Yup, it's me, Elle! aka the-girl-that-was-supposed-to-update-a-week-ago-and-never-did! I was SUPER busy, since this was the last week of school! I'm finally out for the summer!!! Meaning, hopefully, I can update more often! How are y'all going to spend the summer?

~Elle

o-O-o

"Hey! You! Sencen!"

It was after lunch, and everyone was streaming out the cafeteria's smoky glass doors. Not finding my friends, I reluctantly trailed behind Keefe and his friends, trying to not attract the attention of Biana's viper-like friends.

I heard footsteps pounding on the tiles behind me. I turned and saw Marella running toward Keefe, her pixie-like features twisted in barely controlled rage. Keefe didn't seem to have noticed her; he was busy laughing and joking with Fitz halfway up the corridor.

"Marella!" I hissed, grabbing her arm as she ran past me. She rolled her eyes, reluctantly faced me, and asked, "What on Earth do you think you are doing?"

"The better question is, what on Earth are you doing?" I fired back, using Keefe's trick of answering a question with a question. It seemed to work. "I am going to give Keefe a piece of my mind-"

"Why would you do that?"

She acted like I hadn't spoken. "After that stunt he pulled on you at lunch! I know you wouldn't do it-"

That stung. More than I cared to admit. So what if I didn't like a face-to-face confrontation? That didn't mean I couldn't stand up for myself! "I'm sure he has a perfectly good explanation for all of this." I soothed, trying to convince myself more than her.

Marella glared at Keefe out of the corner of her eye. "I don't care if he has the best explanation in the world! No one makes my friend cry and gets away with it!"

"For the record, it was Biana and her min- wait, how could you tell I was crying?" I asked, lowering my voice. If Biana found out that I had been crying just because of a few well-placed comments, who knows what she might do?

Marella crossed her arms and huffed in annoyance. "Sophie, I've been your best friend for 5 years. Give me a little credit for knowing when you're crying. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to yell at THAT BOY!"

With that, she turned and tried to storm off to where Keefe and his friends were rapidly rounding the corner. "Stop!" I whisper-yelled, grabbing her wrist. Fighting in public would do no good. Knowing my terrible luck, someone would whip out their phone and video the whole thing, then turn it into another social media disaster.

"Sophie- stop- let- me- go!" With each word, Marella tugged harder and harder, but I held fast. "Where are the others?" I asked, trying to distract her.

It didn't work. "Haha, nice try, Soph. But you can't distract me that easily." She struggled harder and harder, trying to pry stubborn fingers off her wrist, but I simply rearranged them so that they were even more firm.

"Listen to me, Sophie! You can't just expect-"

"No, Marella, you listen to me! I can't tell Keefe, because then, knowing him, he'll go off and confront Biana, and she'll hate me even more!" Marella's arm went slack at my outburst. She looked at me with an expression of half exasperation and half shock. "Sophie, that's no-"

"She's trying to play a game of cat and mouse," I interrupted, appealing to Marella's competitive side. "If I go and snitch to Keefe, she'll have won. You understand that, right? I can't go hide in my little mouse hole."

Marella opened her mouth to argue, but I knew that I had won her over. "Fine, you win." She admitted with a little pout. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then her eyes lit up and met mine. "But, if this is a game- and it's a game, right?"

I nodded hesitantly, unsure of where she was going. Marella smirked in triumph. "If this is a game, you have to fight."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," she paused dramatically. "Prank war!"

Ohhhh no. Heck no. Not in a million years. "No!" I protested vehemently, releasing her wrist and backing away. "No, no, no, and no! Not happening!"

Marella surged forward, stubbornness written all over her face. "Come on," she wheedled. "Just a small one!"

"No." I slowed my backwards scramble, still retreating slowly.

"Please?" Marella continued to stalk forward.

"No." I tripped slightly over my shoes, not trusting her enough to check if my laces were untied.

Marella was looking more and more determined. "Just a couple small pranks..."

I wavered slightly. I could ask the others to regulate her. "No..." My back hit the wall, eliciting a small oof! from me.

"Wouldn't it be nice to get back at Biana and her minions? And they wouldn't trace back to us. We could even frame someone!" 

I did want to retaliate a little bit. And if she didn't think it was us... "Fiiiine." I groaned. "But only a few, and they need to be relatively harmless. And nobody can know that it was us, okay?"

Marella stopped advancing and pumped her tiny fist in the air, letting out a whoop! "Yes! Princess Prettypants won't even know what hit her!"

It couldn't be that bad, could it?

Wrong.

o-O-o

When I finally got back to Dex and Tam's dorm room, the place was a war zone.

Ok, so maybe 'war zone' was a little extreme.

But seriously.

In only the living room was a fully functioning chemistry lab, a table strewn with maps and notebooks, and several chests full of school supplies, equipment, glitter bombs, and other horrors.

All of my friends were hard at work, with Linh sketching out plans on the maps, Dex brewing some slime bombs or something in the lab, Marella rifling through the closest chest, which seemed to be full of bottles of confetti and other surprises, and Tam in the corner trying to find some dirt on Biana on Instagram.

"Oh. My. Gods. What happened?!" I shouted upon entering the room. Startling me, Dex, who was covered in pink slime, popped out from behind the chem table and exclaimed, "A prank war happened!"

I wheeled on Marella, who now seemed to be equipping some kind of confetti cannon with squishy little orbs. "I told you to keep it simple! Not go and recreate the Civil War!"

She shrugged. "Well, it did start out as simple, but then Dex heard the words 'prank war' and Tam heard the words 'getting back at Keefe,' and then..." She gestured to the organized chaos. "You see what happened next."

This is a disaster.

I took a deep breath, trying to force myself to stay calm.

I am so dead.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. It's going to be fine.

It is not going to be fine.

"No! No no no no no! Not happening! It's off! Prank war? Done! Not happening!" I knew I was being childish, but I couldn't help myself. "I am not going to get murdered by Biana! I like being alive, thank you very much! Unlike you guys, who seem to-" Suddenly a hand clapped over my mouth. "Umht du hmk! Stph ut Tm!"

Tam had somehow, in the space of a second, silently crossed the room and shut off my ranting. "Sophie," he said solemnly. "It's going to be fine. This kinda stuff happens all the time here at Foxfire. You are not going to get expelled for a couple harmless pranks."

I had to marvel at Tam's ability to figure out exactly what was freaking me out, and then saying the exact thing to make me feel better. It's going to be fine. You're not going to be expelled. You are NOT going to be expelled. I breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"I'm going to take my hand off your mouth now, ok? Can you handle it?" I nodded. "Ok." Tam stepped back into the shadows, taking his words and his hand with him. I took a deep breath.

"So," I asked everyone, mustering a surprisingly genuine smirk. "How can I help?"

o-O-o

There's some platonic Sotam for everyone! Why is Keefe acting so out of character? I have no clue. Sue me. How do you think the prank war will go? What side will Keefe be on?

Stay safe!

~Elle