A canoe waded down the Wawanakwa River. In it, a three-part harmony of chattering and gabbing complemented the surrounding three-eyed robins' chirping. Interested in the sources of the animated conversation coming from the boat, one robin flew over and landed on the edge of the canoe. Unfortunately for it, a snapping turtle shot up from the river and returned to the water with the poor bird in its mouth. A few moments later, a jumble of feathers floated to the surface. So involved in their paddling, Anne Maria, Dakota, and Zoey barely noticed its brutal fate.

"Ya doin' it all wrong, bimbo," Anne Maria looked at Dakota. "You paddle clockwise."

"How am I supposed to know all this boating stuff? The only boats I've ever been on are steered by a captain Daddy hires…and they're way bigger than this."

"Well you ain't in Malibu anymore, got it? It's bad enough you made Red do twice the work with that double-paddle 'cause you didn't wanna chip a nail."

Dakota flipped her hair. "Neither did you!"

"Duh! I gotta keep this tan even, don't I?"

Zoey wheezed in the back of the canoe. "I-I'm okay, guys. I know you said you're allergic to sweat, Dakota, and I don't want you to break out in hives!"

Dakota smiled. "Aw, Zoey, you're a gem! See?" The heiress looked accusingly at Anne Maria. "A true friend would understand my health needs."

"Oh, please. I bet you just use that stupid 'sweat allergy' excuse to get outta gym class."

"Only once…or fifty times, whatever! A doctor signed off on my excuse notes and everything; you probably gave a worse excuse."

"No way," the diva shook her head. "I always said my titanium-licious hair would be unfair to the other saps stuck playing dodgeball or whatever, so I got a free pass to play hooky for the rest of the day."

Dakota stopped paddling. "Ooh, a bad girl! Mom plays tennis at the country club with my school principal every Saturday, so I always get a pass to leave school one class period early."

"Lucky," Anne Maria gasped. "What about you, Z? How do you cut class?"

Zoey gasped. "Cut class? Oh, no, I could never…I mean, not that I'm not cool, but teachers work so hard to teach us, and I hate missing assignments, especially in pottery and art so…"

Her voice trailed off as she saw Dakota and Anne Maria smirking at her.

"Playing hooky's too dangerous for our 'girl next door'," Anne Maria said.

"Yeah," Dakota shook her head. "No imperfect attendance for this girl!"

Zoey blushed tomato-red.

"We're just playin', Red!" Anne Maria laughed.

Dakota paused. "Oh em gee," she pointed between her and Anne Maria. "Are we bad influences? Daddy warned me about them. He told me all about them when he found out my biker ex-boyfriend's parents were two tax brackets below us."

"A biker ex-boyfriend? That sounds so romantic," Zoey gasped.

"It was. I snuck him into a red-carpet premiere once: The paparazzi were on our tail for weeks!"

Anne Maria groaned. "If you two are done livin' in CW world, I've got an idea…"

Zoey winced. "Anything but being a test dummy for your hairspray. I'm still coughing up aerosol particles. I'm sure it was a good prototype! But Jo calls me 'Apology Breath Spray' now…"

"No, no, no. I got a bright idea to reinvent you…from geek to chic!"

"Y-you think I'm a geek?"

"Not geek per se," Dakota said. "But your 'shy art girl' thing is really strong."

"Which is why I wanna give you a full-scale makeover tonight!" Anne Maria clapped her hands. "Time for me to work my magic, Red."

"Count me in," Dakota chirped. "I love a good charity case! We could make a sleepover of it!"

"I've never been to a sleepover," Zoey marveled. "I've always wanted to have a pillow fight, a makeover, and a game of Truth or Dare!"

"Then tonight's your lucky night, Z," Anne Maria smirked. "I should warn you though: Us Jersey girls can get pretty rough in a pillow fight. You don't mind a few surface wounds, right?"

"Um, I do mind a little. But it can't be a sleepover with just us three, right?"

"Of course not!" Dakota beamed. "I'm already texting Staci."

"What about Jo?"

