"Let the Prank Wars Begin"
Maurae tried to turn around and look in the mirror, but Carrie restrained her. It was Friday night, almost six pm. "Not until I'm done, girl. Geez, you're worse than a girl on her first date!" When Maurae flushed, Carrie smirked. "Don't tell me you've never been on a date?"
"I haven't," Maurae admitted. "But give me a break, I'm only fourteen. I've only ever kissed one boy, and that was Dwayne, during the camp fire after the tournament last year." Carrie nodded.
"I remember you telling me about that. But isn't your Dwayne courting Kitty Granger?" Maurae smiled tightly. Kitty Granger was a tiny little thing that frequented the drama club. And Dwayne had fallen hard for her.
"Yeah. But I told you, Dwayne and I were never a couple. We kissed a couple of times. I've never had a real boyfriend."
"Ever wanted one?"
"Maybe. Hey, what's with the third degree? I thought you were going to do my hair for tonight?"
"I am. You're all done."
"Finally!" Maurae exclaimed as she stood and turned to look in the mirror. Her mouth fell open. "Carrie...!"
"You like it?"
"Like it? I love it! You're so awesome!" Carrie had straightened all of Maurae's long, thick mane, and had twisted the top half of it into a fancy braid, from which wispy strands escaped to curl against her face. "You made me look like a movie star!" The light makeup Carrie had talked her into applying made her look different than usual. Add the fancy skirt and blouse she'd chosen, and she would call herself rather pretty.
"Do you think...?" she began before she realized what she would have said aloud. She reddened slightly and smiled at her reflection.
"I think Adam's jaw will hit the floor," Carrie filled in. "Along with every other one of your teammates. That is what you wanted to know, right?" Carrie grinned at the eye roll Maurae responded with and touched her shoulder. "That is what I was aiming for. If he didn't want to kiss you before, he definately will now."
"Stop playing matchmaker," Maurae said sternly, but the smile that teased her lips and the sparkling of her eyes gave the lie to her words. Carrie only smiled, intuitively guessing how her roommate felt about her friend.
A brisk knock sounded at the door and Maurae shivered, her stomach twisting nervously. She'd only ever dressed up in front of the team once, and she'd been twelve at the time. Now she was almost fifteen, and she didn't know what they would think. "That would be your ride. Are you going to get it, or should I?" teased Carrie. Maurae glared at her roommate and left the bathroom to open the door.
"Ro, we...holy shit!" Carrie smiled with smug pride as she listened to Ken Wu's stunned voice. Her roommate was blushing furiously, but Carrie was trying not to laugh. "We...uh, well, we're, um...ready to go. Scooter's giving us a ride...um, you look nice."
"Thanks, Ken," she replied breezily, grabbing her purse and twiddling her fingers at Carrie, noting her smirk, and then she was gone, out the door. Carrie got to it in time to watch Ken stare after her dazedly, then suddenly remember he was supposed to be going with her. She closed the door, sighing in satisfaction, and returned to her homework.
Maurae and Ken made it all the way to the first floor in silence, and he hurried to open the door for her, staring avidly, as though just realizing she was, in fact, a girl. She found it both disconcerting and flattering. He led her to the parking lot where Julie, Adam, Charlie, and Russ were waiting with Scooter, Mike Larson, and Dean Taylor, another Varsity boy. Julie and Russ were talking, leaning against the bench on the sidewalk.
The boys saw Ken first, but Julie's eyes passed over him and her jaw dropped when her eyes met Maurae's. "You're back faster than expected, Wu," Larson said, not seeing her, as she was right behind Ken.
"Yeah, we expected it to take longer," Charlie teased, craning his neck to see his friend. "Cause Ro takes so long in the shower and- holy crap!" His mouth fell open and stayed that way. "Shit! Ro, is that you?"
"One and the same," she said tartly.
"Are you wearing makeup?"
"It would seem that way, wouldn't it?" she shot back. Julie winked at her and grinned.
"I like your hair. Carrie?"
"Yeah. She practically tackled me when I got out of the shower. Made me sit until she'd dried it and styled it. I was bored out of my mind." She smirked at Julie and raised her eyebrow at her teammates. "Stop staring. I'll go back to being a tomboy tomorrow."
