An update so soon? It must be witchcraft! Or the weekend… take your pick ;)

BTW, happy 2 month anniversary of this story! Hip-hip, hooray!

Chloe POV

When I opened my eyes, it was still dark, but the sky was lightening. I sensed movement around me, and I registered that we were still in the car. Groggily, I peered at the time on my phone screen. 5:34 am. Joy.

I tried to sit up a little better, but I was being pinned by a huge, black-swathed something. I followed it up to the shoulder, and then the neck, and then the sleeping face of Derek, and I moaned in my head. Okay, I was never getting up, fine. I settled back down, not wanting to wake him up. Because that would be rude. I looked to my right and saw a freeway sign pass by. I drew from it that we were somewhere in New Jersey. Woo, I was right! We were so going to go clubbing! Uh huh, Aunt Lauren would totally go for that.

Mr. Bae and Lauren hadn't noticed me yet. I noticed they had switched places, and she was driving now.

For the next hour or so, I relaxed with my iPod. Or at least I tried to. I noticed for the first time since… meeting him… that Derek snored. Like, really loud. I was fairly certain that I would be deaf by the time he woke up, not to mention crushed flat by his gargantuan arm. But I wasn't complaining. Love has its ugly side, too, right?

We pulled off the freeway after a while, the sound of paper crinkling sounding in the front. Derek woke with a start, looked around, and then realized where he was. He noticed his arm on me, and pulled it away, brow furrowing.

"Wasn't that annoying?" he asked me.

"A little. Not much," I replied. He frowned.

"Why didn't you wake me up if it was bugging you?" he asked me in an undertone, and I just shrugged one shoulder. He rolled his eyes.

"No need to be a martyr," he muttered, and scooted away, giving me a bit of room. In the middle row, I noticed only Tori's shock of black hair on the seat. I leaned forward a bit, and saw a honey blonde splash of color on the floor of the car. Whoa, I didn't actually think even Tori could be selfish enough to make Simon sleep on the floor. It kind of amazed me.

By that time, Lauren had noticed Derek's and my short conversation, and she looked at me in the rear view mirror. I noticed no trace of anger in her gaze, but I knew that she was good at hiding emotions. I was likely going to get it later.

"You guys hungry or anything?" she asked, and while I shook my head, Derek predictably nodded. She bobbed her head and made a quick turn down a main street. She came up to a McDonalds and got something for all of us, though only a few of us wanted food.

Within 20 minutes, both Tori and Simon had woken up and returned to their normal seats, Simon looking tired and pissed, rubbing his neck occasionally, wincing.

We finally arrived at a suitable hotel. Yes, a hotel. Better than a motel, but more expensive too. I wondered where exactly we were getting our funds from. I'd have to ask someone, see what I could do, because it wasn't fair for just one person to do that.

Inside, the interior, while nice, looked cheap enough. We checked in and hauled our few belongings up to the rooms. Same arrangement as before, girls and guy separated. By then, we were all awake, and we packed away our stuff. As I did, I checked out the living quarters for the next… however long we would be there. As I did, I noted that the set-up of the room looked perfect, space-wise, to implement many awesome pranks.

After a half hour or so, I went down to check out the amenities. There was a pool in the courtyard, which could be the scene for a prank. Look at me, thinking like a truly obsessed prankster now. Derek would be proud.

At that moment, as if drawn by his name, Derek bounded up to me, standing beside the water.

"You have no idea what I have just remembered." I waited for him to start making sense.

"Okay. So I was just inside the hotel room. Simon was off doing something or another, and my dad was standing by the window. Out of nowhere, this cockroach crawls across it. He jumps about a foot in the air before gingerly flicking it away with a newspaper. This reminded me that he has a deadly fear of bugs." I looked at him in awe, a huge grin spreading across my face as I realized what he was thinking.

"And this means…" I started, and he beamed broadly.

"We have ourselves a winner," he proclaimed, and I laughed.

"Whoo hoo!" I yelled, triumphant already, before stopping.

"How in the hell are we supposed to get that many bugs?" I asked, and he didn't even stop for a second, having planned it while sprinting down here, apparently.

"Pets stores have them, but they're slightly expensive. We'd only be able to afford maybe a hundred, and that's nowhere near enough."

"Are you saying we have to find a park and dig around in it and capture bugs?" He nodded grimly. I sighed, but then smiled.

"It's cool. Gotta work harder for some pranks." He smiled at me.

"I'm really glad you're not like Tori." He told me.

Derek POV

"Whoo! We're gonna dig up bugs! I feel like it's 1st grade all over again!" Chloe shouted to the sky beside me, her hands in the air. I chuckled and shook my head, and nudged her shoulder. She looked up to grin at me.

"This is gonna be fun, partner in crime. So, math genius, how long will it take to dig up roughly one thousand bugs?" I pondered the question for a second.

"I'd assume around 4 hours. Of course, that depends on extraction speed, which you would have to add to the time to store them, divided by the speed of the person, which-" She moaned loudly, cutting me off.