"Ugh…she'd probably hate it and just call us names anyway. I'm sure there's a mutant rat somewhere around here she can bench press to occupy her time…"

"I don't know…I think we should invite her! I don't wanna be mean, and I know what it's like to feel left out."

Anne Maria shrugged. "Your call, Red. But if she starts talking too much smack to me, I won't hesitate to kick the pillow fight off early!"

"Coolness. Staci said 'yes'," Dakota reported. "And she's texting me a long list of relatives who helped host the first sleepover?"

"Make sure to tell her to keep it a secret from the guys!" Anne Maria said. "I don't need them crampin' on my style tonight."

"What about inviting Dawn?" Zoey asked.

"She doesn't have a phone," Dakota said. "Something about being 'eco-friendly' and not contributing to 'e-waste'? I don't know, I was too busy tossing my second backup phone into the lake after the cell signal was a little slow–"

"I'd be delighted to attend your slumber soiree!" Dawn meditated on the tip of the canoe.

The three girls screamed. "How'd you get in here?" Zoey gaped.

"I sensed that my presence was needed, so I came here!"
"Your teleportin' voodoo is givin' me goosebumps, girl! What the heck is wrong with you?" Anne Maria huffed.

"It's not 'voodoo'. I'm just connecting with the flow of energy throughout this camp's nature and appearing when needed. Speaking of which, your auras are very heavy. I feel impending danger coming your way!"

With all eyes on their freaky friend, Anne Maria, Dakota, and Zoey had stopped paddling.

"Wait," Zoey muttered. "If I'm not steering and you guys aren't steering…"

The waterfall's roar drowned out the girls' shrieks as they tumbled down it. In the late afternoon that day, if you were standing in front of the cabins and looked at the waterfall through the trees, you could see a trio of girls wringing their hair out like drowned rats by the river shore. Dawn was nowhere in sight.

The early evening sky finally put the stars on display. The thin crescent moon was shaped like a wide smile, as if giving the campers below its blessing to enjoy a night of mischief.

"Must…find…perfect…pajamas!" Staci huffed as she dashed to her cabin.

"Oof!" She collided with Scott, who was whittling a hog out of some tree bark.

Initially, Scott prepared a sharp retort for the chatterbox. But upon seeing her excited expression–and hearing her lack of familial boasting–he could tell she meant business about whatever she was doing. When he asked, Staci's not-so-subtle facial expressions let on that she had a secret. When Staci ran to her cabin and shut the door, Scott walked to the mess hall and swiped a glass from the empty kitchen. Walking to the wall of the girls' cabin, he pressed the glass against his ear and the wall. Staci's excited giggling about a sleepover later that night–and Jo's dread about the incoming girliness that would pollute her cabin that night–clued Scott in on the details. Keeping this girls' sleepover a secret proved futile, after all, and plans for a counter-sleepover, one filled with pranks against the girls to spoil their oh-so-sugary-sweet night, started forming in Scott's mind. That and crop prices.

"Guys, guess what we're doing tonight?" He slyly asked in the boys' cabin.

"Reciting the RCMP honor code?"

"Deciphering owl communication via bird-call?"

B pointed to the mini-android he was tinkering with.

"No, no, and no," Scott huffed. "Guess what we're doing tonight that's fun?"

"Speedrunning Super Mario World?"

"Practicing new football plays on the beach?"

"Digging holes?"

Scott raised his eyebrow at Manitoba. "How would digging holes be fun, Dork the Explorer?"

"You wouldn't be asking me that if you'd uncovered a row of velociraptor teeth sharper than your noggin! Oh, crikey–I meant to say the teeth were sharp."

The guys laughed, and Scott knocked the hat off Mike's head.

"What's going on?"

"I was just telling the guys my plan for us to unleash a bunch of pranks on the girls and their sleepover tonight."

"That seems pretty jerky, dude," Mike rubbed his neck.

"Let's not upset the honies," Lightning shook his head. "Lightning's got a reputation to uphold for his fans!"

"Humiliating the girl you want to romance is an instant -10 Hearts," Sam agreed. "What would Dakota think if I made her sit on a whoopie cushion or something? Don't you know how dating sims work?"

