I was standing there. Standing there by the corner, opposite of the hallway. I was watching Ice Pack Stealer walking closer and closer to his locker. So far, so good.

Ice Pack Stealer looked around, checking for prank clues. Smart. But he won’t notice a thing.

He reached for the lock and entered his combination. Opening the locker and then withdrawing his hand, Ice Pack Stealer found green slime all over his fingers.

I giggled to myself. He fell for it. I laughed in my head.

Ice Pack Stealer reacted to the slime and shook his hand.

“Gross,” he said, calmly. Then he paused and glanced around. Guessing that he was looking for me, I hid behind the wall and waited for a few moments.

I then peeked behind the wall to check if he was still scanning his surroundings before I continued to watch him.

“Is that all you got?” he asked.

Even though he seemed like he was talking to himself, I knew that he was talking to me. So I continued to listen to him.

“Because I can do much better than this,” he grinned.

I raised an eyebrow. Oh really? Let’s see.

Ice Pack Stealer widened his locker door and cleaned his fingers with some tissues.

Man, what an organised guy. I never expected him to have a tissue box in his locker.

He took his books out and placed them on top of the locker. Then closing the door, he reset the lock. He stood there and searched for something in his pockets. Pulling out a piece of paper, in which looks like his class timetable, he stood there for a while longer.

I wonder what’s taking him so long to find his class. I paused for a moment. Don’t tell me he hasn’t remembered his timetable yet. Maybe he’s not as bright as he looks?

He smiled to himself like his next class was one of his favourite subjects or something. He lifted his arms and grabbed the books that were on top of the locker and when he wanted to turn around, his facial features changed.

“What?” he reacted.

I almost burst out of laughter. But keeping it in, so that people wouldn’t know that I was standing there spying on Ice Pack Stealer, I chuckled silently as I covered my smile.

He tried lifting his legs up, but he couldn’t. He tried wiggling his body but his shoes wouldn’t budge. He stood there for a while and decided to place his books back on the top of the locker.

“Wonderful!” he blurted out, looking at his shoes.

People who were walking in the hallway started looking at him weirdly. Tears were forming in my eyes as I was laughing my heart out. This is just too good!.

Ice Pack Stealer lowered him down and tried to lift his legs up again. But he was stuck like his shoes were glued to the ground. Actually, his shoes were glued to the ground—glued with one of the strongest super glue I could find.

Basically, this was the prank. I secretly placed a thin tube of super glue hidden inside the locker, under the locker’s door. When the door was open the lid of the tube was screwed off. When Ice Pack Stealer closed the door, the super glue was squeezed in-between the locker’s door. This caused the glue to ooze out of the tube even faster.

As he was standing there searching for his class timetable, the super glue was already on the floor reaching for his shoes. What was even funnier was that Ice Pack Stealer was standing there for quite a while too. So the super glue had enough time to dry off.

The results? Well, you can continue to see the results.

Untying his laces, he slipped out of his shoes and stood there looking at them again.

He then held on one of the shoes and began to pull. He pulled as hard as he could. Even though I felt like a stalker, watching him from the distance behind a wall, I was enjoying myself all too well. Ice Pack Stealer pulled again and it was useless, his sneakers were still stuck to the floor.

People began to watch him, not because he’s eye-catching or anything, it was because the way he was pulling his shoe was hilarious!

“Hey, Rome!” One of his friends called out. “What are you doing down there?”

He ignored them for a while as he tried to pull his right shoe off the ground—but he still couldn’t.

“Well,” he said, taking deep breaths, “I’m trying to take my shoes off the ground.”

Jack, Ben and Simon all exchanged glances and stared at him again.

I finally knew the names of Dude #2 and Dude #3, that is Ben and Simon when I asked Katrina about them. She told me they were all idiotic. I agreed. But I didn’t think that they were this idiotic.

“Is your shoe that heavy?” Simon asked.

“No,” Ice Pack Stealer answered.

“Then why can’t you take them off the ground?” Simon asked again.

Ben lowered down next to Ice Pack Stealer and chuckled, “Is it stuck to the ground or something?” 

He questioned as he grinned at Ice Pack Stealer. “Oh, don’t tell me its super glued to the hallway?”