"We're not staring," Adam said in a dazed tone, though that was clearly not the case. "You look amazing." For a reason inexplicable to her and Adam, she flushed and looked away. Julie and Russ exchanged knowing looks, Charlie grinned as his gaze passed from one to the other and back again, Ken nodded to himself, and the Varsity boys shared sly smiles.
"Well, let's get going. We don't want to be late," Scooter said, opening the front door for Julie, who slid in with a small smile. He closed it once she was settled and moved to open the back door, but Adam jumped in front of him and yanked it open for Maurae. She, too, smiled as she slid in, her smile widening when he slid in next to her. The rest piled in and Scooter pulled out of the lot once they were belted in. Music blared from the superior stereo system, inhibiting conversation, so the ride was verbally silent. Maurae and Julie both "car danced" to the varying music, something all the guys found amusing. However, both girls ignored their grins and snickers.
It was almost six-twenty when they pulled up to the front door of the restaurant. Maurae, Julie, Russ and Ken all stared, having never seen the place that the in-state player considered part of the scenery.
The Minnesota Club was an exclusive restaurant in Minneapolis that normally none of the JV players could possibly have afforded, even as a group. But then again, they were all scholarship students. In fact, Adam was the only one who could have paid for his own meal among them. But since Varsity was paying...
Maurae was extremely gratified by the reaction of the rest of the party once they'd arrived. Luis was practically drooling and Adam almost got into a fistfight with the Latin boy when it came to choosing seats. In the end, Adam won, and he seemed quite happy about it too. Connie, Julie, and Maurae, being the only three girls present, exchanged compliments and started up their own conversation until they placed their orders.
"A salad?" Adam asked, aghast, when Maurae ordered a simple chicken Caesar. "That's all you're eating?"
She raised an eyebrow as the private room went slightly quieter. "You have a problem with what I want?" she asked pointedly.
"No," he said, ducking his head as he flushed. "It's just...this place has the best seafood in Minnesota! I know you love seafood. I kind of thought..."
"I'm having a Caesar salad, Adam." Her voice was firm. "Just because someone else is paying for my dinner doesn't mean I'm going to make a pig of myself." She handed her menu to the waiter, who smiled. A flash of teeth on Adam's other side made her look at Rick Riley. There was amusement in his smile, true, but there was also some bit of malicious enjoyment, something that made her exceedingly uncomfortable. She stood, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder. Julie, seeing where she was headed, leaned forward and raised an eyebrow at her. Maurae shook her head and left the room, headed for the bathroom.
When she got back, she slipped into her chair and Adam shot her an apologetic smile. She grinned and shook her head. His smile grew and he tilted his head towards Riley and rolled his eyes. That made her snicker, which she covered up with a sip of water when Riley glanced at her. She waited for him to look away and then rolled her eyes back at Adam. She then leaned close and fell into conversation with her best friend, probably the longest uninterrupted conversation they'd had since Adam had made Varsity, until their food arrived.
And when it did, Adam, naturally, offered her some of his shrimp alfredo. Which she, naturally, accepted with a smile. During food transfer, their eyes met and their smiles, the same in brightness, met and they stared at each other for a long time that lasted only a few seconds. And then both looked away. They avoided each other's gazes for the rest of the meal.
At one point, several of the boys got up to go to the bathroom, Adam among them. A moment after they left, Guy got up to follow. Maurae swallowed the bite of salad she was chewing and smiled. "And guys complain that we go to the bathroom in packs," she drawled dryly. Everyone chuckled and went back to their food.
When Adam returned, he looked depressed, but when she touched his arm gently, he wrenched away and wouldn't even look at her. The next few moments saw the rest of the departed boys returning, including Guy, who looked faintly gleeful about something.
Riley stood and tapped his glass with his knife. "On behalf of the Eden Hall Varsity state champion hockey team, I'd like to welcome the future state champs. The Eden Hall freshmen. Hear, hear!" Everyone laughed and raised their glasses, sipping at whatever they were drinking. "We're just glad you loaned us Banksie so we'd have a chance to beat you in the annual JV-Varsity showdown." He clapped Adam's shoulder hard then and Maurae watched her friend grimace, eyes fixed on the table angrily. "Now, nobody move. We've got one last surprise." Murmurs of speculation rippled among the Ducks as the Varsity boys started to stand and leave the private room. Riley grabbed Adam's shoulder when he stayed put. "Banksie," he said. The force he put behind it, and the warning in his tone made Maurae suspicious. She tried to grab Adam's arm, but he managed to evade her. Panic started rising then. Adam would never shake her off like that if she wanted his attention badly.
