My Brother The Prankster

One morning, Joe was taking a shower in the bathroom across the hall from his and Steve's bedrooms on the upper floor*.

"There's nothing like a nice steamy shower to help you wake up in the morning." he said.

Joe then reached for his shampoo, squirted some in his hand, and began scrubbing his hair with it. However, what he didn't know was that what he thought was shampoo was something completely different, because he soon noticed that both his palms had been colored pink somehow.

"Huh?" he asked. "What's going on?"

Curious, Joe turned off the water, climbed out of the tub, and after slipping on a bathrobe in the same pattern as his pajamas, he went over to the sink and looked in the mirror above it, and the minute he looked in the mirror, he was shocked to find that his hair had turned pink!

"How did this happen?!" he gasped.

Joe then grabbed the bottle of what he thought was shampoo, hoping for answers, which he soon got when he discovered that what he had put in his hair was not shampoo at all, but it was actually pink hair dye. It didn't take too long for Joe to get an idea as to who might responsible for this.

"Oh...it is on..." Joe seethed.

Meanwhile, Steve was sitting at the kitchen table sipping a cup of coffee and having some oatmeal and bananas when Joe, still wearing his robe but now with his duck slippers on his feet, stormed over to him. Steve looked at Joe with a smug grin on his face.

"Did you have a nice shower?" he asked as he had another sip of coffee.

Joe just growled in anger in response, turned on his heels, and stormed off to the downstairs bathroom to have another shower.

"I just hope this isn't permanent." he sighed.

Later, after having his lunch, Steve was making himself an ice cream sundae. He had just placed the two halves of a banana in the sundae and was looking in the fridge.

"Now, where is that whipped cream?" he asked. "You can't call it a sundae without whipped cream."

Steve soon found what he was looking for, took it over to the counter, and scooped some out with a spoon, unaware that Joe, who had been able to wash all the dye out of his hair and was now dressed in his red shirt in addition to his usual khakis and shoes, was watching him from the entryway that led from the living room to the kitchen, with a mischievous grin on his face.

"Any second now..." he said.

Soon, Steve was finished making his sundae and sat down at the table to eat it. But the minute his taste buds made contact with the gloopy white substance he had topped it with, he immediately spat it out.

"Yuck!" he coughed. "What happened to the whipped cream?!"

Steve quickly checked the expiration date on the tub, but discovered that it wasn't due to expire for another two months.

"Okay, so it's not expired." he deducted. "What else could it be?"

At that moment, Steve recalled seeing a tub of sour cream next to the whipped cream in the refrigerator. Acting on a hunch, he took the tub out of the fridge and, after grabbing a plastic spoon from the pantry, tasted a spoonful of the sour cream, and found that it tasted sweet rather than sour as the name implied. Right away, Steve knew what had happened and who had done it. His hypothesis was confirmed when he heard Joe laughing his head off. Steve scowled deeply when he heard his brother's laughter.

"Laugh as much as you want, Joseph Donovan Burns." he growled. "But I'll be the one who has the last laugh."

The next day, Joe, now wearing his orange shirt, was at the end of the checkout line at the grocery store. The woman ahead of him noticed the small basketful of groceries he had.

"You can cut in front of me if you want." she offered.

"Really?" asked Joe.

"Yeah." replied the woman. "I don't mind. After all, you have less stuff than I do."

"Alright." Joe nodded. "Thanks."

And so, Joe moved to the spot ahead of the woman. Just as he did, however, a loud belching sound rang out, causing the other people in the checkout line to shoot awkward looks at Joe.

"What's the big deal, bub?" the man in front of Joe asked. "Didn't your mother ever tell you to cover your mouth when you burp like that in public?"

"That wasn't me." Joe denied.

But then, the belching sound came again, and it caused the other people to move to another lane.

"It wasn't me!" Joe repeated, louder this time.

The sound kept repeating over and over again, and Joe looked in all directions, trying to pinpoint the source of the strange sound.

"Where is that sound coming from?" he asked.

Joe then fished his wallet out of his pocket, and as he did, he felt it vibrate from the sound waves, therefore revealing the wallet to be the source of the sound.

"Why is my wallet burping?" Joe wondered out loud.

Joe then opened his wallet, and sure enough, tucked inside one of the pockets, was a tiny speaker that had the belching sound eminating from it. Joe immediately figured out who had put the device in his wallet.

"Steve!" Joe growled as he crushed the speaker in his hand.

The scene then cut to show Steve, who was repeatedly pressing a button on a miniscule remote control while smugly sitting on the couch.

"I wonder if this is even working." he said.

"You wonder if what is working?" a voice then asked.

It was Steve and Joe's cousin, Josh, who was just planting himself down next to Steve at that moment.

"What, this?" asked Steve. "Oh, just a little something I cooked up for Joe."