"In the world of real-life, Dweebus, it's a dog-eat-dog world," the dirt-farmer sneered. "Besides, the chicks are already plotting against us! You guys didn't think their night of fun wouldn't include messing with us, did you?"

"That seems highly unusual," Cameron frowned. "For instance, Zoey or Dawn are too amicable to be the type to do something like that. Dakota and Anne Maria are too concerned with their appearances to risk injuring their nail cuticles orchestrating a practical joke. And Staci is too distracted to concentrate on hurting us!"

"Jo, on the other hand…," Scott looked at the brainiac.

"Well…"

"I thought so. And–hey! What's this outside our cabin door?"

Scott walked outside and returned with a note.

"'This is the first of many!" he read. "'The night's not over yet, pipsqueaks. From, the girls.'"

"Let me see that!" Lightning snatched the note and read it. "Sha-what! I bet Jo was up to this! Probably upset she couldn't outshine all this on the beach yesterday," he pulled down his pajama pants and flexed his calves. "That's right! Lightning's upgrading from bicep beauty to bicep and calf beauty!"

Cameron gulped. "The abrasive tone of the note and use of the pejorative 'pipsqueak' would signify that Jo sent it…"

"But what did she mean by 'first of many?'" Mike asked. "The first of the note or–"

Splat! Still open, the cabin door couldn't block the banana-cream pie that came flying in from outside and smacked Mike in the face.

"Stupid hooligans!" Chester licked banana cream from lips. "Those broads are up to no good!"

B pointed incredulously outside in the direction of the pie, as if wondering where the heck it came from.

Going outside, Scott returned with a makeshift catapult tied to a rope. "The girls must've built this earlier tonight and tied it to the tree straight across from our cabin! Look," he used his whittling knife to cut a piece of fluffy pink fabric loose. "One of Dakota's scrunchies."

"I guess the girls really are starting a war with us," Sam sweated. "Time to switch gears from beloved Nintendo platformers to military-campaign strategy games."

"Men!" Brick's face was grave. "We are in the line of fire from the rival cabin and so far one of our men has been struck by the unsanctioned mischief of one of their pranks. Are we going to surrender!"

"You bet your bottom dollar we ain't!" Chester spat.

"Are we going to fold to the enemy?"

"Only if we're outflanked or feel physical discomfort," Cameron shrank.

Brick shot a look at him.

"I-I mean, no!"

"And are we going to lose this prank war?!" Brick saluted.

"No!" The boys saluted back and stood in a circle. Battle strategy had commenced.

"This kind of makes me want to play a quick game of Battleship," Sam chuckled. He opened his cabin drawer and took out the board game. Opening the box, he stopped and screamed. "MY PIECES!"

The Battleship ship pegs were missing from the game. In the empty box, another note read "You're 0 for 2, boys. This is going to be easy!"

Sam squeezed his fists. "Sam SMASH! …Their sleepover, that is!"

Blindsided by these rapid-fire pranks, the boys huddled together to avenge Chester's pride and Sam's stolen board-game pieces. Briefly leaving the huddle to close the cabin door, Scott smiled to himself. Riling up the boys was way easier than he thought.

"Who knew facials could be so delicious?" Zoey sighed in delight after eating the cucumbers on her eyes. Green facial masks covered the girls' faces.

"Low calories and low pores," Dakota agreed, laying back in her recliner of pillows. "But forget low calories, our order's here!" She said, as a knock came from the girls' cabin door.

"Thanks, Chris!" She smugly smiled as a groaning Chris in pajamas and a pizza-deliverer's hat handed her three boxes of pizza.

"Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. Just make sure Daddy Warbucks sends the $10,000 to my address! I didn't dress up in this get-up for nothing. It's 1675 Playa De Losers Island, Muskoka, Canada."

"Blah, blah, blah, got it," Dakota closed the door in Chris's face and turned around. "Who's hungry?"

"I'm okay," Dawn raised her hands. "I'm vegetarian. I'll savor these delectable cucumbers. Chef is an astounding gardener."

