Right now, I was just going to have to satisfy myself with being just friends.

So we talked for a long time, avoiding the topic of Alfred, and for once Arthur seemed a little better. He told me about the mew guitar he wanted to buy and how he probably wouldn't have enough money for it without having to sell a few of his organs, and about things that were really trivial. But it didn't matter. I was just happy that he was happy. I stayed for dinner, and most of the evening. It was around ten o'clock when I got back home.

"Oh, you're home. Where were you, kid?" Dad asked. He was sitting with Alfred watching a football game. Alfred was very immersed in the game and Dad looked exhausted. The poor man had probably had to deal with consoling the emotional post-break-up Alfred on his own, which can't have been very much fun. At least Alfred wasn't crying any more.

"At a friend's house." I said. Avoiding Arthur's name was really the best thing to do in the situation. I don't think anyone wanted to deal with Alfred curling up into the fetal position and crying. He'd already done that several times today. Dad sent me pictures of him while I was at Arthur's. He looked like an oversized infant. It was very disturbing.

"Which friend?" He asked.

"I'd rather not say."

"Do you have a boyfriend too? Please kid, I don't think I can deal with any more teenage romance." He said tiredly. Once again, I felt sympathy for Dad, or well anyone who had to deal with more than one teenager at once. I mean, we can be a pretty big handful most of the time.

"No. I just don't think that it's fit to mention their name."

"Oh!" He picked up the hint. "Did you have fun?"

"Yeah." I said, turning to leave "Oh! And by the way, Gilbert's having a movie night tomorrow, so I'll be out late."

"A movie night? Is that what the kids are calling it now? If you want to go out and party, just ask." He smiled.

"It's not a party, it's just a movie night!" I told him as I left the room and started to climb up the stairs.

"Whatever, just make sure Gilbert doesn't get you too drunk." He called.

"Yeah, yeah." I called back as I entered my room. I didn't have any homework that was worth doing for tomorrow, so I pretty much had a free night. I watched a few hockey games online and messaged my friends. Francis and I tried to get Gilbert to share his plans for his "ultra awesome" prank that he had planned for the unsuspecting Mr. Beilschmidt tomorrow. I wondered if this was just Gilbert being himself and not wanted to be outdone by anyone, even if they were a teacher, or something else. I mean, he seemed a lot more interested in Mr. Beilschmidt than he had been in any other teacher. But then again, I was probably just being too deep. We hadn't had a student teacher for a while, so fresh meat was scarce. I guessed Gilbert was pretty excited at the chance to be able to prank someone who knew nothing about how he worked.

I liked thinking about Gilbert's prank. It distracted me from thinking about Arthur again for a few hours. But I still couldn't stop thinking about him. He'd seemed better when I left, but I wasn't sure. I don't know whether it was just me being paranoid or over-concerned or whatever you want to call it, but I felt like there was more going on in Arthur's mind than he was letting on. The more disturbing part of this was that it was something that he couldn't tell me. We told each other everything, absolutely everything. So why did I sense that Arthur was holding something back from me? Something that I really needed to know?

Anyways, now wasn't the time to think about Arthur. Now was the time to sleep. I had to make sure to get to school early if I wanted to be ready for the prank. Gilbert was apparently going to give us a quick debriefing of all of our roles before we went to gym. When I asked where we'd signed up to be a part of his prank, he told us that it came with being his friend, which was true. But awesome parties and lots of other cool stuff came with being his friend too. So the next morning, I was up bright and early and was about to leave before Alfred had even gotten up.

"You're up early." My mom commented as I rushed my breakfast and headed for the door. "In a rush?"

"Yeah, I…err…" I tried to think up of an excuse to my early departure that didn't involve Gilbert or his prank. "I need to see my French teacher for some help." I lied.

"Okay then." Mom replied, not entirely paying attention. I left, and walked to school. By the time I got there, I realized that I was more than half an hour early. I pushed open the main door of the school and headed to the gym quietly, not expecting to find anyone. I was wrong. Instead, I saw a tired-looking Gilbert and Ivan, being as quiet as usual.

"Matty-boy!" Gilbert said, standing up and throwing his arms out at my arrival.

"I told you to stop calling me that!" I said.

"No! It suits you!" Gilbert said.

"Are you going to tell me about your prank or not?" I asked.

"Well, I've been up with Ivan all night setting it up. It's timed and everything. I'm going to go to the roof and set it off, and after that, we have five minutes to get him to stand under the broken skylight in the gym. By the way, you guys'll be in the splash radius, you're fine with that right? Francis was too much of a pussy and said that he wasn't going to get it in his hair." Gilbert explained. So that's where Francis was. Arthur was probably going to get up any earlier than he had to and I highly doubted that anyone wanted to contact Alfred right about now.

"So what do we do now?" Ivan asked.

"We double check everything." Gilbert said. "And then we get coffee." He added tiredly. We climbed up the tree which grew nearby a few one-storey classroom buildings, and then from that we climbed up fire escapes and stuff until we got to the roof, where Gilbert showed his prank. It looked like something someone would enter into one of those robot death-match things where teams would make their own robots and smashed them against each other. Next to it was a giant cool-box.

"Uh… What does it do?" I asked.

"Just wait and see." He said. And then we went back into the school and got coffee, drinking it and wondering just how awesome the prank would be.

Hey! LLF here with another rambling insanity corner!

Firstly, out team managed to raise $1400 for kids with cancer, so yeah, that's pretty cool. My *friend's* band sucked though. We left halfway through their performance to listen to the much better one playing in the main hallway.

Secondly, this makes me think of wonderful high school pranking. I mean, just today me and my friend took my not-exactly-friend's backpack and then sprayed it and everything in it with tons of perfume so that he smelled flowery and girly all day. Hilarious!

Thirdly, what do you think Prussia's prank is going to be? Tell me in the reviews!

Prussia: Kesesese! They'll never expect it!

LLF: Where the hell did you come from?!

REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW PLEASE

Long days and pleasant nights,

LLF