The moment I stepped through the entrance to the backyard, something sprayed over me. It wasn’t something particularly awful because today was quite hot, but I still didn’t like the idea of being sprayed with cold water. I looked up, my hair soaked and dripping wet.

Then I saw Hero in a bathtub with water. He was looking at me with the ‘uh-oh’ look. Guessing that the person with the hose was his owner, I was right. But I was surprised to see another person standing there with him, grinning at me.

Water droplets slide down from my strands of hair. Even though I was wet to the bone, the water didn’t cool me down one bit. Instead, I was furious.

Ice Pack Stealer and the other boy were just standing there pointing and laughing their heads off. What a rotten bunch of boys.

I wanted to get Ice Pack Stealer and the kid by surprise by pulling their ears to one side until they both say sorry. I doubted that it would work though because they were both taller than me.

Who is that kid next to Ice Pack Stealer, anyway? Don’t tell me, it’s his younger brother.

If it is, I’ll probably call him Mini Ice Pack Stealer.

I closed my eyes and let out another sigh. It was probably five minutes since the water hit me from head to toe and both of them were still laughing at me. Man, these two are so immature.

“Enough!” I finally said.

Ice Pack Stealer stopped chuckling, but the boy paused and smirked at me. “Sorry, did you say something, Mermaid?”

Ice Pack Stealer burst out of laughter again, “Good one, Richy.” They both turn towards each other and slapped five.

“I said, enough!” I stormed to the kid, “And what did you just call me?”

Putting his hands in his pockets, he grinned at me with deep dimples.

“Nothing much,” he shrugged, pretending to look all innocent. “I just called you Mermaid because you look like one.”

I took a deep breath in, trying to hold in my anger. Looking at his unusual haircut, I had an idea.

“Well then, Mushroom Top, say sorry now or else you’re going to regret it.”

Ice Pack Stealer stood there chuckling. I wasn’t sure if he was laughing because of his friend’s new nickname, or because of how ridiculous I might have looked. But I turned to his direction with lasers shooting from my eyes.

“You too, Ice Pack Stealer!” I pointed at his chest, “You need to apologise for spraying your stupid hose at me.”

He laughed, trying to cover his mouth with his hand, but was still laughing as hard as he could. I crossed my arms and waited for the both of them to stop laughing. Then I placed my hands on my hips and stood there, glaring at them both.

Ice Pack Stealer, gradually stopped laughing and put on a neutral face. “And what happens if I don’t?” he asked, lowering down to pick his dog out of the bathtub.

“Well then, do you want another kick in the shin?”

Richy smirked, “What kind of kick can you do? You’re a girl.”

“Don’t underestimate me, Mushroom Top,” I defended back. “I’m much stronger than you think I am.”

Mushroom Top was a bit shocked and quieten down. His grin also finally disappeared as he glanced over to Ice Pack Stealer.

Now that Hero was finally out of the tub, they both took a step back.

Ice Pack Stealer and Mushroom Top knew what they were going to do as soon as Hero got out of the bathtub. Turning away from the Labrador, both of them covered their eyes as soon as Hero began to shake off the water from his coat. I didn’t notice this until the water, for the second time, splashed onto me.

When Hero was done, he sat down on the grass, looked up and barked happily. It was as though Hero was saying, ‘I’m done!’

I glared at the both of them with ice and fire in eyes, “That’s it!” I screamed out.

“You, Ice Pack Stealer!” I yelled with all my might. “You splashed mud on me, then splashed water on me, twice, and you never said sorry! Not even once!”

Ice Pack Stealer stood there in silence and then raised an eyebrow. “You too, you know that? You kicked me in the shin, spilt lemonade on my bike and punched me in the face. And guessed what?” He paused for a moment. “You never said sorry too!”

I narrowed my eyes, “Well, you know what?” I asked him with a deep voice.

“What?” He replied, also narrowing his eyes.

“This means war!” I leant forward. “And you’re going to lose with all your might, Ice Pack Stealer.”

He grinned and leant in, “Bring it on, Mermaid. Let’s see who wins.”

“I can’t wait to see you lose to scrub your pretty little face in the dirt!” I barked and stormed back to my house, planning for the first prank for this war.

Romeo

“Is she the girl who kicked you in the shin last time?” Richy asked. “And what was that all about? Is she really a prank master?”

Seeing her leave out of sight, I sighed and crossed my arms. “That’s her. And yes, I think she’s a prank master,” I replied to my cousin. “Though, I’m not sure what her pranking style is.”

“Do you need any help? I can spy on her if you need me to.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I should be fine by myself.”

“Alright then,” Richy said. “But to be honest, she’s quite short-tempered for a girl and for some reason, she looks familiar…”

“You think she looks familiar too?”

“Yeah,” he said, scratching his head. “She looks familiar but I can’t really recognise her. What’s her name, by the way?”

So I guess it wasn’t just me. It has to be her then.

“Her name is Juliet Hayes,” I responded, quietly.

Richard looked shocked for a moment, “What?” he reacted. “You mean she’s…”

I nodded, “Well, I think she’s her. But she doesn’t remember anything.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Her dad told me that she had an incident when she was young and that caused her to forget everything in her childhood.”

“Could it be that she’s the same Juliet?” Richard asked. “Because the Juliet we knew had an incident as well.”

“That’s what I thought. But her personality is completely different, as well as her parents and her last name,” I thought out loud. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“If I’m not wrong,” Richard continued, “I remember that Juliet’s parents were Mr and Mrs Clinton, not Hayes.”