"Chef grew these? He's a gardener just like my Great-Great Aunt Flo, inventor of flower-pots," Staci remarked.

"Indeed," Dawn nodded. "Behind his gruff exterior, a soft aura of yellow envelopes Chef Hatchet. Deep in the forest during my nature walks, I pass his vegetable garden behind the mess hall."

"Who knew that ogre had a heart buried underneath all…that," Anne Maria's eyes widened, and she picked a mushroom off her pizza.

Barging through the door, a sweaty Jo looked around at the gossiping girls and groaned. "I thought a 10K run would've been long enough for all this 'sleepover' crud to be over with."

"Come sit with us, Jo!" Zoey gestured over to her. "I-if that's okay with you," she added, wilting from Jo's glare.

"I'm strong enough to bench-press 190 pounds of steel, but not enough to subject myself to secret-spilling and gossip-dishing."

"We have a three-meat pizza."

"Step aside, Apology Breath. Time to refuel!" Jo grabbed three slices and started chowing down.

"So…what exactly involves my, uh, 'bad girl' makeover?" Zoey ventured.

"For starters, Red, the hair," Anne Maria looked Zoey's pigtails up and down. "You're gonna go from Princess Goody-Goody with the flower in her hair to the raven-haired rebel."

There was another knock at the cabin door.

"That must be Chris with the dye!" Dakota clapped her hands and got up to open the door.

There was dye, alright. A tiny yellow box wrapped with a pink ribbon sat outside the door.

"Where's Chris? Ugh, I specifically requested in-person delivery!" Dakota picked up the gift and unwrapped it.

No sooner had she opened the lid than an explosion of mutant-squid ink covered her hair. Dripping-wet hair the color of the night sky outside had covered half of Dakota's face and replaced her beachy-blonde locks.

She shrieked. "I'm an emo!" I-I've been sabotaged!"

"Who would do such a thing?" Zoey asked. While surprised at her friend's misfortune, she didn't think she could pull off the "bad girl" look herself and felt relieved.

"A real sicko, that's who," Anne Maria shook her head. "Forget hate crimes–this is a hair crime, the worst of 'em all!"

Sobbing, Dakota ran out of the cabin and headed to the lake to wash as much of the ink out of her hair as possible.

Staci frowned. "I wish one of my distant relatives were here. A lot of them invented mutant-squid-ink-hair-removal shampoos."

Fanning herself from the summer night's heat, Anne Maria opened the cabin window near her, careful not to chip a nail. On the windowsill, she spotted a can of hairspray outside.

"That's where I left it this afternoon," she snapped her fingers and grabbed the can. Spraying her hair for her nightly touch-up, she looked at the girls' shocked expressions. Jo stifled a laugh.

Snatching her hand mirror, Anne Maria yelped. Her hair was the same burnt-orange hue as her skin.

Not restraining her amusement any longer, Jo eyed the hair catastrophe. "Look on the bright side, Tan-in-a-Can. At least your hair can look as 'smokin' as your skin!"

"That is it," Anne Maria threw her mirror down and advanced on Jo. Zoey jumped in between them and held her hands out while Dawn restrained Anne Maria and Staci restrained Jo.

"I bet you did this," Anne Maria growled. "You and that mop on your head have always been jealous of my hair!"

"Good guess, Sherlock, but no! I didn't have anything to do with your hair catastrophe!"

Dakota walked in, her hair blonde again, but retaining a few black patches. "I think I know who did though!" She held up a note, then stopped and looked around at the chaos in the cabin. "Uh…what happened?"

"Nothing!" Zoey huffed, smoothing her pink pajama top. "Where'd you get that?"

"I found it on the shore while I was rinsing my hair. I wanted to come in and make a dramatic entrance to read the note, but I've clearly been upstaged by–"

"Just read the note, drama queen," Jo said.

"Boo, you're no fun," Dakota rolled her eyes. But she cleared her throat and started reading: 'Payback sucks, doesn't it? Be-hair of all the pranks we've got in store for you ladies.' What does this mean?"

"It means the guys did this," Jo said.

