It was the beginning of June in the tiny town of Rackleff, Maine, and 12-year-old Nate Wright marched down the street to PS. 38, the middle school he attended. With him were his two best friends Francis Pope and Teddy Ortiz, and following close behind was a girl named Dee Dee Halloway, and a shy, overweight, ginger-haired boy named Chad Applewhite.
There was nothing Nate disliked more that going to school. He hated everything about school, from the demand for seemingly unpaid labor, to the monstrous, crabby teachers who yelled at him and bossed him around, to the dilapidated condition of PS. 38 itself, a school which was built just after the end of World War 1 and had celebrated its centennial amongst cracked brick walls and crumbling ceiling tiles. Nate's walks to school were usually plagued with dread for the day ahead. Every once in a while, he would have a normal school day, or sometimes even a good one. But most of the time, his days at PS. 38 were nothing but a complete train wreck. Maybe he would get an 'F' on a big test, or maybe he would get his head shoved into a urinal by Randy Betancourt, Nate's obnoxious bully who took pleasure in punching, kicking, and shoving Nate and all the other kids whom he found inferior to himself. Or maybe Nate would be issued a two hundred dollar camera by the school for his budding career as a yearbook photographer, only to accidentally drop in into a bag of Cheez Doodles and have to make money delivering newspapers for months in order to pay off his debt.
While on an ordinary day, Nate and his friends (except Francis, who was rather ecstatic about getting an education) slogged down the sidewalk with their backs hunched down and imaginary storm clouds over their heads, on this day, Nate skipped to school as excited as could be. Today, he knew he wasn't gonna have the iron fists of his teachers. Because today, he was finally going to get payback.
Every year, on the last day of the school year, the students of PS. 38 celebrated "Prank Day", a tradition they had created decades ago and carried on ever since. Prank Day was not recognized by the school's authority figures, but the students liked it better that way. To them, Prank Day was their opportunity to cut lose and get back at the teachers who had abused and slavedriven them for all their time in middle school. On Prank Day, the students would set up all sorts of pranks and gags, directly targeted at the teachers and faculty. Most of these pranks were simple things, like whoopie cushions, fake vomit, or in some cases, letting a raccoon loose in the principal's office. But no matter how much they tried, every student knew that there was a true Prank Day king, one they could never top with even the craziest of antics. Every prank mattered somewhat in getting back at the teachers, but no student could preform better practical jokes than Nate Wright.
The previous year, he had filled the library waste-deep with tomato sauce, let a flock of sheep into the secretary's office, placed a stink bomb in the science lab, and best of all, let a swarm of killer hornets into the principal's private bathroom. But this year, Nate's arsenal had double the power. The night prior, he had snuck into the school and rigged a bag of flour to explode in the social studies classroom and created a device that would cover his gym coach with three buckets' worth of maple syrup and chicken feathers. Lined up outside the school that morning was a moose, a monkey, a parrot, and an angry attack dog, all ready to be let loose in the principal's office. And that was just the beginning of all the pranks he had lined up for every single member of the school's staff. Nate was excited for the day ahead, and he could picture himself a couple hours later, laughing his head off as a dead, stinky fish got catapulted right into his ELA teacher's face. While Francis did not approve, Teddy, Dee Dee, and Chad were also ecstatic about what Nate had planned out.
Nate and his friend group were usually the only ones who walked his route to school, but to their surprise, they passed by two other kids: a kid with a striped shirt and messy, blond hair, and a short black kid with a flat top haircut, wearing a button-down shirt and a tie.
He felt like he recognized those two kids from school, but he couldn't remember their names.
"Hi," Nate said to the two boys.
"Oh, hey there," said the blond-haired kid. "I think I've seen you at school before. What's your name again?"
"I'm Nate Wright," Nate introduced himself.
"My name's Francis," Francis said. "And these are Teddy, Chad, and Dee Dee."
"I'm Harold," the blond white kid said, revealing his name.
"And I'm George," said the black kid. "Ready for Prank Day?"
Nate knew these two kids had been going to his school for about a year, so he wasn't surprised they were anticipating Prank Day too. He wondered if they knew a thing or too about gags, the same way he did, and if so, how good their lineup for their first Prank Day at PS. 38.
"You bet I am!" he said. "Do you guys like pranks too?"
"Of course!" said Harold. "Me and George were the prank masters at our old school. We had Prank Day back there, too, and we dominated every year."
"Where did you go to school before?"
"We went to Jerome Horwitz Elementary. We're in sixth grade, and this is our first year here."
"We're in seventh grade," said Teddy.
"If you like pranks, wait until you see what Nate has in store!" Dee Dee began. "Last year he filled the entire library with tomato sauce, and this year he's gonna let a live baboon into the cafeteria."
"That's amazing," Harold said, quite impressed. "Last year me and George put dissected frogs in the Jell-O for the PTA meeting, made it snow in the cafeteria, and then we made the PA system play 'Weird Al Yankovic' music for six hours straight!"
The seven kids kept walking down the street. The old brick building that was PS. 38 began to come into view. "That school sucks, doesn't it?" said George.
"You're right," Nate responded. "It's been falling apart since whenever the heck it opened."
"It's been open since 1919," Francis interrupted.
"Shut up, poindexter!" Nate yelled back.
"Well why doesn't anyone fix it?" Harold asked, looking at the cracked brick walls. "Because this place is a complete dump!" Nate said. "It's been beyond repair for decades! What they need to do is demolish it."
"You're right," Chad agreed. "Last week a ceiling tile fell on my head."
The kids walked up the steps and through the doors. From there, George and Harold left to go to their classes, while Nate, Francis, Teddy, Dee Dee, and Chad made their way to their first class, which was ELA. They stepped into the classroom, and Nate sat down in his desk, whose back legs were six inches shorter than its front ones.
"Welcome, children," Nate's ELA teacher said, before sitting down at her desk. The Dead Fish Catapult was ready near the corner of the room.
The students expected the teacher to give out some pointless worksheet, but she never did. Then Nate remembered: the final exams were long past, so there was nothing left that needed to be covered in class. He hoped the teacher would put on a movie to keep them entertained, but she just sat there, doing nothing, while the kids laid their heads on their desks. Nate walked over to the catapult and prepared to fire the dead fish.
Then, suddenly, a loud, earsplitting ring erupted throughout the entire school. Was that the bell? Nate had only gotten to class two minutes ago, how could it be over already?
Then he realized something: the noise was not the usual school bell, it was the American EAS Alarm, played during emergency broadcasts.
The rest of the kids realized this two, and the class went into commotion over what the emergency might be. Was it a tornado? Or a fire? Or a zombie apocalypse? A voice, like one from an EAS alert, began playing over the intercom.
"WARNING! THIS BROADCAST HAS BEEN GIVEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!" the voice said.
"THIS IS A CIVIL EMERGENCY! THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN INFORMED THAT A NUCLEAR ATTACK HAS HIT NEW YORK CITY! PLEASE REMAIN IN YOUR POSITIONS AND WAIT FOR MORE UPDATES ABOUT THE SITUATION!"