the remote receiver, and bypassed the power supply with a few batteries. He continued to show them how string had been wrapped around one of the gears, so that when the play button was pressed, the string would be reeled in. Pointing to the removed ceiling tile above his desk he told how the string had been used to raise the tile and tip a bucket of water onto his head.
During his speech, Sam kept giving his son a look while trying to hold back a smile. Jo kept shoving her elbow into Sam's side.
Jo took one another quick look at Matt before she started to recite her usual response. "I can assure you that Matt will be punished for..."
"That won't be necessary Mrs. McGuire," Mr. Dig interrupted. "I took care of it myself. I was warned about these three, and so it did not take me long to figure out their plan. I originally just cut the strings so that it did not work, but since they waited till after recess, I was able to turn the tables on them." He pointed to the three ceiling tiles that were missing above each of the student's desks.
"Wait, you are saying that you used their own trick to get them wet?" Sam asked. He was having a hard time keeping himself from laughing, but he soon burst into laughter, to the glares of Matt and Jo.
"Mr. Dig," Jo began in a soft voice. "Now I can't say that I an not glad that somebody has beaten these three at their own game, but I must question your judgment. Knowing my son he will think of a way to retaliate by next week."
"Oh I have already got something in mind," Matt burst out before he could think about what he was saying. Jo shot another look at him from across the room, while Melina punched him on his shoulder.
"Exactly," Mr. Dig said without flinching. "And I hope it is a good one to."
"What!?" Everybody in the room asked in unison.
"These three have shown a lot of inelegance building this contraption." Mr. Dig started.
"See I told you it was ingenious," Matt quietly bragged to Melina.
Mr. Dig did not hear him and continued. "The Electrical Engineering used to bypass the power supply, the Mechanical Engineering used to raise the tiles and tip the buckets. It may not be their homework, but at least they are learning."
Jo quickly changed to her scolding mother voice. "Mr. Dig, I do not want my son and his friends running around this school playing pranks on the students and teachers!"
"Nether do I," Mr. Dig responded. He walked back to his desk where he took three pieces of paper out of a drawer. "I have made up these contracts. Every Friday I will give each of the three their current grades. If they all have at least a B average, they may try to prank me whenever they wish during the next week. If they prank me without having a B average, or they prank anybody else in this school they will immediately be suspended for one week."
"What's the fun in that?" Matt shouted.
"The fun, Mr. McGuire, will be to try to get past me," Mr. Dig said with a smile on his face. "It also states in the contract that I may rig the prank like I did today."
Matt smiled and put out his hands for his friends to give him five. "This will be to easy."
All three of the McGuire's sinned the first contract. After exchanging pleasantries, they left the room leaving Lanny and Melina, who were waiting for their own parents to arrive.
The trio wasted no time. Later that night they started planning their next prank, which would come Monday morning.
Matt slowly snuck down the stairs, careful not to wake Lizzie or his parents. It was still early and the sun had just beginning to light the horizon. Matt slowly walked across the floor and out the back door. As he approached the tool shed he could make out the outlines of his two friends, Lanny and Melina, waiting for him.
Lanny stretched his arms and opened his mouth as if he were letting out a great big yawn, but as usual no sounds came from his mouth.
Lanny was Matt's best friend. The two were always thinking of the craziest things to do, most of which ended up getting them in trouble. The one true downfall of Lanny was that he is unable to speak to most people. To many, his silent gestures are meaningless, but to Matt and Melina, his gestures speak clearly for him.
"I know its early Lanny," Matt replied to Lanny's yawn, "but if we want to do this we are going to need time to set up."
"What are we doing," Melina demanded.
She was Matt's unusual girlfriend. Instead of going out on dates the two got each other into trouble, which is the way they liked it.
"Cone on, I will tell you on the way," Matt replied with an evil smile on his face.
Matt opened the door to the tool shed. The three grabbed some bags that were laying on the floor, and began their journey. As soon as the group had traveled a distance from the house Matt reviled his plan.
"I overheard my mom talking to the principal on the phone last week. Turns out that we are going to have a new teacher," Matt said. "My mom was concerned that I would 'do something,' when I found out."
Lanny looked over and smiled at Matt.
"I don't know Lanny," Matt responded to Lanny. "Where WOULD my mom get an idea like that?"
Matt and Melina laughed, while Lanny just kept walking with a huge grin on his face.
"So what's the plan?" Melina finally asked bringing an abrupt end to the laughter.
"Well lets just say that he thinks he is ready to get his feet wet," Matt said with his usual sinister voice, "lets see what happens when we get his head wet."
"That's you ingenious plan?" Melina yelled. "We were doing things like that two years ago."
The trio had stopped walking as Melina continued her scolding. "I would have expected more from you, last year you were making such progress. I am embarrassed to call you my boyfriend."
"Sorry," Matt replied, "I spent so much time working on the rest of the plan, that I just went for the default punch. But wait until you see the rest, you will understand."