Snatching the note, Anne Maria read it for herself. Crumbling it up and throwing it on the floor, she grumbled. "Whatever. I guess it wasn't you, Jockstrap."

"But why did they say 'payback'?" Staci asked. "We never pranked them first! I should know: My Great-Great Uncle Milton was the first person to prank someone in a prank war. Before him, people just yelled at the person who pranked them instead of retaliating."

Jo yawned. "Lame story aside, they must think we pranked them first, which makes no sense! I've been treating my body like a temple with vigorous exercise, and you all have been," she shuddered, "having mani-pedis."

"Jo's right," Dawn gazed out the window at the cabin across from them. "I sense a great aura of hostility wafting from the boys' cabin. They must believe we're the perpetrators of these cruel jokes."

"One thing's clear," Jo folded her arms across her chest. "We didn't start this prank war, but we'll sure as heck finish it."

Zoey sniffed. "I just can't believe the guys would do something like this…"

Anne Maria raised an eyebrow and pointed at her orange hair.

Zoey nodded. "Scott, I get it, but…someone like Mike or Cam pulling this stuff?"

"Turns out Sam's a big jerk, too," Dakota muttered.

"Then it's settled!" Jo declared. "If it's a war they want, it's a war they'll get! Who's with me?" She held her hand out.

Anne Maria and Dakota stood next to Jo and put their hands over hers. The trauma of their hair catastrophes had united them in their quest for vengeance.

"You guys will need me! My Great Granny Rose invented the joy buzzer. We still don't shake her hand at family reunions," Staci stood up from her bed and walked up to the group.

Dawn shook her head and meditated on her top bunk. "I can't participate; I'm a pacifist. It goes against my principles…"

"The squid-ink started glowing in my hair while I was rinsing it off. It must've come from that giant squid monster in the lake," Dakota mentioned.

Dawn gasped. "Using unsuspecting creatures for the malicious whims of a prank? I must put a stop to this!" She floated down and put her hand in the center, too.

They all looked at Zoey, who blushed. Her bad-girl makeover didn't work out–thankfully–but maybe she could dip her toes into the world of rebellion some other way…

Zoey put her hand in the middle. "I'm in. I just hope we're not too mean…"

"Maybe this sleepover won't be so sickening!"

"They ain't gonna know what hit 'em!"

"The boys are gonna pay! Emo was so 2008."

"I concur. They must atone for their animal exploitation."

"Ya, I'll use Granny Rose's wisdom as best I can!"

Both cabins were now fueled with ways to get back at the other. The night had just begun.

The stink bomb was easy enough to make. Jo and Dawn trekked through the woods to pluck a bulbous skunk flower whose sour stench deterred predators. Jo karate-chopped at any creatures trying to eat them, and Dawn soothed the sentient flower's nerves until she could pluck it without harm. Anne Maria and Zoey were on dumpster-duty, sifting through the mess hall's trash to retrieve the smelliest bits of garbage. Zoey did most of the work, though; Anne Maria couldn't risk having orange-hair and smelly pajamas, now could she? Staci and Dakota collected a mixture of leftover avocado facial–which had begun to ferment–and uneaten pizza crusts–which had attracted the attention of a few stink bugs. Dakota stopped working to shriek at each bug she saw, and Staci gabbed on about her family tree's history of bug-spray inventors. When the girls were done, they stirred these sources of stink together and hid the abominable odor in a pizza box. The "peace offering" Zoey brought to the door of the boys' cabin looked innocent enough, but when Sam had shut the door and opened the box, they soon found out that she was not as sweet as she seemed. Using a sturdy stick she found in the woods, Jo finished the job by jamming their door shut from the outside. After minutes of nasal-based agony passed, Lightning managed to bust down the door and all seven stinky campers rushed to soak the smell off in the lake.

