Insidious(4)

“You start playing for the other team all of the sudden?” Mark retorted.

“No, but at the off chance you were the last guy on the planet, I’d strongly consider it. Or celibacy,” I clarified.

“Ouch, Montgomery. You little spitfire.”

Carly squirmed under his hold, fanning her nose. “Jeez, Mark, you start boycotting showers?”

“It’s a part of my scoring strategy,” he laughed. “No one wants to guard someone who smells rank.”

“Well, you achieved your goal admirably. Onions make me tear up less,” I remarked.

“Please, just do us all a favor and shower after the game. I’m not spending the whole night around Pepé Le Pew.”

A high-pitch whistle blared, bringing the gym to a standstill, and the pudgy referee waddled to the middle of the basketball court. “Due to Hersey High’s absence, we have no other choice but to rule this as a forfeit on their behalf.”

Mark quietly rejoiced, and no one could blame him. Sure, we wanted to win the old-fashioned way, but Hersey’s team was our biggest competition and the easy triumph only helped our record.

Daniel came up and shared his trademark handshake with Mark. “Look at that. Triumph, and we didn’t even have to break a sweat.”

“Yeah, but now what do we do? The bonfire doesn’t start ‘til nine,” said Carly.

Mischief painted her boyfriend’s face. “Oh, I have an idea. But we’re gonna need to call in the whole troop for this one.”



***



“Everybody ready?” called out Eric as he rolled the van to a stop behind a thick set of bushes.

“This is so stupid,” muttered Kelsey, looking at the house just down the way.

“What? You lose your nerve?” challenged Eric.

She sighed, knowing it was too late to change her mind. “No, let’s just get this over with.”

“Guys, lighten up. This is gonna be fun,” said Mark, handing each of us a black garbage bag from the trunk. “Okay?”

“This is also Principal Harris’s place,” corrected Kelsey. “If he catches us, we’re gonna end up more screwed than a cork.

“Get out,” laughed Mark, pushing her out of the backseat as everybody started unloading from the vehicle.

Eric motioned to the house with tactical hand signals like we were all on a military field operation. The six of us couldn’t help but giggle under our breaths as we skulked up to Harris’s front lawn. Between the amusement and the fact that Mark had lit up in the van, he lost his footing and rolled across the grass in a laughing fit.

“Idiot.” Eric pulled him back up to his feet with a snicker as we approached the massive maple tree in the middle of Harris’s front yard. “Go,” he mouthed.

We all opened our garbage bags and pulled out a roll of toilet paper. Mark was the first to throw his. It flew through a mess of branches overhead, but it tumbled back down to the ground still intact.

“Seriously?” snorted Daniel. “You’re supposed to unwrap it first, you goof.”

Vanessa and I doubled over with stitches as we tried not to burst out laughing.

Eric and Daniel unwound each of their rolls a few feet and heaved the toilet paper over the top of the tree. Tangling in the branches, the rolls winded back down with two perfect white lines dangling above us. “That’s how it’s done.”

Everyone else followed in suit and unraveled the rolls. In no time at all, the entire tree was dripping in streams of toilet paper. The guys continued in their vandalism as they chucked the last of their stash over the front of Harris’s house.

Euphoria set in as the fear and excitement of it all burned through our veins. We danced across the yard, waving our hands through the flood of Charmin and Angel Soft. I pulled out my phone and took a shot of the scenery for our proof as the other girls ran around Mark. He held the ends of their rolls so that they could wrap him up mummy-style. He did his best Hulk impression as they finished up and burst through the paper with an animated roar.

A light turned on from one of the upstairs windows, and we crashed to a halt. Just as the curtains pulled back, Eric shouted, “Abort! Abort!”

We all grabbed our bags and dashed in hysterics off the property. Everyone piled back into the van, and Eric tore off down the street. As Eric took a turn off onto another road, everybody let out a massive sigh. Suddenly, the whole van broke out into a laughing fit.

“Good work, team!” declared Eric, drumming his hands on the steering wheel.

Mark rolled down the window and stuck his head out, howling into the night air.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” I sighed as Vanessa and Carly wrapped their arms around me, ensnaring me in a sandwich hug between them.