Then, as if on cue, an irate Joe stormed in with a bag containing the groceries he had bought.

"Joe?" Josh asked as he stood up. "What's wrong?"

Joe said nothing, and he fumed his way to the kitchen while making a "loser" sign at Steve, who just rolled his eyes, then rose from his seat and went elsewhere, leaving Josh standing there with a very confused expression on his face.

"What was that all about?" he asked.

Sidetable Drawer, who had overheard the whole thing, responded.

"After Joe moved in, he and Steve started having prank wars around this time of year." she explained.

"Why?" asked Josh.

"To see which one of them can pull the better pranks than the other." Sidetable went on. "Joe won last year, and Steve won the year before. The two years before the year Steve won were both ties."

"I see." said Josh. "Should I be concerned?"

"Not really, because they're just a couple of brothers messing around with each other." Sidetable went on. "Plus, we are used to this. However, that doesn't mean we don't watch our backs whenever this happens. You should too, because, well, let me put it like this; things start to get a little crazy when these prank wars take place, because they go to great lengths to try and outdo each other."

"Got it." Josh replied with a nod.

Later on, after lunch, Steve, and Joe were watching a movie on TV. Steve was eating a bowl of banana pudding that Joe had made, but he soon found that there was something strange about it.

"This tastes funny." he said.

"What do you mean?" asked Joe.

"My pudding." Steve replied. "I mean, it doesn't taste terrible, but it doesn't taste the best either. Plus, it's a bit spicier than usual. Did you do anything to it?"

"Gee, bro, I don't know what to tell you." Joe shrugged. "I mean, I made it the same way I always make it."

Joe then turned his smug face away as he nonchalantly took out a bottle.

"But I did add some of this, though." he said.

One glance at the bottle's label explained everything to Steve, as it turned out it was a bottle of Mad Dog 357 hot sauce. At that moment, Steve's face started to turn red from the heat of the sauce, and beads of sweat started to pour down his face.

"Oh, you're good..." he scowled. "But mark my words, I'll be the one who comes out on top in the end!"

Steve them jumped up from his seat and made a mad dash for the kitchen while Joe just sat there watching with a calculating grin.

"Yeah, you keep thinking that." Joe sneered. "You have plenty of time to."

Meanwhile, Steve had made it to the kitchen, where he threw open the fridge, grabbed a jug of milk, and proceeded to guzzle its contents down straight from the jug, splashing his face and the front of his shirt with the milk in the process. Eventually, he felt the burning sensation go away completely.

"Okay...I think it's all gone now..." Steve panted as he replaced the cap on the now three-quarters-empty jug and put it back in the fridge.

Unknown to Steve, the Shaker family had witnessed the whole thing, and Sage and Ginger were squealing with laughter at what they had just seen Steve do. Even Mrs. Pepper found it amusing.

"Goodness, Steve, I never knew you liked milk that much." she giggled.

"Yeah, you must really be in love with your bones today." added Cinnamon.

"Sure." said Steve. "Let's put it that way."

"You better go get yourself cleaned up." Mr. Salt said.

Steve just nodded and reached for a paper towel, but soon found out that the paper towels were not on the wall-mounted hanger where they usually were. Instincts told him what had happened to them.

"Hiding the paper towels too, eh, Joe?" he scoffed. "How mature of you. But don't think you've won yet."

The next morning, while Joe was having another shower, Steve, who was already dressed, went over to his brother's dresser, cracked his knuckles, and opened Joe's underwear drawer. He grabbed a pair from the drawer and set it on Joe's bed. This was followed by him grabbing one of Joe's yellow shirts and setting that on the bed next to the underwear.

"He definitely won't see this coming." Steve snickered to himself.

Steve then took out a container of some sort, opened it, and began pouring a powder-like substance on the underwear and shirt.

"Oops!" he said sarcastically as he did this.

Once he was satisfied with this, Steve bolted to his own room, which was next to his brother's. He kicked off his shoes, laid down on his bed, and pretended to fall asleep. A while later, his ears picked up the sound of Joe screaming in agony. This was followed by Joe bursting into Steve's room, mad as a hornet while scratching his sides, arms, back, and waist.

"YOU!" roared Joe. "Are you kidding me?! Are you going to do this every time I take a shower?!"

"Shhh, I'm taking my mid-morning nap." said Steve in a lying voice.

"Well, excuse me." huffed Joe. "I hope you enjoy your nap, because when you wake up, you're back on the front lines, Big Brother!"

"Until then..." said Steve.

Steve then looked up at Joe and blew a raspberry at him. Joe just rolled his eyes and went off to take yet another shower. However, what Steve didn't know was that Joe had started brewing another prank.

"Steve's really in for it now." he chuckled.

Later that night, when Steve was still asleep, Joe quietly crept into his brother's room. Seeing that Steve was sleeping on his back, Joe took Steve's left arm and carefully adjusted it into a certain position, then he took a photo with his phone with the shutter turned off.