Planning ahead, Cameron and B walked around the camp for a natural itching powder and found it in the tiny, rough, white spores of a mushroom hidden near the confessional outhouse. Scott, having worked on a farm all his life, and Lightning, having worked out all his life, had no issue getting their hands dirty and pumping the mushroom's spores into the boys' pillowcases. Leading his platoon into battle, Brick marched in front of the boys and they walked to the beach, and Sam knocked on the girls' door requesting their presence at the beach for a "truce party." Being no fools, the girls armed themselves with their pillows to brawl if needed and cautiously followed the chubby, cotton-pajama-clad diplomat down to the shore. Vito's brawn proved especially useful during the ambush: The boys came out from the nearby trees and started swinging on the sand. The girls retaliated, but Dakota's silky goosefeathers were no match for the itchy spores that covered the girls with each blow. Rigorously scratching themselves, the girls started to retreat, and Vito pursued. He hopped onto a tree to get a better look at them, but this agile jump triggered Svetlana's inner gymnast. Scanning the beach scene of cheering boys and grumbling girls, Svetlana aligned herself with the ladies, and somersaulted off the tree onto Cameron, who squeaked out in pain. Spinning her pillow around like a rhythmic ribbon, Svetlana replicated her floor routine from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. By the end of her rousing performance, the roles were reversed–woohoo's and yay's emanated from the girls' side, although they still scratched themselves fiercely, and despondent groans wafted from the defeated guys. Another point for the girls.

Trudging back to their cabin, still smelly, itchy, and glaring daggers at an oblivious Mike, confused on how they lost, the boys regrouped. Having a "hunch" that he could replicate the girls' initial pie-to-the-face prank, Scott excused himself and dashed outside to the tree in front of the cabins. Rope, a frying pan stolen from the kitchen, and a spare coconut-cream pie, half-eaten by hissing mutant maggots, were lain in the tree-hole. Swatting the maggots away, Scott prepared the pie-launcher. He hurled a rock at a window on the girls' cabin, pulled the pan back, and released. Ready to bite the face off whoever had done that, Jo kicked the door open. Seeing the pie hurtling towards her face, she grabbed Anne Maria from inside and hid behind her. Ignoring the orange-haired diva's protests, Jo watched as the pie clattered anticlimactically against her steely poof. Picking up the intact pie, Jo threw the pie towards Scott like a Frisbee. Slamming into the schemer's face, he flew back into the tree, his head stuck in the tree-hole. Screaming from the attacking maggots inside, Scott's arms flailed around and he pushed against the tree as hard as he could. All the while, giggling campers–both the girls and guys–watched from their porches. Finally freeing himself, Scott sprinted to the bathroom, his face riddled with coconut cream and bug bites.

It was at this point that Scott's plan to screw with the girls' sleepover was starting to unravel. He contemplated how to save face as he rinsed his face, but he came up with nothing. He had come up with nothing still on his walk to the medical tent. Even still after patting his face with rubbing-alcohol-soaked cotton balls and bandages, zero ideas arose on how to rectify his failed night of meddling. Figuring there was no use to his manufactured prank war anymore–it was clear the girls had won–he decided to hit the hay. But not before he used his fingers like a slingshot to fling that spoiled princess Dakota's pink scrunchie back into the girls' cabin through the open window. And not before returning to the strangely empty boys' cabin and dumping that hopeless geek Sam's Battleship pieces from his pockets into the board-game's box. After that, Scott plopped into his bed, tired beyond belief.

But then again–it was sketchy that nobody else was in the cabin with him. Where had the guys gone? Hopping out of his bed, he walked along the camp clearing, looking for everyone. He peered into the girls' cabin window–no one. Looking in the distance on the western edge of the camp where a small cliff resided, he saw light illuminating the cliff face. Against it, a backdrop of shadows–talking campers–beckoned him forward. Curious, Scott advanced to see the other twelve teens milling around the campfire-ceremony area. A small fire had been lit, and s'mores were being sucked up by the hungry campers, namely Mike–who deduced that Vito and Svetlana had likely overexerted themselves, Zoey–whose insatiable sweet tooth disqualified her from being a "bad girl" for good, and Cameron–who'd never eaten a s'more before and was now slowly being converted into a chocoholic by her.

His hands awkwardly in his pockets, Scott sidled up to the midnight soiree. If anyone was there to make fun of his backfiring prank from earlier, he'd have the snark he'd been sharpening since birth on his side.

