His nose was literally three centimetres from mine. How did he get here so fast? That was when I heard his breathing and I reacted by taking a step back.

Luckily we were outside the restaurant doors by now, if we were still inside, I would probably cause a commotion. But now that I think about it when I stood up and headed for the doors, Ice Pack Stealer was already behind me. It was until a little later that he decided to say: “I’m done as well. Please excuse me too.” So by the time I turned around to see where he was, he was already in my face.

“What’s the hurry?” he asked.

I ignored his question, pretended that he wasn’t front of me and turned away.

“I know you can hear me Juli— I mean Mermaid. So why aren’t you answering me?”

Ah nah. I can’t hear you. I continued to walk away from him, passing the marble fountain that was in the centre of the garden. Is he calling me Mermaid again? Then out of nowhere, he grabbed my shoulder and stopped me.

“Why are you always annoying me?” I glared at him and then at the hand which was holding onto my shoulder.

“Annoying you?” he raised his eyebrows. “You’re the one who declared the prank war. You’re the one who’s annoying me. Thanks to you my shoes will never be the same again.”

Geez, why is he so weird? One moment he was calm and quiet. The next moment he’s like this. Talk about anger management issues. I glanced at my shoulder again. And what’s with the shoulder contact?

“You’re welcome!” I said still feeling annoyed that his hand was resting on my shoulder. “And don’t touch me.” I snapped and shrugged his hand off.

He looked shocked for a bit. Probably because of my ‘don’t touch me’ statement. But really, what made him think that he has the right to even touch me, making us seem like we’re so close and all. Wait, did I just use the word ‘us’? That’s it! I need to clear my head.

Seeing Ice Pack Stealer still flabbergasted, I just rolled my eyes and tried to get away from him as far as possible and as fast as possible. It seemed like he wasn’t following me anymore. That’s a relief.

Near the fountain at the centre, I found a wooden bench and settled myself down. Finally some peace and quiet.

Sitting there and thinking about how I’m going to get to school tomorrow, I wondered if I could catch the bus on time. I probably would need to wake up an extra thirty minutes earlier. But I guess I have no other choice. That also reminded me that I need to find the nail polish remover without Mum knowing as well. If I directly ask her where it was, she would probably be suspicious of me. Then again would the nail polish remover do the trick to get rid of the glue? Well, I really hope so because that super glue was quite strong.

When I glanced at the time on my watch, I realised that I’ve been thinking for almost fifteen minutes. Time really does fly when you’re thinking about pranks.

“What were you thinking, Juliet?”

I had a mini heart attack when I heard a male’s voice behind my back. But at the same time, my mind recognised that it wasn’t Ice Pack Stealer’s voice.

I turned around and saw Kadin’s smiling face. “Did I scare you?” he chuckled. “Sorry about that.”

Where did he come from? Do all guys learn this sneaking up technique from somewhere? Because one thing I’m certain that all guys have in common is that they can scare people from literally out of nowhere.

I turned my back to him, “Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I asked with my annoyed voice. I seriously want to shoo him away because I’m practically not in the mood to be talking to anyone.

“I just finished my shift today,” he said casually. “So what were you just thinking before?”

I narrowed my eyes, “Don’t you have better things to do, other than creeping up on people?”

“You’re still the same as ever Juliet,” he chuckled. “Besides does it hurt anyone for you to answer my question?”

“Yes,” I stated, “me.”

Kadin took a step closer and sat down on the bench. I glared at him, but at the same time, I was glad that he left big a space between us. If he didn’t I would of move away from him and end the conversation.

He sighed, “This conversation isn’t going anywhere right?” He paused. “Did you get the paper I gave you?”

A light bulb shined over me. “That reminds me,” I replied as I started to search in my handbag for the piece of paper that he slipped under my plate. “Here,” I returned it to him, “I don’t think I need it.”

Kadin looked at me with his emerald green eyes. That was when I realised that his eyes looked familiar to someone. “Why are you returning it to me?” He pointed at the paper. “My dear friend, it’s for you to keep.”

“Well then, my dear friend, I don’t want it.”

He sighed, “Fine, I won’t force you.”

I was glad that he took the paper back. Though it made me wondered what else he had under his sleeves. The way he said that statement sounded quite suspicious.

Kadin stood up and smiled, “I guess I’ll be going.” He waved, “See you tomorrow then.”

His last sentence gave me an alarming thought. What did he mean by ‘see you tomorrow then’? Are my parents planning to have dinner here again?

By the time I hit my head onto my pillow, I remembered what happened after I got back to the dining tables. As always, my parents were having a happy conversation with Mr and Mrs Jones. Ice Pack Stealer and I stopped having the avoiding eye contact competition and he kept quiet for the rest of the dinner session. He even stopped kicking my shoes as well!

As for me, I was minding my own business by thinking where Mum would keep the nail polish remover in the house.