"This is gonna be rich." Joe sneered.

The next morning, Joe, now wearing his purple shirt, was sitting on his own bed flipping through a comic book when he heard Steve's angry voice from downstairs.

"JOE! GET DOWN HERE!" Steve shouted.

After setting his comic book down, Joe slipped on his shoes and went downstairs, where he found Steve sitting at the computer. Steve was livid.

"Would you like to explain what this is?!" Steve demanded, pointing to the computer screen.

Joe looked at the screen, which was showing Steve's Facebook page, and on the page was the picture Joe took of him, which showed him sleeping with his finger in his nose.

"What's the big deal?" Joe shrugged. "It's just a dumb picture of you picking your nose while sleeping."

"You hacked my Facebook!" growled Steve.

"To be fair, "anteaterman" isn't a very strong password." Joe pointed out. "Even Blue or Sprinkles could have cracked it easily."

That only fueled Steve's anger more.

"Alright, Wise Guy, if that's how you want to play, then so be it." he declared.

But on the inside, Steve knew what Joe said about his password was true.

"On the other hand, maybe I should change my password." he thought to himself. "I'll worry about that later, though."

However, unknown to neither Steve nor Joe, Josh had overheard the exchange between his cousins while playing Connect Four with Sprinkles.

"Okay, this is starting to get out of hand." Josh said to himself. "Maybe it's time I got involved. But how? I'll think of a way."

Later that same day, Joe was on his way home after a trip to the library when he suddenly heard people laughing.

"What's all that about?" he pondered out loud.

Joe soon traced the laughter to a crowd of people gathered by the community bulletin board, and when he saw what everyone was laughing at, his jaw dropped. There, tacked to the board, was a photo of Joe, in his pajamas, sleeping in his bed while sucking his left thumb and holding his stuffed duck, Boris, in the crook of his right arm. It had been printed onto a piece of printer paper. Nervously, Joe pushed his way through the crowd and pulled the picture from the tack that was holding it to the board.

"Nothing to see here, folks!" he grinned sheepishly.

With that, the crowd slowly dispersed, and Joe turned back to the photo in his hand. As his eyes gazed upon the photo, anger consumed him.

"Steve did this!" he growled. "I'm sure of it!"

In a fit of rage, Joe crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into a recycling bin, then went on his way, his blood boiling with anger.

"You've really crossed the line this time, Steve." Joe said. "And I'll make sure this comes back to bite you."

The next morning, Steve had finished taking a shower and opened his dresser drawer where he kept his underwear, but was surprised to find that there was only one pair in the drawer.

"That's funny." said Steve. "I could have sworn there was much more than this."

Steve then looked in his sock drawer, but like with his underwear, there was only one pair of socks in the drawer. A look in his closet revealed that there was only one green-striped shirt and one pair of khakis.

"Okay, what is going on here?" Steve thought out loud as he started to get dressed. "Where are all my clothes?"

The scene then cut to show Joe, wearing his green shirt, standing outside next to Blue, who had a concerned look on her face as she and Joe were looking up at something.

"I'm not sure, Joe." Blue was saying. "Steve's going to be very mad when he sees this."

The scene changed to show that Joe and Blue were looking up at a couple of trees, which had the rest of Steve's clothes strewn across their canopies, obviously having been thrown up there by Joe.

"Ah, let him." said Joe. "He deserves it, anyway."

"If you say so." shrugged Blue.

Back upstairs, Steve, who was now fully dressed, had taken a peak outside from the window, and, just as Blue suspected, he was red in the face with anger.

"Oh, you've really lost it this time, Joe..." he snarled.

Later on, Joe was going into the kitchen to fix himself some lunch.

"I think I might have some of that leftover penne pasta from last night." he said.

However, the moment Joe opened the fridge, a scary clown face shot forward on a spring, throwing out a maniacal laugh in the process.

"EE-YOWWWWW!" Joe screamed as he literally fell on his back.

Steve, who had been watching from the kitchen entryway, roared with laughter as he watched his brother's reaction.

"One more point for me." he snickered.

Joe heard his brother laughing, and, after regaining his composure, looked over at Steve and scowled.

"I should have known..." he grumbled.

Josh, who was having his lunch at the kitchen table, had also seen this.

"Gee, Sidetable wasn't kidding." he said to himself. "They really are trying to outdo each other."

But then, Josh had an idea.

"That settles it." he decided. "It's time I stepped in. But I'll need help, though. And I think I know just the person to ask."

Josh then took out his cell phone and opened his contacts. He soon found the number he was looking for and dialed it. It wasn't long before the person he was calling answered and greeted their caller.

"Hey, Clint, it's me." Josh replied. "Can you come over here, please? I need your help with something."