"S'more?" Sam asked, his mouth full and chocolate stains around his mouth. Ready to insult his messy appearance, Scott's stomach gurgled, so he said nothing and swiped the treat from the gamer's outstretched hand. Suddenly, Sam retreated to the campfire: Truth or Dare was starting. Everyone sat in a circle of tree stumps around the fire, while Scott leaned against a tree and watched, his eyes narrowed.

"Truth or dare?" Anne Maria asked Zoey.

"Hmm, truth!"

"When was your first kiss?" She asked a beet-red Zoey. "Don't be shy, Red!" She giggled.

Zoey gulped as a few moments of silence passed by. "...Do photos of celebrity crushes count?" She whispered to her.

Laughter erupted from the circle, and Zoey tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked down.

"'Nuff said!" Anne Maria chuckled. "Alright, alright, don't get your flower in a knot! Your turn."

"Truth or dare?" Zoey said.

"Dare! Show me what you got, girl."

"I dare you…," Zoey looked up at the stars. "...to go a full minute without spraying your hair!"

Anne Maria choked on the s'more she was eating. "W-what? A full minute? Like…sixty seconds or whatever?"

Zoey giggled. "Yeah. Like sixty seconds or 'whateva'."

A bead of sweat formed on the diva's brow. "Fine. Y-you can do this, Anne…"

Ten seconds went by. Anne Maria tapped her can self-consciously. Twenty seconds. She breathed heavily. Thirty seconds. Her teeth grinded. Forty seconds. She shivered from withdrawals. Fifty seconds. She patted her hair anxiously. Sixty seconds came and an extensive cloud of spray sent Zoey and Sam, who sat next to her, coughing up a storm.

"Nice job! That must be a record for you," Zoey gasped.

"It is!" Anne Maria glared. "You're a tough cookie, Red. From the pranks to the torture you put me through, you don't need that 'bad girl' makeover after all, girlfriend."

Zoey smiled, but inside, her heart was screaming at the friendly moniker she'd acquired: She and Anne Maria were "girlfriends."

And so it went. Lightning dared Jo to do one-hundred push-ups in a minute, which the jockette arrogantly obliged to. She then dared him to do two-hundred push-ups in the same timeframe, and, although he wheezed with effort by the two-hundredth rep, the footballer finished it, an exhausted, but triumphant look on his face. A lemon couldn't compare to the sour expression on Jo's face after she'd been bested.

Dakota slyly asked Mike to spill who he was crushing on in the island after eyeing his too-many-to-be-a-coincidence gazes at Zoey's fire-illuminated face. Sweating profusely at the question as the uncomfortable seconds ticked by, Mike prepared to bite the bullet when a giant firefly's large bulb bumped him in the head as it zoomed by. Chester loudly wondered "what the big idea" was and when Dakota repeated the question, scoffed and said that he "wasn't interested in any of the young fillies" at the camp. Mike, curious as to how he managed to answer Dakota's question without drawing the amused or shocked expressions of those who knew who he had a crush on, made Dakota tell her worst fear. It was a tie between "split ends" and "dying as a washed-up, D-list celebrity who appeared on nighttime infomercials."

Staci dared Cameron to recite his entire family history in under thirty seconds, which the nerd, due to his small family tree, completed quickly and meticulously. Cameron dared Staci with the same intellectual challenge, and everyone in camp had to pick their jaws up off the floor from the chatterbox's motormouth. However boring the genealogy itself was, everyone was sure Staci had broken a Guiness World Record for "Fastest Talker" that night.

Sam interrogated B for his full first name. Failing to answer after embarrassed silence, B resigned himself to writing it in the dirt with a twig. In capital letters, the name "BEVERLY" elicited ooh's, ah's, and a lot of snickers from the campers. At least their fellow silent B was less of an enigma now, if only by a little bit. In turn, B dared Sam to complete a single sit-up. Straining and heaving himself up, Sam finished the impossibly difficult exercise in forty-two seconds. Sitting up with sweat covering the collar of his pajama shirt, he winked at Dakota, who was thoroughly unimpressed by the entire display.