"Simplistic, please!" she whined. I smiled.

"I was just kidding."

"Derek Souza, kidding? Has the apocalypse just occurred? Has hell frozen over? Has Tori just said please? What has the world come to?" she cried, and I chuckled.

"Come on. Them bugs ain't diggin' themselves!" She followed my footsteps, gardening supplies clinking inside the burlap sacks. It's amazing what a few compliments can get you with the janitorial staff, who just happen to have keys to every place on the property.

"This looks like a good spot." I stopped at the edge of the wooded area at the edge of the park, looking around. She came up beside me and nodded, and knelt at the ground. She immediately started rooting around for any type of bug. I followed her lead.

An hour later, we were both covered in dirt and had achieved finding a little over 100 bugs each. A few centipedes, some ants, and a spider or two, determined to be non-venomous, were shoved unceremoniously in to the sacks. The weave was small enough to keep them inside. I was sure to roll it up tightly, making sure none escaped.

"Okay, this is good. We're a quarter way there," Chloe said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand and leaving yet another streak of dirt. Just then, she jumped and looked to her left, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Liz," she said, seemingly to no one. I knew better, though.

"Um, well it's kind of weird, but we're digging for bugs to scare Mr. Bae with," she said, making a face.

"No way, are you serious? That'd save us so much time! Where is it?" She nodded, and then stood up, taking the burlap bag with her.

"Liz says there's a huge colony of ants over this way, and a nest of centipedes with about 200 of the buggers inside," she relayed to me, and I stood gladly, my aching knees cheering in response.

"Cool. Let's go." We walked to a spot about 50 yards from our previous spot, and came upon a large anthill about the size of a small toddler. I grinned, and shook out a fresh bag. I walked carefully up to the hill, and stretched the bag over it. I quickly flipped it over, taking the hill with me. Underground, about a quarter of the previous structure was left, and presumably even less ants. I grinned, as did Chloe.

"Well, that made things a lot easier. Where did you say the centipedes were again, Liz?" Chloe asked the ghost. She moved to another spot in the clearing, and tapped her foot against the ground, presumably where the nest was

"And we get to them how?" she asked, and then made a motion for me to hand her the shovel. I did, and watched her work.

She carefully drew a circle where Liz guided her, the outline of where she'd dig. She then instructed me to hold a sack open right where she needed it. Then, she abruptly shoved her shovel in to the ground and flipped a huge, moving chunk of earth in to the sack. I watched the centipedes swarm out of their hole, and, making me proud, Chloe didn't even flinch. She just continued scooping them up, and tossing them in the bag. Soon enough, they were mostly gone.

"Okay, so in 20 minutes we went up around 500 bugs. And do you know of any other secret bug hideouts?" she asked Liz, and then got a response that made her blanch.

"Chloe? What's wrong?" I asked her, and she just shook her head quickly, a determined expression quickly covering her face.

"There's a…" she faltered, and then started again.

"A huge spidery bush a little ways away from here. About 50 spiders, daddy long legs."

"And you went white as a ghost because…?" She gave me a long glance, before finally muttering ashamedly, "I'm scared of spiders." I chuckled, and she glared at me.

"No, no, it's not that. It's just that you were so brave with the centipedes, I just didn't think you were really scared of bugs," I told her, but it didn't help.

"No, it's fine. I'm going to go over there and get some spiders in the bag."

"You don't have to do that…" I hedged, and was immediately regaled with a smile.

"Awesome!" she chirped, and tossed me the shovel. Alright then…

I marched over to where Chloe instructed me to go. I found the bush, decorated with spider webs galore. I decided to uproot it and shake it over another sack, and catch all the spiders that way.

I set to work doing this, occasionally brushing a spider off the side of the sack or trying to crawl up my arm. Eventually I got them all in the bag. I sealed it tightly and brought it back to the other clearing. Chloe shuddered slightly when I set the bag down next to her, and I shook my head, smiling.

"You can't really be that scared of spiders, can you?" She just gave me a fierce look that said yes, yes she could.

In another two hours, we had gotten enough pests to really scare the crap out of Kit. We carefully picked up the bags and started our trek back home. Sure, we got a few weird looks, but that's the price we pay for one of the best pranks ever. Hell yeah.

We stopped at Pet Smart on the way home, and I walked in while Chloe held the few sacks outside, the gardening tools leaning against the wall. I asked where I could get live bugs from the lady, and she led me to the amphibian area. She showed me some crickets and such, and I grinned on the inside, remembering a particular incident when I was younger, directly involving a rather large cricket, a shower, and neighbors calling the police. Needless to say, there's a reason we don't go to a small city in Massachusetts anymore…

I bought the biggest amount of crickets I could afford, and I peered at them inside their little plastic cage, hopping around. I thanked the attendant and paid, and went back out to Chloe, who was attracting some unnecessary attention. I took some bags from her and the gardening tools, murmuring in her ear to hurry.