"I doubt it," Melina said under her breath. With that the trio walked the rest of the way to school without saying a word.
The three arrived at Main Steer School just as the sun had broken the horizon. The shadows that were cast upon the school along with the empty parking lot gave the school an eerie feeling that was starting to scare Lanny and Matt. The three creped up to the empty school. When they approached the doors Matt reached out to open them.
"There locked," Matt exclaimed as he tried to pull on the door.
A look of pure aggravation fell upon Melina's face. "You thought that we were going to be able to just walk into the school this early?"
"Well I.... ah..... ah."
Lanny too was waving his arms and shaking his head in discuss.
"Sorry Lanny, I didn't know that the school doors even had locks."
"That's it, I have had enough of this," Melina barked at Matt. "I am taking over, come on."
The trio walked around the corner, and Melina picked up a stick on their way. Once they were behind the wall, they waited until the janitor arrived at the school. He walked up to the doors, and unlocked one using a key from his huge key ring. As soon as he entered the building, Melina ran around the corner, and was able to slide the stick in front of the door jam, thus preventing the door from closing.
"Come on," Melina ordered, taking her new role as leader very seriously.
The two boys soon followed, and were now inside the building. The halls were unfamiliarly quiet as the group headed towards their new classroom. The three slowly walked down the dark hallways. After taking a few wrong turns in the dark, they finally found their new classroom. Matt slowly walked to the door and grabbed the handle and turned it. To his surprise it opened.
"See I figured out some things," Matt scoffed at Melina while looking proud, and hiding his astonishment.
"Looks more like dumb luck to me," Melina replied as she walked into the room.
Lanny and Matt followed Melina into the room and began their work using flashlights instead of turning on the lights. Lanny was positioned as lookout, which came in handy when the janitor came and cleaned the trashcans. Matt and Melina stacked some desks forming a latter allowing the two to access the aria above the suspended ceiling tiles. An hour later the three emerged from the room. They snuck out one of the back doors and waited for the rest of the kids to arrive on the playground.
When they reentered the room they were able to see the room for the first time with the lights on. It was decorated like most with cheesy posters on the wall. As they continued to explore the room, Lanny became fascinate with one of the posters. He signaled the others over to it. When they arrived they noticed that it was not like any of the "inspirational" posters they had seen in other classroom. It showed a quarterback wearing a crimson and cream uniform getting tackled by another football player wearing orange and white just when he was about to throw the ball, thus causing a fumble. Underneath the picture the caption read: "FAILURE-When your best just isn't good enough." This caused the three to brake out in laughter. They soon found that all the posters were just as strange, they were all hilarious, and none of them were actually useful.
"Good morning people," Said a hurried voice as the new teacher entered the room.
Matt looked at him for a second before asking, "Hay don't I know you?"
The new teacher took a long look at Matt before he responded, "You do look quite familiar yourself. Oh well we can find out where we know each other from later, right now lets get started shall we?"
The class took their seats. As usual Matt, Melina, and Lanny sat at the back of the room. They knew that they would probable be punished and moved to the front of the room, but they always started in the back.
"First off I would like to tell you about myself," the teacher began. "I started acting about six years ago. While I was waiting for my big break, I started working as a substitute to pay the rent. I soon found that I loved teaching, and started working towards my education degree. I just finished my education, and so here I am."
The new teacher looked around at the class. Everyone had a blank expression on their face. After a few seconds Matt decided to speak up. "Name please?"
"Oh, I am sorry, got so excited I forgot the basics. My name is Mr. Dig." He answered.
"That is the crazy sub my sister is always talking about." Matt whispered to Melina and Lanny. "If he is half as good as she says, this should be a great year." A smile started growing across the faces of all three.
Before they new it they were returning from recess. "So when are you going to do it," Melina forcefully asked?
Lanny added his feelings of frustration towards Matt with a few nods of his head.
"Don't worry, I am going to do it when we get back into the room," Matt replied with a bit of concern in his voice.
The three entered the room and took their seats as the bell rung. Almost immediately Mr. Dig slipped through the door and without skipping a beat started his afternoon lecture.
Melina gave a Matt a look that said that she would take care of him if he did not start the gag. Matt took the hint and reached into his bag and pulled out a remote control. He pointed it to a spot on the ceiling where a small black sphere the size of a pea was hanging, and pressed the play button. He held his breath while he waited to see that his plan was working. All of a sudden the ceiling tile above Mr. Dig began to raise. "Just another second" Matt said to himself, but after a few seconds nothing had happened. He looked at Melina and then at Lanny. Lanny was waving his arms furiously and pointing towards the ceiling. Matt looked up just in time to see that the ceiling tiles above the three had also been removed, and water was falling towards each of them.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Matt yelled as the water approached his face. The water hit him directly on his face, but to his surprise it was only about half a cup worth. He suddenly stopped screaming and quickly became aware that he had just made such commotion about so little water.