Lifting my head up and looking at the digital clock that was at the side of my bed, I never knew that Mum kept the nail polish remover in the bathroom cupboards. So while I was brushing my teeth, I managed to magically find it. Now that I’ve finished planning how to rescue my bike from the previous prank, I wondered what Ice Pack Stealer had installed for me tomorrow. Not wanting to think about him anymore, I just flipped my blanket over and slept.

“Juliet,” Mum smiled, “if you need to, I can drop you off at school.”

Twirling the fork in my hand into the honey pancakes, I paused and looked up at her. “It’s fine Mum, I can take the bus so don’t worry about.” I chewed with my mouth half-full, “Besides, didn’t you say you have an important meeting today?”

“Your father is currently taking care of it for me today. So I’m pretty much free for the rest of the day,” she giggled, feeling proud of her pancake cooking. “I can even come to your school and inspire kids like you to write books as well.”

I widened my eyes, “No way.” I dropped my fork and literally stared at her, “Did the librarian really called you to come?”

Let me just explain this. Since my parents are authors, sometimes they visit schools and universities to give an inspirational speech to encourage students to read as well as write their own stories. For the most of my lifetime, they haven’t visited the schools that I’ve gone to, so I was safe from dying from embarrassment. But every time Mum jokes around in the morning, it usually becomes a reality. Now that she’s joking so early in the morning like this, I have a bad feeling of what she was going to say next.

“Yep!” Mum took off her apron and settled down opposite to me. “Your school librarian called me two weeks ago. She said that it would be great if I could visit your school sometime next week. And you know what? The librarian is also a fan of my books!”

“Oh, yay me!” I said, sarcastically.

Finishing off my last bite, I quickly placed the plate into the sink and was about to grab my bag that was on the couch, until I heard the doorbell rang.

When I opened the wooden door, I was surprised to see the radiating sunlight shining onto her red hair. But at the same time, I wondered how she knew where I lived.

“Hey, Julie!” Kat grinned at me. “How’s your morning? Surprised that I’m here?”

“Eh, yeah,” I replied, still wondering how she knew my address. “What’s up?” I unlocked the screen door and invited her in.

“Is that your friend?” Mum called from the kitchen and as I was about to turn around and say ‘yep’, Mum was already behind me.

“Nice to meet you,” Mum greeted. “I’m Mary.”

“Hello Mary, nice to meet you too. I’m Katrina, but please call me Kat.” Kat smiled gently with her shiny green eyes. For some reason, Kat seemed more polite than the usual.

“Are you here to catch the bus with Juliet?” Mum asked, casually. It really felt like they were already friends long before I’ve existed.

“Yep,” Kat replied, confidently.

Mum nodded. Then placing her hands on my shoulders, “You should be going then, sweetie.” Mum gave me her usual smile, “You don’t want to make your friend Kat wait too long.”

For the first time, my mum remembered one of my friend’s names without me repeating myself. It wasn’t like I had so many friends that she couldn’t keep up with their names. It was just because she wasn’t really good at remembering people’s names in general. Dad told me that when he first met her, he had to re-introduce himself every time he wanted to talk to her. He also said that when my mum was young, she can be a little clueless at times. But he never really told her that. She actually finds it offensive to be called clueless, which I have no idea why.

Holding onto my bag and stepping out of the house with my shoes on, I waved to Mum and headed to the bus stop with Kat.

“Still curious?” Kat smiled.

“Um, yeah.” I nodded, automatically. “How did you know my address?”

“I didn’t.” Kat giggled. “I just came here with my other self.”

Oh, that’s right. Kat has her other psychic self too. No wonder she knew where I lived. Honestly, she can make a living with this kind of power.

“Your powers are really strong, Kat,” I complimented her.

“It’s also part of my brother’s skateboard you borrowed yesterday.” Kat winked at me. “As long as I have something that lives with me for more than one year, I can start tracking down where it is.”

“So you mean, you were able to find my house because your brother’s skateboard acted like a tracker?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“That’s pretty amazing!” My eyes widened. “You don’t have to worry about things if you lose them anymore. You can literally track down the thief if someone stole something from you.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But most people believe that if they receive something from me, they’ll be cursed or whatever.”

“That’s quite a mean rumour,” I stated.

“Well, to be honest, it’s not exactly a rumour.”

I wanted to ask more about what she just meant. But then her emerald eyes glimmered at me as she pointed to the front, “Oh mighty moons! The bus is coming! We’re going to miss it!”

“Not if we’re going to run for it!” I said as I pulled her with me.

When we got off the bus, we were early to school. Not many people were around so it was pretty quiet. But from the distance, I saw something bright pink near the entrance of the main hallway. At first, I just thought that it was some kind of weird art sculpture from the art club (no offence, art people). But as I got closer, I realised it was near the bike racks.

“Let me guess,” Kat stood there looking at my bike, “this is a part of the prank war?”

“Yep,” I responded with a frowned.