Once they were gone and the doors were closed, Guy grinned. "I don't want to spoil anything, but I overheard something in the bathroom. It's a cake!" The teammates nodded and smiled in appreciation. Maurae frowned, still concerned about Adam. The doors opened. "Act surprised, all right?" Guy added hurriedly.
No, none of them had any trouble acting surprised when the cake was rolled in. Goldberg read the script. "Thanks for dinner...losers!"
"Oh, man!" Guy moaned, sinking back into his chair as the maitre'd handed Charlie the bill. Reluctantly, the captain flipped the slip over and almost immediately started to loosen his tie, mouthing the total in complete disbelief. He tossed the bill on the table where Maurae picked it up.
"Eight hundred and fifty-seven dollars!" she exclaimed in horror.
"Where are we going to get that kind of cash?" Goldberg wailed.
Arms and legs aching from the endless cleaning and physical labor she'd been doing for the last three hours, Maurae trudged into her dorm building. The others had headed to the rink for some therapy-skating, and some decent revenge planning, but Maurae had something she needed to do before she even thought of therapy...or payback.
She unlocked the dorm hall's front door and started towards the stairs, but bit back a groan of the thought of climbing all those stairs. Instead, she leaned against the wall, pressing the elevator call button. Her pretty outfit, though still intact, was now decorated with bits of food pieces from the dishwashing. Her hair was a bit loose and more wisps were sticking to her face, courtesy of the sweating she'd done during the working off of their bill.
Once the elevator arrived, she hit the button for five and waited for the car to grind upwards. When the door opened, she stepped out and looked around. Several doors were open, which meant that the Varsity boys were awake, which was good, for her purposes. She heard voices and laughter coming from Scott and Adam's room, so that's where she headed. She wanted to talk to Adam anyway.
Stopping in the doorway, she took in the scene. Varsity players were sprawled over every available surface, and they were laughing and joking among themselves. Slowly, they noticed her and nudged those near him to shut up. She waited for silence and then Riley's inevitable smart remark.
Sure enough, "Hey there, princess. Something we can help you with?"
She ignored him completely. "Adam?" He looked up reluctantly, almost afraid to meet her eyes. "One question, and then I'm going back downstairs."
"Y-yeah?"
"Did you know?"
He hesitated and that was the last straw.
Her eyes widened and started to fill. "I stood up for you!" she whispered, struggling to contain her tears. "They told me to think of you as the enemy, and I defended you!"
"Ro, I-"
"Save it," she said coldly. "I can't deal with any of this right now."
"Ro!"
"Maybe tomorrow, Banks," she said stiffly. "When I've had a chance to calm down and think rationally again." It was more her calling him by his last name that kept him from trying once more to defend himself. She turned, but Riley wasn't about to let her get away with ignoring him.
"Hey, Grabeklis, who'd you dress to impress? Cause I'm impressed enough to pay you." She went rigid then turned, tears vanished from her eyes, replaced by anger.
"You want to pay me, Riley? Eight hundred and fifty-seven freaking dollars. That's my price. So you can: Kiss My Ass," she replied. Then she flashed an evil smile and whirled, leaving before he could have the last word. She ran down the stairs and stood outside her own door, staring at it for a minute before she sighed and pulled out her keys and unlocked it.
Carrie looked up and immediately knew something was wrong. "Girl, are you...?" Maurae looked up and scowled. Then she picked up her math textbook and hurled it at the closet. That wasn't enough, so she picked up her skates and chucked them, one after another, at the offending wardrobe. With a scream that was half sob, she threw her whole bag at the closet and then threw herself onto her bed, burying her face in her pillow, unable to hold in the tears any more.
That worried Carrie more than the inexplicable violence. She slipped off her bed and settled herself next to Maurae's shaking shoulders. "What's wrong?" she demanded.
"My life is shit," was the muffled response, and that was all Carrie could get her to say until someone knocked gently on the door. Getting up, Carrie hurried to it and threw it open to reveal Charlie, a wicked grin on his face.
He saw Carrie's worried expression and Maurae's heaving shoulders and surmised what had happened. He entered without a word and sat next to her on the bed. "He knew, didn't he?" he asked softly.