“Exactly! I’ve been trying to test if she’s the Juliet we know but she doesn’t have any memory of her childhood. And the problem is, now, she hates me with her guts and I have no way of coming closer to her to see if she’s the same Juliet.”

“Well,” Richy smiled, “she doesn’t hate me with her guts yet.” He grinned. “Maybe I can befriend her?”

“I don’t know about that. It really looked like she doesn’t like you from first impression.”

He laughed, “That’s what also happened when we were kids too remember? We ‘accidentally’ destroyed her sandcastle in childcare.”

I nodded as I remembered that time.

Juliet was building a sandcastle, in the sandpit. To me, it really looked more like a pile of sand with some rocks and sticks stuck to it. Actually, it might look more like a sand UFO than a sandcastle.

Anyway, as she was building her sandcastle, Richard and I were playing tips with some of the other kids. And as I was running and turning my head to look behind me, I tripped over the frame of the sandpit and landed my face flat in her sandcastle. I lifted my head as some of the muddy sand was in my mouth. I learnt two life lessons that day; one: look where you’re running to; two: sand is not food.

But when I glanced up to see where I was, I saw Juliet with a stoned face staring at me with a broken plastic shovel in one hand and, the other hand, a bucket filled with more sand. She looked down at me and I gazed back at her, blindly seeing her face with sand on my eyelashes.

Richard raced towards me and instead of saying, ‘Are you okay?’ or something similar, he stood there pointing and laughing his head off. Juliet was still stunned for another moment, but then she smiled, placing the bucket and shovel down.

Instead of crying like other little girls would do, she stood up and shook her head. “Bad boy!” she said. “You ruined my castle!”

Then, I guess most kids would’ve dobbed me to an adult, but she didn’t. She offered her hand and helped me up.

“Next time, be careful!” she said, loudly next to my ear.

I guess that was her way of getting back at me.

She was definitely disappointed that her sandcastle was flat, but she didn’t cry or hit me back. Instead, she was helping me. I found that very different to other kids. It was as though she understood forgiveness, something that even adults find it hard to do.

“Sorry.” I finally said.

“Do you want to play with me?” she asked, with glimmering green eyes.

At first, I didn’t expect her to say that to me, so I was a bit stunned.

But as I was about to say something, Richard interrupted and said, “No way! We don’t want to play with girls.”

She looked quite sad when Richard said that.

“Okay then,” she sat back down and tried to rebuild her sandcastle.

Richard, on the other hand, pulled me away from her and continued playing tips with the other kids. I glanced back and saw how lonely she was.

I knew that Richard, when he was a kid, wasn’t as bad as he appeared to be. He just tends to be shy around girls and say harmful words to them, so I didn’t blame him for that. However, the good thing was that nowadays, he gets along with girls a little better. Maybe a bit too well, in my opinion.

“Let’s go inside and have some lunch then.” I patted on Richard’s shoulders.

“Okay! That’s a great idea! I’m starving from all that thinking!”

Richard, Hero and I, all headed back into the house.

Juliet

I was certain that this would be the best first prank in history. Now that I’d finished the planning, I started packing all the things that I needed for this prank recipe.

This also probably means that I’ll need to get to up a little earlier tomorrow too. But it’ll be worth it.

Once I was done, I jumped onto my bed and laid there for a while until I saw the old box with the words ‘My Stuff’ by the corner of my eye. I sat up remembering that the box was from the basement. I slipped off the bed and sat down next to it. Staring it for a little while longer, I decided to open it and see what else it had inside.

Taking out the old photo album and then the green yo-yo, I glanced down and saw a yellow plastic shovel. Wondering how big it was, I took it out and studied it. It was about half the size of my arm, which I assumed was a kid’s toy. But when I looked at the box again, there was another yellow plastic shovel; though the one inside the box was broken. I wondered why there were two shovels in the box; one was still new while the other was broken.

That was when my brain started to have a fuzzy feeling.

I simply dropped the two shovels on the floor and closed my eyes, trying to get rid of the tension around my head. I stood up to find some water, but I just couldn’t get up. I sat there leaning against the wall, seeing all sorts of scenes flashing before my eyes.

There was a little boy, landing his face into a sandcastle. I saw a pair of hands helping the boy stand up. The pair of hands belonged to the eyes of who I was seeing this from.

At the same time, I felt like this scene was familiar, yet I have no understanding of what is going to happen. Then another boy appeared, said something and pulled the boy who fell down somewhere else.

As I thought my head was getting back to normal, I saw another scene.

The little girl, who I was seeing these scenes from, was again building another sandcastle in a sandpit by herself. A little boy came up to her and said something. He then surprised her by giving her a new plastic shovel, one that wasn’t broken, and she felt happy.

The little boy sat down next to the girl and began to put some sand into a bucket. Smiling, he looked up and said something to the girl again, something that I couldn’t hear probably. It felt like she was smiling to him and said something back with huge excitement.

In the next scene, they finished building a row of about ten sandcastles, which looked more like ten piles of sand. Slowly they decorated them with rocks, sticks, leaves and twigs, basically anything that they could find around them. Then the boy said something again, something like a promise.

My mind went blank and I was back to normal. My head was still swirling from the scenes, but when I opened my eyes and saw the two shovels on the floor, curiosity began to take a hold of me. Does that mean that these two shovels were from that flashback?

I reached out and held the yellow shovels in my hand. “Why did that happen to me?”