It did not take him long to figure out what had happened. "Adam," Matt yelled as he stood up. "I thought we had settled this last year. I am the prankster of this school, or do you need another reminder?"
"Well this is a new year, and time for a new prankster," Adam replied.
"Settle down people," said Mr. Dig. "I was the one who rigged your prank."
"You!?" Melina, Matt, Lanny, and Adam replied together. This was the first time a teacher had been involved in a prank, other than being the person that got pranked.
"Yes. Now I have already called your parents, you three need to stay after school so I can talk to you and your parents. Now if you will take your seats so we can continue."
After that the three sat quietly in their seats and waited for their punishment. The looming punishment made the rest of the day creped by slowly. Finally it was 3:15 and the rest of the class left, leaving the trio and Mr. Dig alone.
Jo and Sam McGuire soon arrived at the school. They quietly got out and walked into the school. Jo was the first one to speak as they headed down the hall towards Matt's room. "One, just ONCE, I wish that we could get through the first day without being called to Matt's school!"
"At least he waited until after lunch this time," Sam replied trying to calm his wife down. Needles to say this was not helping.
"Ah, good to see you again Mr. and Mrs. McGuire," Mr. Dig said as he stood up to great the two.
Jo shook his hand and replied, "It's good to see you too. Congratulations on getting your first full time teaching job. I am sorry, however, that you will have to put up with these three all year." Jo peered over the top of her glasses at the trio giving Matt an especially evil look.
Matt was sitting on the edge of his chair with his mouth wide open. He was about to make another comment, but the look told him that his mom was in a bitter mood. He paused for a second, closed his mouth and slid to the back of his chair.
"Well, we certainly had fun today," Mr. Dig said with a smile.
Jo's eyes returned to Mr. Dig. "Well what did they do this time?" she asked.
Mr. Dig pulled out a latter, climbed to the top, and removed one of the ceiling tiles. From out of the hole he removed an old VCR. To the astonishment of the McGuire's he showed them how the three had removed the remote receiver, and bypassed the power supply with a few batteries. He continued to show them how string had been wrapped around one of the gears, so that when the play button was pressed, the string would be reeled in. Pointing to the removed ceiling tile above his desk he told how the string had been used to raise the tile and tip a bucket of water onto his head.
During his speech, Sam kept giving his son a look while trying to hold back a smile. Jo kept shoving her elbow into Sam's side.
Jo took one another quick look at Matt before she started to recite her usual response. "I can assure you that Matt will be punished for..."
"That won't be necessary Mrs. McGuire," Mr. Dig interrupted. "I took care of it myself. I was warned about these three, and so it did not take me long to figure out their plan. I originally just cut the strings so that it did not work, but since they waited till after recess, I was able to turn the tables on them." He pointed to the three ceiling tiles that were missing above each of the student's desks.
"Wait, you are saying that you used their own trick to get them wet?" Sam asked. He was having a hard time keeping himself from laughing, but he soon burst into laughter, to the glares of Matt and Jo.
"Mr. Dig," Jo began in a soft voice. "Now I can't say that I an not glad that somebody has beaten these three at their own game, but I must question your judgment. Knowing my son he will think of a way to retaliate by next week."
"Oh I have already got something in mind," Matt burst out before he could think about what he was saying. Jo shot another look at him from across the room, while Melina punched him on his shoulder.
"Exactly," Mr. Dig said without flinching. "And I hope it is a good one to."
"What!?" Everybody in the room asked in unison.
"These three have shown a lot of inelegance building this contraption." Mr. Dig started.
"See I told you it was ingenious," Matt quietly bragged to Melina.
Mr. Dig did not hear him and continued. "The Electrical Engineering used to bypass the power supply, the Mechanical Engineering used to raise the tiles and tip the buckets. It may not be their homework, but at least they are learning."
Jo quickly changed to her scolding mother voice. "Mr. Dig, I do not want my son and his friends running around this school playing pranks on the students and teachers!"
"Nether do I," Mr. Dig responded. He walked back to his desk where he took three pieces of paper out of a drawer. "I have made up these contracts. Every Friday I will give each of the three their current grades. If they all have at least a B average, they may try to prank me whenever they wish during the next week. If they prank me without having a B average, or they prank anybody else in this school they will immediately be suspended for one week."
"What's the fun in that?" Matt shouted.
"The fun, Mr. McGuire, will be to try to get past me," Mr. Dig said with a smile on his face. "It also states in the contract that I may rig the prank like I did today."
Matt smiled and put out his hands for his friends to give him five. "This will be to easy."
All three of the McGuire's sinned the first contract. After exchanging pleasantries, they left the room leaving Lanny and Melina, who were waiting for their own parents to arrive.
The trio wasted no time. Later that night they started planning their next prank, which would come Monday morning.