Ice Pack Stealer sighed and suddenly noticed a thin trail of glue coming from his locker. He opened his locker again and found the hidden super glued between the frame and the door. He then carefully pulled out the tube, without getting his fingers glue to themselves, he read the label, “Industrial super glue. One-hundred percent guaranteed to glue anything to anything within five seconds.”

Ben looked at Ice Pack Stealer and then at the tube of glue, “So it’s glued to the ground then?”

He nodded and then sighed again.

Jack placed his arm around Simon’s neck and bent down to where Ice Pack Stealer and Ben were. “That just means that we’ll need to use these boys,” he paused and looked at Ben and Simon, “and pull your shoes off the hallway.”

It was then that Jack, Ben and Simon began to take turns and have the competition to pull Ice Pack Stealer’s shoes off from the floor. They made such as huge fuss that Ice Pack Stealer cleared the way and stood in the distance, watching his friends made fun of themselves.

As the minutes went by, people started to form a circle around Ice Pack Stealer’s locker. They were all watching Jack, Ben and Simon doing their best to free Ice Pack Stealer’s shoes. On the other hand, Ice Pack Stealer was still standing somewhere by the corner of the circle without his shoes on. He was standing there with his bright blue socks—socks that seem to stand out even if he was a kilometre away.

By the time the crowd got too crowded, I wasn’t able to observe Ice Pack Stealer from the distance any longer. So instead of joining the crowd and letting Ice Pack Stealer see my face, I went to the staircase close by and stood there. Everyone was literally standing where the crowd was, trying their best to see what was going on. But I wouldn’t do that and that goes especially if you’re the prankster as well. The best way to see your victim’s, I mean your prankee’s sufferings or should I say reactions, was to stay at a lengthy distance and observe them from afar.

So I was somewhere in the heights of the stairs watching everyone from above, in which I have to say was the best view to see everything. When I meant everything, I meant every single thing. I could even see that Ms Lewis, the Deputy Principal, was coming towards the crowd’s direction.

I smiled, wondering what would happen next. But before that moment came, Jack yelled out happily as he, Ben and Simon finally pulled Ice Pack Stealer’s shoe off the ground.

“We did it!” he called out. “We actually did it!”

But people weren’t smiling with surprise and applauding the three guys. Instead, they were laughing at them.

“Um… Jack, Ben, Simon?” Ice Pack Stealer said quietly, as he stopped his friends from their glorious moment. “Take look at the shoe again.”

They all stopped and stared at the shoe. The shoe that was once stuck by super glue was free, but it wasn’t completely there. Only half of the shoe was—well to be more exact, the top part of the shoe was there, and the rest of the shoe’s sole was gone.

The three guys’ smiles faded into thin air and everyone around them started to laugh even louder. Ice Pack Stealer, on the other hand, face palmed himself, probably thinking why he made friends with people who acted like clowns from a circus. But after a while, he just smiled at them—a smile that said his friends may seem stupid but they were still his friends.

For a moment there, I noticed that he never quite really smiled like that. Especially a smile that seemed like he was a caring person as well. Wait, why am I thinking like that? I shooed my thoughts away like I was chasing chickens and saw that Ms Lewis was coming closer and closer to the crowd.

“What is the meaning of this?” she asked from behind.

All students cleared a pathway for the Deputy Principal to come through. Jack, Ben, Simon and Ice Pack Stealer all looked to Ms Lewis’ direction with a variety of expressions.

This is just too good. I grinned to myself. I should’ve bought popcorn with me.

By the looks of things, I think all students respected Ms Lewis. Maybe it was because she spoke in a light calm tone with strong demanding words—words that command you without thinking.

“Jack? Who started this? And whose shoe does that belong to?” she looked at him, expecting an answer.

He gulped as he stood there holding tightly onto Ice Pack Stealer’s shoe. “Well, Ms Lewis,” his voice cracked, “technically I’m the one who started this and this shoe belongs to me.”

Ms Lewis stood there for a while looking at the half-shoe that was in Jack’s hand and then back at Ice Pack Stealer’s bizarre blue socks. She raised a brow.