"He knew," she spat as she pushed herslef up, her face wet and her makeup smeared. Trying not to laugh, Charlie handed her a tissue to wipe her eyes, which she took gratefully and carefully wiped the remaining makeup off. "Charlie, I called him Banks. That's the first time I've ever done that. I felt like I was insulting him."
"From you, it is an insult," Charlie replied. "But do you want to hear our plan, or what?"
"Plan?"
"Physics," Charlie said, and Maurae raised an eyebrow.
"How can you be thinking about homework right now?"
"No, not homeowrk, Ro. Revenge." Her expression changed dramatically and she smiled, a wicked smile matching his. "I take that as a yes. Okay, remember the fire ants in the dean's office?"
"I don't think I should be listening to this," Carrie said. She pulled on her earphones and turned her CD player on loud. Then she gave Charlie a thumbs-up and he smiled back and continued.
"We're going to set them loose in the Varsity rooms, after they go to sleep tonight." Maurae's face lit up with the ingenuity of the plan.
"Have you figured it all out yet?"
"That's partly where you come in. We've figured out how to get them and how to keep the Varsity in their rooms, but no idea how to actually get the ants to go into the rooms and onto the beds and stuff." Maurae gnawed on her lip and stared at her hands as she pondered the problem. A picture started to resolve in her head and she used her hands to act it out for herself. Then she grinned triumphantly.
"That might work," she said softly, mostly to herself. "If we get some fishing line and a couple of poles...and we'd have to have lookouts to help us aim them..." Her eyes focused on Charlie and he waited expectantly for her brilliant plan. "Okay, you know that clear tubing we use in chemistry? Well, we have to get a lot of that and fasten it together so we can put the ants in one end and have them just run out any number of different ends, onto the target beds."
"How do we get them onto the beds? And what in God's name is the fishing line for?"
"Getting them onto the beds," she replied as if it were obvious. "Look, you know the windows above the doors? They don't lock, so all you have to do is stick someone's head through with a fishing pole so they can 'catch' the end of the tube to lift it onto the beds. The lookout outside will use binoculars or something and direct them. With me so far?"
Nodding eagerly, he got up. "That's good," he said. "I'll go fill in the others so we can get the stuff for it. Does Carrie mind if we use your room as a construction area?"
"As long as you don't make her leave, I think she'll be fine with it. She's probably got a lot of good, loud music that would cover up the noise, too. But Charlie, I don't want to do it. You know how I feel about bugs." Eyes glittering, he nodded.
"Hey, you did your part just by coming up with the how. Let us worry about carrying it out."
"Thanks." He nodded and went to collect the others and the supplies.
Ten minutes later, they started to arrive, bearing something to help with the plan. With Carrie looking on, torn between being appalled and being impressed by their ingenuity, they began constructing the monstrous maze of tubing they'd need to infest the Varsity's rooms.
Fifteen minutes after curfew, the hall monitor banged on the door. Maurae got up and answered it, smiling her best good-girl smile as she leaned on the door, giving the others time to roll up and conceal their "project." He looked at her skeptically. "Lights out in there. Send the others back to their own rooms." She nodded, smiling again and opened the door wider so the others could leave. The pieces were rolled up inside sweatshirts and backpacks.
"Wow, thanks man," Fulton said as he passed. "We lost track of time. Night, guys!" He ducked into his room and the others waved or spoke cheery 'goodnights' as the warden watched suspiciously. When all the doors had closed and no lights showed under them, he finally left, going back to the first floor and his own room. Maurae tiptoed to the stairs and waited, holding her breath, until the first floor door banged shut behind him. She counted to five more and then ducked back inside, carefully closing the door behind her.
She knocked twice on Charlie's door, then went down the hall, repeating the gesture until they were all alerted. They had their roles: Connie and Guy were lookouts with binoculars, Dwayne would keep a mobile watch on the whole building, preventing any Varsity wanderings into the middle of the plan. Maurae would be their alibi, Charlie and Russ would fetch the ants from the dean's office, and the rest would actually set it all up.
"Good luck," she whispered.
"Sleep well," Charlie shot back with a grin as she closed and locked her door. She sighed as she sank onto her bed.
"Am I bad?" she asked Carrie.
"Depends," her roommate responded, rolling over in the dark to look at her.
"On what?" Maurae asked sleepily, drifting towards dozing off.
"On whether that was a rhetorical question or not. Good night, Rae."
"Hmm...night..." And then Maurae was asleep, oblivious to any noise her teammates might have made carrying out her plan.