Dawn dared Brick to apologize to the giant lake squid he and the boys had extracted black ink from. Ashamed of his childishness in participating in the prank, Brick stiffly saluted Dawn and marched swiftly to the beach. Peering over the water, he barked a formal, stoic speech of remorse for "he and his comrades disgraceful behavior during the night, worthy of a dishonorable discharge." Shooting out of the lake, a tentacle wrapped its suckers around Brick and hurled him from the beach back to the western edge of the island. Slamming into a tree at the campfire area, Brick fell and landed back in his seat. While dazed, he took squid's lack of deadly force to mean that she had surely accepted his apology. Brick, still seeing stars (and not just in the sky), managed to clear his head enough to ask Dawn about the earliest childhood memory she had, a Truth to which Jo loudly yawned from "lameness." Ignoring her, Dawn recanted the tale of a group of forest animals escorting her home after she'd gotten lost while playing in the neighborhood. A bear, flanked by a deer and a group of rabbits, carried her in its jaws and gently laid her down on her family's doorstep. Equally touched, weirded out, and in disbelief at the story, the campers, unlike B's Truth, felt an even greater fog surrounding the strange girl's life.

Now staring at Scott, the campers asked him if he preferred a Truth or Dare. The ginger replied that he preferred eating bird poop. Despite this harsh refusal, the campers' expectant eyes wore him down. Groaning, Scott chose the person who'd go easiest on him–Zoey–and asked for a Truth.

"Scott," Zoey asked. Thinking about the night's events, she found her question."Hmm…what's the first sleepover you've been to?"

"My cousin's farm, when we were twelve. We stayed up doing all the stuff studs do at sleepovers. Um…Pin the Tail on the Donkey–"

"Isn't that a party game for little kids?" Dakota raised an eyebrow.

" –Hot Tomato–"

"You mean Hot Potato, Hay-head?" Jo snarked.

"Whatever, don't interrupt! Anyways, we stayed up late, got up in the morning, I left, the end."

The campers looked around. That was the weirdest sleepover they'd ever heard of in their lives.

"Um, Scott," Zoey asked. "Have you ever…been to a sleepover?"

"Pssh. Yeah! How would you know? You've never been to one, either!"

"I know, but I said some of the same weird stuff whenever people would ask me. Only instead of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, I said 'bobbing for apples' for some reason…"

"And so what if I haven't? All of my cousins are annoying, and hunting kitchen rats with Pappy is way more fun anyways!"

Jo snorted. "You call your old man 'Pappy'? A country hick if I've ever seen one…"

Scott grumbled. "My turn now, right? Then Jo, I dare you to lick the ashes out of the campfire!"

"Bring it on, farm-boy! Once it's my turn again, I'll give you a dare that'll make you wish you'd never been born! Don't forget how I whooped you in the prank war!"

"I'd love to see you try, Man-Lady…"

Zoey's eyes widened. "Uh, we were actually about to go to bed, guys–"

But Zoey's words were drowned out by the threats and insults of what painful Dares Scott and Jo would inflict upon each other. Shrugging, Zoey got up and went to bed, with the others following suit. After all the trash-talking had been exhausted, Jo and Scott looked around to see that the campers had all left and the fire was nearly out. Vowing that they'd finish their feud in the morning, Jo and Scott yawned and trudged to their cabins, too.

Not even the mutant rooster-hive-mind's crowing and Chef's loud breakfast call could get the drained campers out of their beds. Last night, a prank war had been waged, a prank war had been won, and embarrassing revelations and uncomfortable dares had been dished out in the afterparty.

Now, the war-weary veterans needed to sleep off their battle of practical jokes, even if it meant missing breakfast. Not that they'd be missing much in that catastrophe of crappy camp food.

Not seeing a single camper report for the most important meal of the day, Chef shrugged.

"More for me," he muttered, as he made himself a heaping plate of Belgian waffles, steaming Canadian bacon, fresh-fruit salad, chocolate crepes, a vanilla-yogurt parfait, sizzling sunny-side-up eggs, and hand-squeezed orange juice.