Prompt: It's "just another normal day..." until it isn't. What happens to make this day unique and/or crazy? Include at least two of these five characters in your story: Edward Weaver, Weezie, Cole, Kylen, and Picket.
When Kylen rolled out of bed that morning, the grin on his face was wider than usual. Anyone who knew Kyle well would instantly have guessed that he was plotting something. And they would have been right.
Because today was what Kyle had dubbed Joke Day.
It was his favorite day of the year… or month, if he decided he wanted to do this sort of thing more often. It was a predetermined day in which Kyle would sneak around, secretly pranking the various inhabitants of Cloud Mountain. All in good fun, of course.
The best part of this whole ordeal was that no one else, besides Kyle and his gang, knew it was Joke Day. To them, this would just be another normal day. Until it wasn't. The sheer anticipation of it made Kylen want to burst.
He had already laid out a plan of attack. He had several people on a sort of mental "hit list" that he wanted to prank harder than others. Helmer was right on top. Helmer he had had the most trouble thinking up a prank for. Well, one which resulted in him still having a head on his shoulders once Helmer found out who was responsible. But Kyle had come up with a brilliant idea eventually, and now he set about to execute the pranks of which he had conceived. The first stop was the Savory Den. Breakfast, of course, to be followed by a breakdown of the day's occurrences with the bucks in his gang. It was an hour later that Kyle was hauling a bucket down the pathway to the Village Green, that stupid grin still on his face. He had brought the bucket over from his cache of prank supplies, located in a hollow tree, where he had also a small wedge of cheese in a patch of sunlight that he had grabbed from the Savory Den. He was hoping to make it warm and increase its strong, rancid smell. He also had added a pair of old gardening shears to the ensemble. Those would come in handy, too. He had passed Heyward on his way back from the Den, which meant he had plenty of time to mess with the hedges a bit before he came back.
But first he wanted to complete Helmer's prank, and it was with a determined grin that he set the can of paint down right under Helmer's Tree and pried off the lid.
The first two pranks had been successfully carried out- several of the hedges lining the pathway had taken on completely different shapes, and Helmer had not shown up to interrupt Kyle during his work at the tree. The minions had been sent off to the clinic, taking with them the sun-warmed cheese, well-wrapped and concealed. Emma was due for a visit.
While they set about carrying out that plan, Kyle's eyes surveyed the wide community of Cloud Mountain. He could either go to the Great Hall and put little heart prints all over Eefaw Potter's wet clay creations, or he could mix weed seeds in with the vegetable ones at the community gardens.
Gardens first.
As he was crossing the wide field, he saw a small rabbit climbing up from a flight of steps that led down to Mossy Porch. Maggie O'Sage, he told himself, as their two paths "converged. She was a strange doe, and there were many conflicting opinions of her. Maggie looked over at him with unusually bright eyes for someone of her age. Kyle could have sworn she had read everything on his mind with that one look. "Hello, young Kylen," she said.
"Hello, Mrs. Weaver." Kyle grinned, surprised that she knew his name. Maggie cocked a wise eye at him.
"What have you been doing?"
"Nothing, auntie- just a little bit of fun." He said defensively.
"With a grin like that, I'm sure you're up to no good," she replied. "You young bucks are always out to have fun. Makes me miss the sensible company of my Edward," she added softly, before walking on.
Kyle looked back at her and watched her go. What a peculiar doe she was. For a moment, he toyed with the idea of finding a Joke Day event for her. But after throwing around the concept of hiding her sewing basket, he gave up the idea and refocused on the seeds.
In the Savory Den, Gort ran his kitchen like a commander ran soldiers on a battlefield. Several rabbits scrambled about clumsily as they went about their tasks. Little did they suspect that this was where the final prank was to be executed. Kyle had been stationed in the lunch line, his job being to distract Gort while an accomplice from the gang snuck a little extra salt into one of the pots of soup on the stove. It wasn't long before Kyle had worked his way to the kitchen and was in possession of the head chef's full attention, keeping him occupied with a flurry of questions.
"How do you manage to keep all your recipes right in your head?" Kyle was asking, while in the periphery behind the chef the salty deed was being done. "And how can you tell if something is different from last time you made it?"
"My stomach never lies," Gort replied, beaming at the genuine interest that appeared to be on Kyle's face. "It always knows when something is wrong. And when you repeat a recipe often enough, it just sticks to your head like dough without flour, and it becomes easier to notice when something is done by mistake."
Kyle nodded slowly, apparently engrossed, while the gang member retreated from the kitchen area, his mission a success. A few more pleasantries were exchanged before Kyle walked back to his table, where he congratulated his bucks on the successes of their missions. They didn't have long to wait before their salt prank was noticed, either, as an argument suddenly broke out in the kitchen.
"What is this!" Gort was shouting, his words distinctly audible throughout the entire dining area, "it's not fit to be served to a dead wolf!" A loud metallic clang sounded- Gort hammering the sides of the pot with a ladle, no doubt. Better the pot than the assistant, Kyle supposed.
The kitchen assistant was stammering a baffled apology, saying he hadn't thought he had added that much salt. "It didn't taste like that before, I promise you!" He was spluttering. "It must have gotten salty on its own!"
"Of course it didn't, you fool!" Gort bellowed. "But mark my words, and mark them well: not enough salt is an in-salt, and too much salt is an as-salt. Now, repeat that back to me."
The embarrassed assistant meekly repeated the phrase, and Gort seemed to cool off. Heyward, who was in the lunch line, muttered over his shoulder to Lord Rake: "Now, isn't that strange? Salt appears in the soup by itself, the same day my hedges decide to break all the rules of symmetry…"
Emma looked up quickly. "You don't say? I found a piece of old stinky cheese in the bottom of my medical satchel this morning. I could have sworn it wasn't there when I packed my satchel this morning."
At that instant, a fuming dark rabbit burst into the Den. Helmer. "Who painted pink dresses on my training dummies?" He growled, his voice menacing and low. A slow titter broke out in the dining area, while Kyle and the bucks at his table all grinned guiltily. Fortunately for them, Helmer failed to glance their way, and after he had stormed off again, Kyle leaned his elbows on the table. "I love Joke Day," he whispered. "Now, who wants to come with me and press hearts onto Eefaw's newest batch of mugs?"