The next day, Joe, wearing his blue shirt, was pacing around in his room thinking of a way to get Steve back.

"What should I do to Steve next?" he pondered out loud. "I have to do something neither of us have done before in our past prank wars."

Just then, Joe noticed his laptop, which was sitting on a desk in a corner of the room.

"Maybe the internet might give me some ideas." he decided.

Joe logged onto his laptop and began browsing the web for prank ideas. His search was interrupted by a notification alert sound from his phone. When he checked his phone, he discovered that Josh had started a group chat with him and Steve. The message Josh had sent was one inviting his cousins outside to the backyard for a surprise.

"Might as well see what Josh wants." Joe shrugged as he logged off his laptop.

Joe then left his room at the same time Steve was leaving his.

"I guess you saw Josh's group text as well?" he asked.

"Yeah." nodded Steve. "I wonder what Josh wants."

"There's only one way to find out." said Joe.

And so, the brothers went downstairs and outside to the backyard, where they soon found Josh waiting at the picnic table with a picnic basket. Neither of them noticed the rope that was tied to one of the seats.

"Can I assume this is the surprise?" Steve asked.

"Yep." replied Josh as he began setting out paper plates. "Since it's such a beautiful day out today, I figured I'd treat my cousins to a nice picnic lunch outside. Go ahead and get your food."

Then, Josh pretended he forgot something.

"Oops! I forgot the napkins." he lied. "I'll be right back. You guys can start eating without me if you'd like."

"Oh, okay." said Joe.

With that, while Steve and Joe sat next to each other at the table, Josh went back inside the house through the back door. After closing the door behind him, Josh took a position near the kitchen window, then took a walkie-talkie out of his pocket.

"It's time, Clint." he said.

The scene then showed Clint, who was at the helm of his 1976 Ford F-150 4x4 pickup truck (which had been idling elsewhere in the backyard), and speaking to Josh on another walkie-talkie.

"I thought you'd never ask." Clint said.

Back at the picnic table, Steve and Joe were indulging in the sandwiches Josh had made for their picnic, with Steve having a peanut butter and banana sandwich and Joe having a turkey sandwich with cheese and pickles. Halfway through the meal, however, something surprising happened, for at that moment, their bench seat was suddenly pulled out from under them, and they both fell flat on their bottoms as a result.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" asked Steve.

"Don't look at me!" replied Joe. "I didn't do anything!"

"Me neither!" said Steve.

Just then, they both heard someone laughing hysterically. They looked up and saw Josh approaching them, howling with laughter.

"Boy, I got you guys real good!" Josh laughed. "You should have seen the looks on your faces!"

Steve and Joe were dumbfounded.

"Josh?" they both gasped.

"You did this?" asked Steve.

"Yep." Josh replied with a smug grin. "I had a little help, though."

"From who?" asked Joe.

"From me." said a voice.

It was Clint, who was coming over to join Josh and his cousins.

"Josh and I spent all of yesterday afternoon plannin' this here prank." Clint said. "I came over yesterday and loosened the bolts holdin' your seat to your picnic table, then earlier today, I came over and helped Josh tie the seat to my truck."

As Steve and Joe listened to the story, they stood there with their mouths gaping in surprise.

"So, does that mean...?" Steve began.

"That's right." Josh finished as he smugly crossed his arms. "I set you guys up."

Steve and Joe exhanged a still-shocked glance, but then, they cracked smiles and started to laugh.

"Man, Josh, you sure hit it out of the park with that one!" said Steve.

"Yeah, that was genius!" agreed Joe. "Even Steve and I couldn't have thought that!"

Everyone had a good laugh. Later that evening, when everyone was having dinner, Blue decided to ask about the outcome of the prank war.

"So, who won this year's prank war?" Blue asked.

"You're not gonna believe this, but after some careful consideration, Joe and I decided that Josh wins this year's prank war." said Steve.

Steve and Joe wasted no time in telling everyone about the prank Josh had pulled on them with Clint's assistance, and they all congratulated Josh on his unexpected victory. The next morning, Joe was in the shower once again, and as he was shampooing his hair, he noticed his palms had turned a different color, and when he turned off the water, exited the shower, and looked in the mirror, he saw that once again, his hair had turned a different color. However, rather than getting angry this time around, Joe just shook his head and chuckled with amusement.

"I see it's green this time." he said.

The End

* I should have mentioned something about this beforehand, but I didn't think about it until now, so now I'll just go ahead and explain: In these oneshots, the Blue's Clues House now has an upper floor housing Steve and Joe's bedrooms along with a second bedroom. This is to reflect on how Josh is the current host of the franchise, and therefore now sleeps in the bed originally used by Steve and Joe in the original series, and also how in the original series, the Season 5 episode "Meet Polka Dots" shows that the house does have a set of stairs, but is unknown where they lead to, so I decided to fix that issue for these oneshots.