We made it back to the hotel at a little past three. We would have to hurry to get this prank up and ready in time. I hurried to the guys' room, and checked with what everyone was doing.

My father was talking with Simon about plans for going to the beach the next day or something. I checked what the plans were for that night, and apparently we were going out to an Applebee's around town. I nodded, knowing that Chloe wouldn't mind sacrificing that to implement our evil scheme. Lauren came out of the next room just as I walked out; she smiled vaguely at me and knocked on the other door. I went downstairs to find Chloe chatting with the door guy.

"So we're trying to prank the rest of them so we can keep our awesome reputation. Oh, her Derek." She grinned and sidled up to me. I asked her where the equipment was.

"Oh, there were some handy little rack things in the garden shed, I just used those to hang up the bags." I followed her out the back door and found the place she was talking about.

"Oka, good. We'll leave them there for the moment. The others are going out to eat tonight, so just make sure you stay. I don't care what you say, just make it convincing. We'll then put the bugs in place. When they come back, sparks will fly." We grinned at each other in the afternoon light.

The rest of the afternoon passed smoothly, with no one guessing what we were up to. When it finally came time for them to leave, I did my best to feign interest in something in the motel room, saying I'd be fine there for the night. It worked well enough. Once I was sure they were in the elevator, I went next door. Chloe was there, sitting on her bed, as planned.

We worked quickly, moving the bags up in one trip. I checked inside to make sure all the bugs were there, and sure enough, hundreds of beady little eyes and antennae peered back at me. I rolled the tops of the sacks so nothing could easily escape, and threaded string through each one. I tied the string to the bed sheets, so that when they were pulled back, the bags would open and hoards of angry little beasts would come marching out. This was going to rock.

Chloe arranged the sheets over the bumps to make it look normal, and then started setting up cameras around the room. Cameras and video recorders, of course. (AN: Magical video cameras that a faerie brought in the night… because I don't think they had them before… :0) Because no picture in the world would be enough to recount this event with. I grinned as she worked, thinking of the major blackmail this would turn out to be.

When I heard the elevator ding at the end of the hall, and the sound of 4 sets of footsteps, I turned on and set to record the cameras. I moved out of the shot and waited for them to come in. I settled down on my bed with a book to look as though I had been there the whole time.

I didn't look up when Simon and my father walked in, instead choosing to incline my head a bit in their direction, acknowledging them.

This part of the evening passed a lot slower, with me waiting anxiously for my father to finally start getting ready for bed. He showered, watched the news, chatted with Lauren, everything but go to bed. I was going to have to shorten the videos by a lot. But when he finally did put on his PJ's, I knew the fun was about to begin.

He made his way to his bed as if in slow motion, every step taking 5 seconds. Or maybe it was just me.

When he pulled back his covers, the burlap sacks were revealed and he had a moment to wonder confusedly about them. Then, the strings tautened, and they sprang open. Within seconds, the entire bed was coated in a mixture of creepy-crawlies of all shapes and sizes. The scream emitted from my father was unbelievable. It was, without a doubt, the best scream ever. Or the worst, depending on your point of view. Honestly, he sounded like a little 4 year old toddler screaming because she saw a "monster in her closet". Yeah, exactly.

But what happened next was even funnier. The sea of bugs ran off the sides of the bed and began to pool around his slippered feet. His shriek grew louder and became the soundtrack for his new dance. He lifted his feet in some sort of demented Irish jig, trying frantically not to let the bugs touch him. But this had to get more interesting.

I went up to the bed, and since I'm such a nice person, I scooped a handful of bugs away from my dad's feet. He gave a quick sigh of relief, but it was soon squelched. I poured the begs directly over him, covering his face and hands. His reaction was hilarious. He proceeded to run around, screaming, his hands flying to his head to try and brush off the bugs, with little success. He then tried to stop, drop, and roll, apparently, but soon learned that he shouldn't, due to the bug paste on the ground that occurred because of it.

When Kit had first screamed, Chloe had come running in, cackling quietly. Lauren and Tori had followed her. Tori was reacting in much the same way as Kit, which made it a double prank and therefore all the more funnier. Simon ran up and tried to help, but he only made it worse by accidentally flinging a bug right in Tori's face when he flicked one off her shoulder. She screamed loudly, and turned and ran right in to Lauren, who screamed in turn.

As the pandemonium ensued in front of us, I turned to my partner in crime, who was watching the fiasco like it was Saturday Night Live.

"Well done, partner," I told her, giving her a hi-five. She replied, beaming.

"Well done indeed."

And this chapter idea was brought to you by, Suzi1811. You rock, girl! Seriously, this story wouldn't kick half as much ass as it does, without you :) Hehe, I love you my tasty little lemon drops. OMFG I have a cheer competition in Disneyland tomorrow! Huge, huge, huge thing! I'm so excited and nervous XP Wish meh luck! Now, if you please, hit the review button.

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