Ice Pack Stealer straighten his back and stepped forward. “Ms Lewis, that’s my shoe.”

She glanced over to Ice Pack Stealer and then back at Jack.

“No, it’s not. It’s my shoe.” Jack interjected.

Then Ben and Simon jumped in. “No, it’s my shoe!” They said at the same time.

Ms Lewis sighed, “So whose shoe is it?”

“It’s my shoe!” They all said, simultaneously.

Even though I was hiding somewhere up on the staircase, I knew that Ice Pack Stealer’s friends we’re all backing each other up. From what I could see, Ms Lewis knew whose shoe it belonged to. But it made me wonder why she was still asking them questions.

Ms Lewis glanced at the students that were surrounding her and said, “Students, immediately head back to your classes. There is nothing to see here.”

Not wanting to have detention from the Deputy Principal, everyone started to shuffle their shoes and moved away from the group that was in trouble.

Ms Lewis observed her surroundings for a while and noticed the other shoe—the one that was still stuck on the ground. She glared at the boys. “In my office, now.”

They all exchanged glances and then followed her down the hallway. Ice Pack Stealer was still observing his surroundings, probably trying to detect where I was. I took a few steps up on the staircase and stood there for a while. Waiting for their footsteps to fade away, I peeked down and saw them all turning for the corner.

As Ice Pack Stealer was turning, he glanced back and our eyes met. Not good.

But he just kept his neutral face and followed the others.

Today’s first prank was awesome and it pretty sure made my day. But the one thing that wasn’t good about prank wars was that you need to be careful yourself. I walked out of the classroom with Kat as she was going on about the history of fortune telling. It was interesting. But for most of the parts, I didn’t understand it.

Like how she said that people used to have the ability to read thoughts because everyone was pure in some form. After that part, the rest was like wind passing my ear. I felt bad because I didn’t understand what she was saying—especially when she’s really passionate about it too. Well, of course, she’s passionate about it, she can read fortune telling cards for my sake.

I just nodded and smiled to whatever she said. That was until I noticed something about my bike.

“My bike!” I called out.

Kat glanced at me and then to the front. Standing there, my bike was not just locked to the bike racks, but there was something around the wheels—something like super glue.

“He stuck my bike to the rack?!” I barked. Then sighing, I looked to Kat’s direction wondering what to do next.

She smiled, “The best way to remove super glue from your bike is to probably use nail polish remover.”

I nodded. “So I’ll need to go buy some nail polish remover tomorrow then…”

“How are you going to go home today?” she looked at me, worriedly.

I usually walked with Kat for a while, since her house was close to the school, and once we reached there, I then climbed onto my bike and rode home.

But today was different, my bike was stuck to the bike racks, thanks to Ice Pack Stealer, and now it looked like the only way I could get home was to walk it. I thought about a taxi but I doubt I have enough money in my pockets. I even thought about the bus but all of the school buses left ten minutes ago.

I could call my parents, but they usually finish at six. Staying here for three hours wouldn’t be fun at all.

“What if I get something and scrape the super glue off?” I asked Kat. “Something metallic?”

She came closer to my bike and observed the glue between the rubber wheel and metal racks. “That might work.” She paused. “But there’s a high chance that you’ll damage the wheel.”

Then another idea came to my mind, “What if I use soap from the bathroom?”

Kat raised an eyebrow and thought for a while, “I don’t think super glue works with soap.”

As I was getting frustrated by not knowing what to do, Kat suddenly looked over to my direction indicating that someone was behind me.

Thinking that it was Ice Pack Stealer watching me from behind, I turned around and was about say: ‘what do you want?’.

But instead, it wasn’t Ice Pack Stealer behind me. When I turned around, I saw a girl around my age smiling like a morning star.

“Hi, Julie,” she smiled, genuinely.

My eyebrows twitched for two seconds as I noticed that the girl had the same hair colour as I did, as well as the same green eyes that I had. She continued to smile as she noticed my silence.

“I heard your name is Juliet.” She gazed at me calmly.

I was shocked that she knew my name. “Who are you?”

She smiled sweetly at me. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you again. My name is Juliette as well.”

Wait. What did she just say?